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The Monster

Author S.M. Tenneshaw (Randall Garrett)
Language English
Published 1949
Notes

What will cosmic rays do to a living organism? Will they destroy life, or produce immortality? The eminent Dr. Blair Gaddon thought he knew ...

Approx. 15,364 words.

Excerpt

urned the coupe into the guarded entrance to the proving grounds.

There was a moment of credential flashing to the guards, and a respectful salute to the scientist in the car beside Trent. Then Trent moved his coupe through the entrance and up the cement roadway to the Administration building.

As Gaddon got out of the car he turned to Trent.

"I'll leave you here. The members of the Press will be conducted to the launching site at dusk. I'll see you then. In the meantime, don't forget that you've given your word not to release any of the information I've given you."

Trent nodded and watched him walk away. He followed the Englishman with his eyes, a frown crossing his face. There was something too cocksure about the man. His ridicule of American scientists could be ignored, but the way he spoke about his theory, as if it had already been a proven fact against the ideas of Mathieson....

A faint chill ran up Fred Trent's back. He couldn't explain it. But it was there. An ominous

ReviewsAdd a review for this title.

2008.03.31
C. Alan Loewen

Originally published in the April 1949 issue of Amazing Stories, The Monster is an inadvertently hilarious tale that would have made great fodder for the typical 1950's SF monster movie warning of the terrors of unethial science.

The story is unintentionally hilarious because to the modern sensibilities, the transformation of man into monster does not convey horror as much as hilarity.