RAW THROBBING NAKED SPOILERS TO FOLLOW
It starts out some period of time after the close of Wells’ book. I haven’t read Fighters From Mars, so I’ve no idea of how that differs from Wells, besides the relocation of the events from England to Boston. Serviss’ has an unnamed narrator, but unlike the one in Wells book, we’ve no idea of his personal life, where he’s from, or what he might do for a living. He does, however, manage to know Thomas Edison.
All the Martians do not succumb to disease. A small group of survivors build an enormous cannon and send themselves back to Mars. The blast from this gun, flattens much of the northeastern US. Lest you think there is a great deal more to this part of the plot, Serviss devotes a whole two paragraphs to the subject and then never mentions it again.
Edison paws through the wreckage of some of the Martian’s equipment, and emerges from his lab with a disintegrator and an “electric ship” (never really described in shape, though it seems to be either saucer or tube shaped). This is where the narrator introduces us to Edison.
Edison, just doesn’t seem to be much of an entity in the book. There’s no depth to his character, and even though he’s there for much of it, he only seems to appear at various moments to drive the plot along. Really, his disintegrator and electric ship are the only things that he manages to build in the book. One would expect him to be like Scotty, whipping rabbits, gizmos, and whatever else was needed out of his ass like lightning. Instead, he’s reduced to spouting things which one would expect to be said by a character named “Captain Obvious,” save for the fact that the characters in the book are incapable of grasping these things until Edison says them.
Edison gives the narrator a demonstration of his disintegrator, then takes him on a flight to the Moon in the electric ship (remember this, for reasons I’ll explain later). In response to Edison’s discoveries a global conference is called for Washington DC where all the world leaders gather to discuss what they’re going to do, as it is believed that the Martians will be returning to attack the Earth.
Upon seeing a demonstration of what Edison’s gear can do, they ask what it will cost to build and equip an armada of ships. The price quoted is $25 billion, and the various nations get into a bidding war over who can contribute the most money (the US wins with a $2 billion commitment) to the enterprise. There’s a party immediately following this, and in something which seems rather stunning for those of us in the 21st Century, the Prince of Wales is portrayed as being one of the most intelligent people in gathering of leaders!
Edison builds his fleet (and is placed in charge of the expedition to Mars) which is manned by the brightest minds in the world. And while I can see the logic of wanting to have scientific types on the mission, are you really going to send Lord Kelvin on such a voyage? I don’t think so. (Sending Edison on the trip is also a pretty stupid idea for reasons I’ll get to in a bit.)
The shakedown cruise for the fleet is to the Moon, where they’re met with some problems. One of the ships gets holed by a passing meteor, and they have to enact repairs while on the Moon. They also discover a crater which is made up of some kind of gem stones, along with ruins of a lost civilization and giant human footprints on the surface. They then set off for Mars.
Remember way back up top, when I told you to remember the trip the narrator mentions taking a demonstration flight to the Moon with Edison? Here’s why: When they get halfway to Mars, Serviss finally gets around to mentioning that Edison’s electric ships have artificial gravity on board, and this keeps them from floating about on the inside of the things. He’s more than happy to discuss spacesuits worn by the crews before this, but the gravity thing escapes him until now. In fact, it reads like he suddenly found out that this would be an issue and stuck the answer in at this point.
Once our heroes approach Mars, they discover an asteroid orbiting near the planet with Martians on it. (This is not one of the Martian moons currently known, BTW. Nobody seems interested in giving it a name, which I find a bit peculiar.) They do battle with the Martians, quickly overwhelming them, and managing to capture one of them. The Martians are able to survive without spacesuits, thanks to an “air pill” which they must periodically swallow.
While exploring the asteroid, our heroes find out that not only is it made of gold (and promptly hurl nuggets back at the Earth for shits and giggles), but that the Martian they captured (who looks like a gigantic human in all respects, and this will be slightly contradicted later for reasons I’ll explain) is a “wildcatter.” The asteroid is being mined officially by the Martian government, but some private interests have been battling for control of the asteroid.
There’s another briefly described battle with the Martians sent by the government, and then our heroes streak off to Mars proper to do battle with the locals. This takes place over an enormous lake called “The Lake of the Sun” and because the Martians were expecting them, our heroes are forced to retreat with their tails tucked between their legs. In orbit, they form a war conference to try and figure out what to do. Help from Earth is impossible, since they have no way to communicate with the planet, and nobody there knows how to build more of the electric ships or disintegrators (as Edison’s the only one). The Martians have also flooded their atmosphere with an opaque cloud, obscuring the surface. Further complicating things is that the food stores on the ships have gone bad, leaving them with insufficient supplies for the return to Earth.