This is not a battle, "the artilleryman said. "It never was a battle, just as there is no conflict between humans and ants. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells English author H. G. Wells wrote the science fiction book The War of the Worlds. In 1897, Pearson's Magazine in the UK and Cosmopolitan magazine in the US concurrently published it in serialized form for the first time. William Heinemann of London published the first edition of the book in 1898.