The British science fiction writer Herbert George Wells proceeded to make use of the notion and, in 1898, published The War of the Worlds, the first … - Isaac Asimov

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The British science fiction writer Herbert George Wells proceeded to make use of the notion and, in 1898, published The War of the Worlds, the first significant tale of the invasion and attempted conquest of Earth by more advanced intelligences from another world (in this case, Mars). I have always thought that Wells, in addition to wanting to write an exciting story with an unprecedented plot, was also bitterly satirizing Europe. At the time he wrote, Europeans (the British, particularly) had just completed dividing up Africa without any regard for the people living there. Why not show the British how it would feel to have advanced intelligences treat them as callously as they were treating the Africans?