Wellsian SciFi Meets Philip K. Dick

by Rod Drake

Everyone thought it would be terrible when the Martians conquered the earth with their heat ray and tripod machines, but actually things didn’t change that much. After all, the earth’s various governments had been pretty greedy, corrupt and deaf to their citizens’ suffering for decades, so what would be different under our new red planet rulers? It took a little while to get use to seeing the gray octopus-like Martians undulate through the streets, but soon they barely got a second look, particularly after they acclimated and began wearing custom-fit Armani suits (with 16 sleeves for their tentacles). Capitalism won them over in short order, and they grew to love fast food, cell phones, iPods, malls, television and the Internet, especially Internet porn (I guess boys will be boys no matter how many tentacles they have). Something about naked human girls captivated the Martians, but who doesn’t enjoy looking at nude hotties (we earthlings all remembered that old movie title, Mars Needs Women, which apparently was true). Eventually the Martians blended in so well that we forgot all about them and just went on with our mundane daily lives, and before long it was hard to distinguish a Martian from an earthling.

6S

Rod Drake, whose full catalog is here, is the Official 6S Author of Halloween and Friday the 13th. Check out his longer stories in Flashes of Speculation, Fictional Musings, Flash Flooding, Flash Forward, MicroHorror, Powder Burn Flash, and AcmeShorts.