Edison's conquest of Mars

This was published a year after [b:The War of the Worlds 8909 The War of the Worlds H.G. Wells https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320391644l/8909.SY75.jpg 3194841]. It is sort of a sequel.Thomas Edison, the savior of humanity, quickly invents spaceships an disintegraters and and off go a fleet of about 100 shops. First stop is the moon and then to Mars.At the moon and at Mars they make discoveries that would delight the hosts of Ancient Aliens.A little attempted genocide and about half the ships get back to Earth.We are safe from further Martian attack and also attacks from the people of Ceres.It's kind of clumsy and too long in the way novels from that time are.The only parts of Wells book that are used are that the aliens came from Mars and Earth biology did them in.It is interesting as a very early example of space opera and super-science.The author had some astronomy training so some a small part of the science is right.