Martians, Go Home

I love a good alien invasion story and I also love a humorous story; this little gem is both. The little green men featured in this story manage to conquer Earth without firing a shot. The conventional invasion story is not the only thing satirized here; we also get an interesting and occasionally thought-provoking discourse on the nature of reality itself. How do we know what reality is? Is anything real, perhaps we create our own reality, and so forth but all firmly tongue-in-cheek. There is even a little unintentional humor when some people, believing the Martians to be devils, decide that Mars is hell and Venus is heaven (the book was written before the Venera and Mariner 2 expeditions).

Recommended for 1950's sci-fy buffs and people who like off-beat humor.

I kept listening and hoping something would happen. That the story would really begin to go somewhere. Then it ended. Yawn.

Enjoyed this quirky book very much. The narrator as always was great. Answers the question, what if aliens came to earth and just were real a holes.

for a quick short diversion this was fine. a few elements that could be thought about more seriously like the solipsism point of view discussion but overall just a bit of fluff. good palate cleanser after heavier stuff. there are a couple places where I did actually chuckle at some ideas/situations.

Remember when you read books for enjoyment? Return to a time when you could buy a working (for a while) car for $150. When you could live on $56 for 7 weeks. When a long distance phone call could cost over $100. And a week in a sanitarium cost $100.

Also return to a time when a science fiction writer had a working grasp of engineering, and a sense of humor, and hope.

Be amazed at a time when a writer would expect world powers to stop paying for armies because their citizens needed social services.

Oh, well, just sit back and enjoy.