It Came from Outer Space

One night astronomer John Putnam is watching the night skies when he sees a flash in the desert night sky. Dragging the pretty Ellen Fields with him, he goes off to investigate the meteor. But what he discovers is not a giant meteor but a space ship. Of course, back in town nobody will believe him, not even the Sheriff (who also likes Ellen). But then people start wondering around town in zombie-like trances and the love triangle takes a back seat to the imminent alien invasion. "It Came From Outer Space" was one of the classic Fifties black & white science fiction films which has been novelized as part of the Monsters series edited by Dr. Howard Schroeder, Professor in Reading and Language Arts, Dept. of Elementary Education at Mankato State University; in other words, a blatant attempt to trick young kids into reading by novelizing old Monster movies in books with lots of pictures. There are two-dozen black & white photographs from the film showing Richard Carlson and Barbara Rush running around trying to save the world. The original story is by Ray Bradbury, and if young readers go from this to check out any of his short stories, that would be a good thing. This adaptation by Ian Thorne of the Harry Essex screenplay (from the Bradbury story) is decent enough, but I swear they tried to camp this story up on purpose with the chapter headings ("The Shape-Changers," "The Old Mine") and the photo captions ("Frank invites John to listen to strange noises"). So do not let the incredibly bad cover art (a giant hand coming out of a giant blob with a big eye grabbing a running female figure) make you think this is some tacky movie ... because it is pretty much in the same spirit as the original film.

it was the best book i ever read i love jose chung,i read it at a library and would like to buy it. can you please order it, sincerily,marco stacey