The Blal/Monsters


Zebra, 1978. Cover art by Douglas Beekman.

Paperback Library, 1970. Cover by Bob Lo Grippo.

J'Ai Lu, date uncertain.


HE CREATURE CREPT... It whimpered from fear and pain. Shapeless, formless thing, yet changing shape and form with each jerky movement, it crept along the corridor of the space freighter, fighting the terrible urges of its elements to take the shape of its surroundings. A gray blob of disintegrating stuff, it crept and cascaded, it rolled, flowed and dissolved, every movement an agony of struggle against the normal need to become a stable shape. Any shape! It would be easy to become metal, like the hard chilled-blue metal of the freighter, for all eternity. But something prevented. An implanted purpose. A purpose that drummed from molecule to molecule, vibrated from cell to cell with an unvarying intensity that was like a special pain. Suddenly, it was floating free of the ship, falling slowly, heavily, as if somehow the gravitation of Earth had no serious effect on it. Then it vaguely realized it was time to act.

This collection was originally published as "Monsters" in 1965, and "Science Fiction Monsters" later.

It contains:

  • Not Only Dead Men (1942)
  • Final Command (1949)
  • War of Nerves (1950)
  • Enchanted Village (1950
  • Concealment (1943)
  • The Sea Thing (1939)
  • Resurrection (1948 as "The Monster")
  • Vault of the Beast (1940)

Another J'Ai Lu edition.


Paperback Library, 1967. Cover by Jerome Podwil.

Zebra, 1976.


J'Ai Lu, 1990. Cover art by Paul Lehr.

Belfond, 1974. Cover art by Pierre De Maria.

Paperback Library, 1965

Russian editon, "Chudovishche", aka The Monster.

Urania, 1990. More here.
 

Kawade, 1986.
 

Corgi, 1970.

 

 

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