The Monster from Earth's End

[kooshmeister]

A rather odd, meandering novel in the "killer plants" genre by a guy named Murray Leinster, a.k.a. William Jenkins.



The basis for an even more meandering 1966 Michael Hoey film with the silly title of The Navy vs. the Night Monsters, Monster from Earth's End concerns a small US Navy radar outpost on Gow Island, an island off the coast of South America. In Antarctica, some scientists have discovered specimens of prehistoric trees in the hot lakes region, and are flying them back to Washington, D.C., intending to stop off at Gow en route to refuel.

Commanding officer Drake (no first name or rank is ever given; he is simply "Drake") is fairly uninterested in this, as he has his sights set on secretary Nora, who he is having an affair with. Since fraternizing is frowned upon in the Navy, the two have to keep their relationship secret, especially from supply officer Spaulding who it is suggested also has a bit of a thing for Nora. Love triangle ahoy! Spaulding is also slowly going stir crazy from too long of a stay on Gow, and Drake is intent on getting the poor bastard off of the island on the incoming plane.

Then something goes wrong, as they are wont to do in novels of this sort. The cargo plane begins flying erratically. The pilots won't answer Gow's hails, and dump their cargo before making an impromptu landing without lowering their gear, thoroughly crippling the plane and blocking the runway. Rescue crews rush out to the airfield but of the ten people aboard, only one of the pilots, named Brown, is found alive and he promptly shoots himself with his service revolver. Drake and co. can find no sign of the other pilot, crew members and the scientist passengers, and all but one of the tree specimens got dumped.

Everything from the plane, including Brown's corpse, is moved to a warehouse for safekeeping whilst the engineering crews begin attempting to move the plane off the runway. Drake's report to Washington is scoffed at; none of the top brass wants to believe that nine people can simply disappear off of a plane midflight (amazingly, that they fell out when the cargo got dumped never seems to occur to these idiots). All of Gow's personnel are instructed to write their own individual accounts of what they witnessed. Unsure what this is supposed to accomplish. Half of the reports will be some variation of "the plane flew wildly and then crashlanded."

Drake and Nora's tepid romance continues uninterrupted. Spaulding becomes increasingly unhinged, suggesting wild theories like aliens or even giant birds (!) as the culprits. Drake mostly just humors him. The tree specimens are discovered to be still alive. Head biologist Beechum has them planted near the island's hot springs to keep them viable until their trip to Washington after the runway is cleared. That night, though, mysterious things begin happening. First the dead body of Brown disappears! And something slaughters some dogs and destroys the nesting site of Gow's native seagull population!

Drake, proving to be pretty quick on the uptake, begins suspecting something nasty got brought back from the Antarctic aboard the plane, which killed the people on the plane and is now loose on the island. But can he and his men along with Beechum solve the mystery before living human begins begin disappearing? And can Drake's romance with Nora get any blander? You bet!

This was a rather tedious read. A fun idea but it drags way too much and spends too much time on the love story between Drake (whose name was changed to "Charles Brown" for the movie!) and Nora. Spaulding is at least entertaining with his kooky theories about giant invisible alien birds, and when the critters do show up, it does get pretty fun, but it's too little too late by that point.

[pulphack]

That's a shame, as the movie is goofy if poor fun. But on the plus side, another great Gold Medal cover!

[kooshmeister]

Don't get me wrong, I liked it. More than the movie actually. I just felt it spent too much time spinning its wheels so to speak. So much of the middle part felt like blatant padding.

The movie is actually surprisingly faithful to the novel, apart from changing Drake's name, making Spaulding a civilian scientist rather than a Navy officer, and also in regards to the fate of the pilot, Brown (named "Miller" in the film). In the novel, Brown commits suicide upon landing, whereas in the film, Miller survives in a comatose state for a while but eventually goes nuts, escapes and is eaten by one of the tree monsters. Man, guy can't catch a break, can he? He survives longer in the film only to die anyway later!

One other thing as regards the book. Most of the characters are identified by either a first name or a last name, very few by a full name. One exception is a sailor named Tom Belden. And Leinster was apparently so proud that he gave this guy a first and last name that he almost always calls him by his full name every time he is mentioned. Almost never simply Tom or Belden but almost always Tom Belden. I dunno why but it started to grate on me after a while. Why do some authors do this with some characters?

[nimal]

I found a copy of The Monster From Earth's End by Murray Leinster at an estate sale. I love reading old science fiction and Murry Leinster can usually be counted upon to write an entertaining story. Leinster was a pseudonym. His real name is William F. Jenkins, under which he's better known as the inventor of the front-projection process used in movie special effects during the 1960s and 1970s. In the SF world, he's known as the inventor of the parallel universe story, the originator of the term "First Contact", and the idea of a Universal Translator, a handy device that later became common in SF and even beyond, thanks to its use on Star Trek.

The Monster from Earth's End is not a ground-breaking novel. It's billed as a science fiction "horror" story but fans of Stephen King or Dean Koontz aren't likely to be very horrified. Despite the back cover blurb about bloody deaths and mysterious disappearances, and despite the front cover artwork of a beautiful nude woman being hoisted into the air by strands of green slime, the novel is pretty tame. It focuses much more on the characters and the science fiction aspects of the story than on the horror.

aajtak