The War of the Worlds

So, I've read The Time Machine (which I thought had some cool elements, but also could drag a bit and had some downright weird-but-not-the-good-kind-of-weird elements in it). And I've read The Invisible Man (which I thought was surprisingly fantastic.) I found The War of the Worlds to be somewhere in between. The aliens themselves surprised me - I was not expecting the amazingly modern image of Martians walking around in giant mecha suits, zapping the countryside wiht lasers. On the other hand, there was way too much description of the actual countryside. Not even a desecription of the countryside itself, but a seemingly neverending recitation of the villages or towns that were zapped by the Martians. I'm sure to a more contemporary British reader, this gave a vivid account of the scope fo the devastation. To a modern reader who doens't know much about England, it was kind of boring. In general, I found the pacing of the book a little uneven. Overall, pretty good though. It's at times visionary and there weren't too many things in it (that I noticed) that would discomfit modern sensibilities. I can understand why this is still considered an important classic.