Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Paperback)

by Jack Finney (Author)
Key Phrases: great pods, Mill Valley, Uncle Ira, Miss Weygand (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. While Miles's patients start remarking about loved ones not seeming to be themselves, he merely chalks it up to paranoia. However, when he becomes witness to a distinct but subtle change in the personality of some townspeople, he and his friends realize something is afoot. Their fears are realized as they stumble upon faceless corpses and strange pods. But the pod people are spreading fast, and Miles is running out of places to hide and people to help him. Finney's classic tale of alien invasion is recreated anew with more terror than the book or the film. Tabori delivers a performance that will chill listeners with his intensity and sense of urgency. His lightly raspy and mature voice works perfectly through the first-person perspective of Miles. He captures the mood and adjusts his pitch, speed and tone accordingly. By the end of this production, listeners will believe they are listening to Miles himself and not just some narrator. A brief interview with Tabori at the end reveals that he's the son of Don Siegel, who directed the original 1957 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. A Touchstone paperback. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Product Description

On a quiet fall evening in the small, peaceful town of Mill Valley, California, Dr. Miles Bennell discovered an insidious, horrifying plot. Silently, subtly, almost imperceptibly, alien life-forms were taking over the bodies and minds of his neighbors, his friends, his family, the woman he loved -- the world as he knew it.

First published in 1955, this classic thriller of the ultimate alien invasion and the triumph of the human spirit over an invisible enemy inspired three major motion pictures.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone; 1st Scribner Paperback Fiction Ed edition (April 6, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684852586
• ISBN-13: 978-0684852584
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #226,127 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invasion of Our Nightmares, February 19, 2005

By	paul mason "dedarkone" (Barrie On) - See all my reviews

Miles is beckoned to his friend's house after several cases of people reporting their friends' family and loved ones are not themselves. As it turns out what was originally thought to be a possible case of mass hysteria turns out to be an invasion of a sleepy town by pod-like aliens who then take over the populace's appearances and identities.

Admittedly other reviewers summed this book up better than I, which I attribute partly to my not wanting to give any plot away (for those Amazonians that have not had the pleasure of reading this book yet), and partly because as one reviewer pointed out the alien invasion plot was hardly original even at the time of this title's publication. Writers of Finney's era seemed to thrive on metaphorically writing about the "red" threat of communism.

Finney may not have been the first or last to write on the theme but he did an exceptional job re-visiting other author's alien plots and using his unique style and imagination to write perhaps the seminal novel on the subject. From the opening pages I was scared. Reading each paragraph with a mounting sense of dread as Finney did an excellent job pacing his novel.

Certain scenes jumped out in this relatively thin tome(compared to some horror novels Body Snatchers is almost a novella with an economy of words to do the job of scaring readers) placed within the story for maximum effect. When Miles, and Jack discovered the "blank" slate of a body in Jack's basement I thought "oh sh*t" presumably as Finney intended I should.

As stated this isn't longest horror novel ever and there was no need for it to have been. Finney uses the perfect amount of words to tell his open ended tale of alien takeover elegently and with such an influx of paranoia in the text I reflected upone completion "they sure don't write them like that anymore but I wish they did."

In summation a classic in the genre in the purest sense of the phrase.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pleasant, with remarkable passages :), January 8, 2000

By	Xavier Mercier (Galway Ireland) - See all my reviews

I had quite a good time with this novel. Even though there are now thousands of books about alien invasion, the plot of this one still remains original. Due to the nature of the aliens, which are indeed transmissible vegetable parasites (but I won't tell you more about them ;) ), the story does not contain the slightest violence: no serious fight, no bloody killing, no catastrophe. However, suspense, anxiety, mystery are at the rendezvous. Just imagine indeed what psychosis it would generate if there was a mortal epidemic of some sort in your immediate surrounding, epidemic that would pervert the mind. Think about the people you cross everyday, including your own family. Are they really safe? Can you trust them? Don't they plan to contaminate you? On the other hand, you can't eternally confine yourself at home. So, what can you do? It's exactly what the inhabitants of Mill Valley are confronted to, except that a very few of them will hazily suspect the nature of the epidemic; for the others, it will be too late. There are a lot of notable passages in this book. For instance, when Jack reads to Miles (the hero) and their wives his collection of newspaper clippings, all related to irrational events, it gives you the creeps, especially if you are still vividly aware of the context. It's crazy to see how this sequence adds to the malaise, even if the articles have nothing to do with their situation. Ahh, and the final face to face encounter in chapter 17 between Miles and the psychiatrist Mannie, then contaminated and no longer the same we knew at the beginning of the novel. I remember that fine piece of eloquence and philosophy: Miles still doesn't understand why the vegetables, the "pollen" in fact, came from so far away to poison terrestrial life and Mannie, softly, quietly, gives him a long but memorable speech in answer. I'd so much like to reproduce an extract of his words but late Mr Finney's editor would probably resent it -damn good old copyright ;) Beyond that, the author has a very good sense of humor. His character Jack Belicec is all but a self-caricature and he takes benefit of the opportunity to make self-publicity, his previous book "Time and Again" is even quoted! Don't worry, it spoils nothing. These were the positive points. Now, I confess 2 trifles prevents me from giving 5 stars. First, I think that sometimes Miles is too smart a hero. He figures things out a little too fast and unfortunately, I caught myself saying "Mmm... he's too smart to be true." Second, Jack Finney's conception of man and woman relationship flirts a little with machismo, i.e the man is always acting and the woman is always screaming or crying, you known, that sort of thing. It's undoubtedly worthy of the 50's but this conception got old so badly that it has become a misconception so... Well, anyway, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is rather a good book, easy to read and pleasant. You can go ahead :)

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars There is no more dangerous enemy than the enemy within, January 12, 2004

By	Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

2004 marks the 50th anniversary of this classic science fiction novel's publication, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers remains firmly entrenched in pop culture and continues to exert a significant influence on the writers and filmmakers of today. Everyone has heard of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, no less than three film adaptations of the story have been produced, and the book itself remains in print and will surely remain so for the foreseeable future. What makes this story so popular? The answer to this question isn't so simple. While I think the novel is a thoroughly good, gripping read, there are a few elements of the plot and premise that I find fault with. In the grand scheme of things, these issues have little impact on the story, but I do believe that Finney's novel is not perfect.

Of course, this is a story borne out of a culture of the 1950s seemingly obsessed (at least Hollywood was) with the idea of aliens coming to earth and, in most scenarios, arriving with hostile intentions. "Aliens attack" books and movies were a dime a dozen in those days, and most of them became variations on the same theme. The stories were new, but the ideas were well-established, going back at least as far as H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. Finney's premise was different than most, and it drew strength not only from its originality but from the political atmosphere of the time. America became quite paranoid in the decade after World War II; the Red Scare had many people observing their neighbors and associates and sometimes wondering if they might actually be Communists. America was preoccupied for some time with the dangers of an invisible, insidious threat within the nation's very midst. Invasion of the Body Snatchers played upon and drew from this type of internal self-doubt and paranoia, and I believe that is its true secret of success.

Finney's "aliens" didn't blast down from the heavens and immediately begin attacking human beings; instead, they arrived silently and secretly - in the very midst of what was unassuming, small-town America, in the form of giant pods. Reports of these pod landings were reported but largely ignored, allowing the spores of alien life to begin their work in secret. The material inside the pods could completely replicate any life form, and thus was born the first "changed" human being. This "new" person looked and acted completely like the original and went about living that person's normal, every day life. The number of changed individuals quickly grew as each day passed. A few people began to sense that one or more of their friends or loved ones was somehow different, but it was all but impossible to prove such a thing to themselves, let alone others. Dr. Miles Bennell, the story's narrator, spoke to several such patients and dismissed their claims as some sort of psychological delusions - at first. His eyes were opened to the truth only when a friend chanced upon a developing replacement body in his home, and by this time virtually the whole town had been changed. Bennell and three other "survivors" were alone, trapped among friends who were no longer themselves, and their growing paranoia soon metastasized into true fright.

What could be more unsettling than the fear that your neighbor, your co-worker, even your own spouse, parent, or child was no longer the person you had known all your life? Anyone and everyone was a potential threat, a secret agent conspiring with others to assimilate you, to rob you of everything you value most in life. External threats and the fears they invoke can be dealt with, set aside for short periods of time; nuclear attack is a horrifying nightmare, but it does not prevent you from leading your normal life in the present. The enemy within is always the most insidious threat, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers is the very embodiment of this most terrifying of fears.