The Heat Ray in the Chobham Road

We had another power cut in our part of Chobham this afternoon, which put paid to my aim of finishing the report I'd been working on. It was off for about three hours until just before 7pm. UK Power kept us well informed even though the estimated time of power restoration kept slipping back. They said it was due to an overhead cable fault at the Bisley substation but, having bought a copy of H.G.Wells's The War of the Worlds recently, I wondered whether it was due to The Heat Ray in the Chobham Road, which is the title of Chapter 6 of Book 1  I have never read The War of the Worlds, even though I knew it was written in Woking and the Martians landed On Horsell Common (chapter 3), but I saw it in the reopened branch of Foyles Bookshop at Waterloo Station when I travelled to London earlier this month and thought it was about time I did. I have only read Wells's non science fiction books in the  past - The History of Mr Polly and Kipps (on which the musical Half a Sixpence was based). These were books that were drawn from Wells's unhappy experience as a draper's apprentice and they combine good story telling with social  commentaries on their times that still echo today,  much in the tradition of Dickens. I'm sure The War of the Worlds will have equally resonant and enduring themes  - when I get round to reading it!