Wednesday, October 31, 2018

THE THING WITH THE OYSTER FACE


THE THING WITH THE OYSTER FACE
"'If there's anything deader-looking than a watery-blue oyster that's been open too long,' he said, 'I don't know what it is.'"

"'It had a head, a great round head that was as hairless as the rest of it. And a face - I cannot make you see it as I saw it. Staring into it, I could only think of an oyster. A monstous, wet, blue-gray oyster, with two darker spots that must have been eyes. It had arms. At least, two masses of matter attached to either side of its body reached out a little toward me. There were no hands on the ends of them. Just strings of - corruption.'"
Robert Arthur Jr., Believers


Wednesday, October 17, 2018

COEURL

COEURL
"He stopped short. Tenseness flamed along his nerves. His muscles pressed with sudden, unrelenting strength against his bones. His great forelegs—twice as long as his hindlegs—twitched with a shuddering movement that arched every razor-sharp claw. The thick tentacles that sprouted from his shoulders ceased their weaving undulation, and grew taut with anxious alertness."

"Utterly appalled, he twisted his great cat head from side to side, while the little hairlike tendrils that formed each ear vibrated frantically, testing every vagrant breeze, every throb in the ether."


"But there was no response, no swift tingling along his intricate nervous system, not the faintest suggestion anywhere of the presence of the all-necessary id. Hopelessly, Coeurl crouched, an enormous catlike figure silhouetted against the dim reddish skyline, like a distorted etching of a black tiger resting on a black rock in a shadow world."

"He licked his lips in brief gloating memory of the moment his slavering jaws tore the victim into precious toothsome bits."

"'Ah,' said Siedel. 'I was right. The tentacles each develop into seven strong fingers. Provided the nervous system is complicated enough, those fingers could, with training, operate any machine.'"
A.E. van Vogt, The Black Destroyer

"Ah," said Siedel, the psychologist, "the tentacles end in suction cups. Provided the nervous system is complex enough, he could with training operate any machine."

“He plunged his mouth into the warm body and let the lacework of tiny suction cups strain the id out of the cells.”
A.E. van Vogt, The Voyage Of the Space Beagle

IXTL

IXTL
"His elongated body convulsed in senseless movement, four arms lashed out, four legs jackknifed with blind, un­reasoning strength."

"Life surged from the bottom point of static to the swirling, irresistible height of dynamism that jarred every atom of his scarlet, cylindrical body and his round, vicious head. His legs and arms glis­tened like tongues of living fire, as they twisted and writhed in the blaze of light from those dazzling portholes. His mouth, a gash in the center of his hideous head, slavered a white frost that floated away in little frozen globules."

"He reached out with his four fire-colored arms, and with his immense strength clutched the human being."

"One arm, with its eight wirelike fin­gers, lashed out with indescribable swift­ness at the ceiling, through it, and then he had a gun from the holster of one of the men.

"The eggs were round, grayish ob­jects, one of them slightly cracked. As they watched, the crack widened; an ugly. round, scarlet head with tiny, beady eyes and a tiny slit of a mouth poked out. The head twisted on its short neck, and the eyes glittered up at them with a hard ferocity."