It's sad this book is out of print - it's a great novel that can stand alone without John Carpenter's movie as a great horror novel.

An American team of scientists in the Anarctic stumbles upon the wrecked camp of a Norwegian team, unknowingly opening themselves up to an alien that can control and mimic its victims. Soon the team can't tell who is friend or foe.

Foster has the perfect writing style for this novel. You never know who the alien has taken over until it's too late. I guessed originally who was who, and I was way off. I recommend this novel to any fan of the film or any fan of horror.

Foster's novelization of John Carpenter's The Thing contains more than just the script in novel form. It contains an atmospheric look at the icy isolation of living in some of the most inhospitable real estate on the planet, an entirely different approach to the characters and their relation to each other than Carpenter and his group of actors took, a completely different visualization of what the metamorphic beast and its infected victims look like, and one or two deleted scenes as well as a different final face off. The ending remains the same however. Fans of Foster or Carpenter's film will no doubt want this book in their libraries, as the movie could have easily been based on this instead of the other way around.

A group of Americans in Antarctica find themselves being infected, one by one, by an alien which can mimic any living thing it absorbs.

Like so many of his novelizations, Alan Dean Foster does an excellent job of describing the mood of each situation, but fails when it comes to physical descriptions. If you don't see the film, it's hard to tell what the characters look like.

Foster worked off an earlier draft of the script, so the transformations of man to monster are less outlandish, but more plausible. Though I do not wish to give anything away, I must say that the ending as presented in this novel is far more exciting than the one which was actually filmed.

You should also read the original novella WHO GOES THERE? written by John W. Campbell, Jr. (as Don A. Stuart) which was the inspiration for the film. It is quite obvious that Foster read this in preperation for the book and used its influence to highten the power of the story.

If you're a fan of Foster, you might find this to be one of his best novelizations. If you're a fan of the film, you might enjoy the background given to not only the human characters, but the creature as well. But be warned, there are many differences in the story from the film.

The book was enjoyable. Made for some light reading during lunch hours at the office. But it wasn't up to the standards that I expect from a collection like this. Perhaps someone with more of a musical background might enjoy it more than I did. A couple of the stories were very engrossing and entertaining, but overall it wasn't the best I have read.

I liked these stories and thought they were well-chosen. Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarbourough make a good team. It was an interesting concept, mixing music and science fiction. This was a very good book for a collection, although I did prefer McCaffrey's Pern series.

Generally, science fiction anthologies are a mixed bag, some terrific stories, some terrible stories that you think may be in there just because the author has a "name." Space Opera, however, is nothing like any anthology I have ever read before. It is a one-note song, but that one note sings a joyful song. Made up of short stories commissioned for this anthology, they all share a theme, music. Within that theme, there are as many variations as the human mind can devise. Some stories are only tenuously connected with music, like the faintest hum. Others throb, resonate and pound into your brain like Sony's megabass. But all are worth reading, and some reading 2 or 3 or 4 times to capture all the rich nuances. For anyone who loves science fiction and music, Space Opera is a rare find and a thrilling melody. I particularly enjoyed the story contributed by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, and not just because we are both nurses. Anne Berson RN (bersonfamily@worldnet.att.net)

This book is the novelization of a Warner Bros Motion Picture, based on the heroic achievements of Perseus, Demigod and son of Zeus. Altough he has divine parents, Perseus is very much Human, not like the almighty Heracles or Theseus, his foes being far more powerful than he his (just to name a few, Medusa the Gorgon, Kraken the Titan or Calebos son of Tetis).

The secondary characters like Bubu, the mechanical owl, Pegasus and the rest of Perseus companions, are much more developed than in the movie. This reading is very entertaining and interesting for anyone who likes Greek Mithology and really enjoys seeing characters like Cassiopeia, Andromeda, Perseus or the Olympian Gods, coming alive.

It is rare that a movie adaptation of a book live up to its literary counterpart....but not so rare for a book to surpass its silver screen counterpart, as in this case.

Based on the screenplay of the movie of the same name, it is the story of Perseus, son of Zeus, who have to get the head of Medusa the Gorgon in order to defeat the Kraken, who, was the last of the Titans, thus saving Princess Andromeda from being sacrificed.

The movie itself was mediocre, highlighed by Ray Harryhausen's visual effects, which, in today's standards, seems archaic. But Alan Dean Foster took the screenplay, and expanded upon it, adding more dialogue in various scenes, especially those involving the Greek gods, the Stygian witches, and expanding upon some of the secondary and tertitary characters, such as the three ill-fated soldiers who accompanied Perseus in search of Medusa.

As opposed to the movie, the book is a great read, and if only the movie follows the book! If you see the movie after reading the book, the film will seem incomplete and rushed. It is one of Foster's better film adaptations.

The copy I have is when I was in Junior High (the early 80s) and have pages of photos from the movie.

The premis of the book was good. At one point well into the story Foster get carried away his philosophy on good and evil which kind of drags. Otherwise this is a good story.

In this book, Foster returns to the imagination and style that first led me to be one of his avid readers. With the plot centering around the constant struggle of humanxkind verses the Aan and the acquisition of planetary resources, he gives us a new planet, characters and races as well as furthering our knowledge of established ones. The revelation and new information of the Hur'rikku race, sparcely discussed throughout former commonwealth novels, makes this a must read for his fans. Now if only Foster would dedicate whole novels to pre-commonwealth history and complete the Flinx saga, I would be sated.

The movie itself was produced for the teenage audience. It surpassed itself in special effects and subtle plotlines that grownups could pickup on.

The novelization brings out the actual plotline better without having to rely on the special effects to distract you from gaps in the story.

I first read this book as a teenager and fell in love with it. I have read it as an adult and still enjoy it. It's an interesting story of a teenage boy's encounter with aliens. He has quite an adventure helping these aliens fight their enemy. This book is well written and so will appeal to the various age groups.

This book, which seems to be multiple episodes of the cartoon show tied together by the author, is what I believe is the best of the Star Trek Log series. I suggest this for any fan of Star Trek - it's well paced and has some good ideas in it.

The "Star Trek Log..." series is a series of adaptations of episodes from the animated Star Trek series; through volume six, each book had contained three separate, if related, episodes, each with its own title and occupying roughly a third of the book. In volume seven, this pattern changed slightly; it was possible to see three distinct sections to the story, but only one episode title was given, and it was treated as one continuous story. That pattern was continued in volume eight, but the story was good enough that I find I don't object as strenuously. For what it's worth, the episode title given is "The Eye Of The Beholder", and the book is unquestionably the best of the series so far. I have only one quibble with it, which is that in the second third of the book, the Enterprise crew meet a race of beings whose biology is based on silicon, rather than carbon, and are shocked that such a thing is possible. As any connoisseur of the original Star Trek television show can tell you, they met such a creature in the episode "Devil In The Dark", and were surprised to find such a creature possible. If that episode predated the events in this story, they should not have been so surprised at the concept here; conversely, if the events here supposedly predate those in that episode, they should have been less surprised then. In either case, we have a case of a failure of internal consistency.

This is a small quibble, however, as is the fact that in the original series, whenever they attempted to leave the confines of our galaxy, they met with a powerful forcefield ("Where No Man Has Gone Before", "Is There In Truth No Beauty"), yet in this story, they are able to do so easily, without incident. Perhaps the forcefield does not extend all the way around the galaxy, but is a comparatively "local" phenomenon. In any case, the existence of such a field is implausible enough that I'm more inclined to pick nits with the original series stories than I am with the story in this book.

In the first part of this story, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are captured by aliens with the appearance of elephant-sized slugs (more or less) who are sufficiently more intelligent than humans that it takes a good bit of persuasion to convince them that humans (or even vulcans) are sentient enough not to be kept as zoo specimens. Later, the aforementioned silicon-based life forms are encountered, followed by a life form ranging upward from continent-sized that roams the wilds of the space between galaxies.

The story is fast-moving, well thought out (unlike many of the stories in this series) and maintains the characterizations of the known characters well. It is interesting and spurs some worthwhile philosophical thoughts (the concept of Kirk & co being seen as merely interesting zoo specimens, for instance) and is generally well worth reading.

This omnibus contains very competent novelizations of the first three movies in the so-called Alien Saga. Fans of the movies should not have any serious objections to the small additions Foster makes, and I for one was amused by his (?) censoring of profane language (for example, in Aliens, Ripley's famous "Get away from her, you bitch!" is given as "Get away from her, you!"). In Alien 3 we are back to uninhibited language, including liberal use of the f-word, so go figure. Those who saw Alien 3 and were confused by the sequence in which the alien pursues various prisoners through various tunnels will find the written version easier to follow. By the way, Foster has also done an excellent version of John Carpenter's movie, The Thing.

Don't take the bet you may lose.
Funny assemblage of short stories, just right for a little lift.

This novelization was so much better than the movie. It flowed and did not get caught up in the special effects for kids that the movie featured.

If you thought the movie lacked something--it's in this novelization.

This book is the second book in the Son of Spellsinger series by Alan Dean Foster. It is the first book of his that I had ever read but it has made me a fan of his books for life. The book has distinct undertones of social commentary; but its most distinctive feature is its ability to make the reader laugh. For any Fantasy fans who are ready for just plain old fashioned fun, this book is a delightful read.