'ROLL UP! ROLL UP! AND SEE THE MOST WONDERFUL BEING IN ALL OF THE UNIVERSE!' The year is 1895, and nearly a decade has passed since Mars invaded Earth, as chronicled by H.G. Wells in that magnificent work of non-fiction, The War of the Worlds. Wrecked Martian spaceships, back-engineered by Charles Babbage and Nikolai Tesla, have carried The Queen's Own Electric Fusiliers to the Red Planet, and Mars is now part of the ever-expanding British Empire. Trade's opened up with other planets too, and now Venusian missionaries seek converts on Earth, whilst jolly Jupiterians holiday in Blackpool. But the pickled Martian's tentacles are fraying and Professor Coffin's 'Most Meritorious Unnatural Attraction' (the remains of the original alien autopsy, performed by Sir Frederick Treves at the London Hospital) is no longer drawing the crowds. What the less-than-scrupulous sideshow proprietor really neds is a sensational new attraction to pull in punters from all parts of the solar system. And now word has reached his ear of something very, very special: the Japanese Devil Fish Girl. Nothing quite like her has ever existed before. Professor Coffin's quest to possess the ultimate exhibit will take him into realms as yet uncharted, and cause considerable friction amongst the folk of other planets. Sufficient, in fact, to spark off Worlds War Two.