I read this some 6 or 7 years ago. It was my first H.G. Wells book that I ever read (I've only read two but will certainly read more). I actually liked it quite a bit. Wells was kind of one of the first science fiction writers (this book was written in 1898) and still one of the best.
This meteor-like cylinder object lands on earth. It sits there for a while and then, eventually, the aliens come out in these tripods and wreak some serious havoc. They pretty much wipe the floor with the human race for the entire book. The main character and his comrades sure were on the ropes. So much so that I couldn't see how they would pull it out. They were always on the run with fewer and fewer places to actually run to. Things continued to look very bleak even up until the very last chapter. I kept wondering how so much could be overcome with so few pages left. I obviously won't give it away but it was a sweet twist ending, or at least I thought so. It was such a practical and legitimate way to reasonably end a story about alien invaders.
The Tom Cruise movie version was a "it didn't suck but coulda done without it" type of a movie. Surprisingly the book wins again (I continue to reveal myself as the annoying "it wasn't as good as the book" guy).
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