SOLVED. sf short story centres around a group of scientists in a lab observing another dimension through some form of apparatus. They see what appears to be an idyllic looking house with children? playing on a lawn. [s]

[Minegirl]

I think this was part of an anthology I read in my teens.

It centres around a group of scientists in a lab observing another dimension through some form of apparatus. They see what appears to be an idyllic looking house with children? playing on a lawn.

One of the scientists becomes so smitten over time that he eventually jumps through the apparatus into the other world. Whereupon the children? immediately change form and become predatory creatures and eat him, whilst his colleagues are still watching on earth.

Thanks!

[D.M.]

I remember this one too, but I can't remember the title. The one that ate him was a girl, right? And her mouth split open impossibly wide. The ending (view spoiler)[seemed to hint that they understood that they could come back across the barrier between them and we were all doomed. (hide spoiler)]

edit: Was it a soldier, and the way they knew was because they tossed his helmet back?

[Minegirl]

Yes. That's it. This has been nagging me for years!

[D.M.]

I'm racking my brain but I can't think of it. It's an old story: I read it probably over twenty years ago and it was old then. My guess would be sixties and seventies SF. I think it was in a name anthology, and for some reason I keep thinking I read it in one that had Bob Shaw's "Light of Other Days" in it. I wish I could be more helpful.

[Isabel (kittiwake)]

This is "Window" by Bob Leman. There is a description in Wikipedia

[Minegirl]

Thanks so much Isabel. Extremely grateful for your help

[Amanda]

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4862134/fi...

This story was made into an episode of a TV show called Night Vision.

[Feliks]

Is there any way on Goodreads to find out what anthology paperback, a particular story appears in?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

No. Unless someone has listed the table of contents in the book's description, but GR internal search wouldn't be able to find that, I suppose you'd have to do a google word search.

[Feliks]

much obliged, LobsterGirl...thx..

[Amanda]

Isabel wrote: "This is "Window" by Bob Leman. There is a description in Wikipedia"
Bob Leman is my grandfater.

[Feliks]

That story is hard to forget. It haunted me for many years. Chilling. A lesson in not taking anything for granted.

[Andy]

Feliks wrote: "Is there any way on Goodreads to find out what anthology paperback, a particular story appears in?"

The Internet Speculative Fiction Data Base (isfdb.org) had a list of the places that stories are collected. For "Window" the link is http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cg...

[Kate]

Window appears in The Best Horror Stories from the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 1.