As new age synthesizer music, a rich baritone narrates: “Audisee presents: The War of the Worlds. The year is 2015 A.D. From the first launching into space, in 1961, to the establishment of a base on Jupiter this year, man has not encountered extraterrestrial life forms.”
When I was about 10 or 11, I loved listening to this audio book-and-tape adaptation.

When I read the H.G. Wells version, I was a little disappointed that it didn’t feature a high school science teacher who teams up with a former student whose “gyro” has broken down on the side of the road. I remember appreciating the voice acting, the stereo sound effects, and how the writers managed used sound effects and dialogue, in addition to the illustrations in the book, to engage the imagination and tell what I thought, as a kid, was a thrilling story.

Upon watching a YouTube video that reproduces the audio and pictures, I note that aside from the addition of an orbital dogfight sequence (this was shortly after the original Star Wars opened), the basic plot is the same. I am kind of surprised to note, some 30 years later, that the former student immediately calls the hero (her former teacher) by his first name, and that the hero introduces her to his “mechanical wife” Millie. (“She does the cooking, the housework, and picks up after me, but she’s terrible at rubbing backs.”)