Two Envelopes And A Phone’s Reviews > Menace of the Monster: Classic Tales of Creatures from Beyond > Status Update

Stories have generally been pretty cool, so far. I was actually considering skipping ‘Discord in Scarlet’ because I have read it before as part of van Vogt’s Voyage of the Space Beagle. But I have reconsidered this shocking idea; (a) to re-acquaint myself with the story that is now understood to have inspired the film Alien is never a bad move, and (b) it seems this is a slightly different version to what I read.

I’ve given in to the impulse to read a few of the stories out of order - jumping to some shorter ones now and then. So today I read ‘The Cloud-Men’ by Owen Oliver, and also ‘Dagon’ by H.P. Lovecraft, plus ‘Alien Invasion’ by Marcia Kamien. I may have read ‘Dagon’ before; it’s one of those very famous Lovecraft tales I don’t actually like much - where H.P. stops by just to say “Cthulhu says ‘BOO!!’, and not much else.

The shorter version of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds offered here - apparently created by Wells to go with some special artwork - does make me want to revisit the full novel; maybe one day. Next up is something called 'The Cloud-Men' - a title I love - by Owen Oliver. Here, we can assume, be monsters. Or at least one.

I did 80 pages of The Mysteries of Udolpho - thus wrapping it up - and then went to a graphic novel titled A Town Called Terror…so Halloween reads have been entertaining, if not spectacular. I decided to do the Intro of this book, and one story, before shutting down the reading until tomorrow. I jumped to ‘Monster’ by John Christopher, because I wanted something I knew nothing about. Good choice - I liked it.