THE CENTURY'S BEST HORROR FICTION #23: A review of "The Thing from--Outside" by George Allen England

George Allen England is the gentleman on the left



Of all the stories so far, this seems to be the one that influenced Lovecraft the most.  Five people are on a trip into the wilderness.  Before the story even begins, they have lost their guides because they saw something horrible which resulted in them attacking and killing each other.  Now these five have to fend for themselves as they try to make their way back to civilization.

Except one of them, Jandron, discovers a relic left behind by something . . . not human.  He comes to the conclusion that it was left by something from beyond the stars, something that might even be from outside of our universe.  For the rest of their journey, they are haunted by something they refer to as “It,” the creature who left that artifact, and it is killing them off one by one.

This could very well be the earliest example of a slasher story.  Think about it:  a monster killing characters in awful ways in the middle of nowhere.  But there’s more to it than that.  This thing isn’t something from our planet.  It’s from so far away that it shouldn’t even care about us.  Perhaps that is the idea that latched onto Lovecraft’s mind so readily that he felt it necessary to use in his Cthulhu Mythos.

But there’s more.  One thing that never made sense in those Mythos was, why would Great Old Ones and Elder Gods be so interested in us?  England answers this question quite nicely:  “What do men want, say, of guinea-pigs?  Men experiment with ‘em, of course.  Superior beings use inferior, for their own ends.  To assume that man is the supreme product of evolution is gross self-conceit.  Might not some superior Thing want to experiment with human beings?”

Later on, when one of the characters is found with a sagging forehead, implying that It took his brains for scientific purposes, this idea seems to hold water.

While this is not the finest example of such a tale, it is a grand step forward for horror fiction.  Don’t miss it.

[This story first appeared in the premiere issue of AMAZING STORIES and can be read here.]