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The Shrinking Man (#d1203 ) Mass Market Paperback – January 1, 1962
| Richard Matheson (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
- Print length192 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherFawcett Gold Medal
- Publication dateJanuary 1, 1962
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Product details
- ASIN : B000NYFABW
- Publisher : Fawcett Gold Medal; 2nd edition (January 1, 1962)
- Language : English
- Mass Market Paperback : 192 pages
- Item Weight : 3.2 ounces
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Richard Matheson was born in 1926. He began publishing SF with his short story 'Born of Man and Woman' in 1950. I Am Legend was published in 1954 and subsequently filmed as The Omega Man (in 1971), starring Charlton Heston, and I Am Legend (in 2007), starring Will Smith. Matheson wrote the script for the film The Incredible Shrinking Man, an adaptation of his second SF novel The Shrinking Man. The film won a Hugo award in 1958. He wrote many screenplays as well as episodes of The Twilight Zone. He continued to write short stories and novels, some of which formed the basis for film scripts, including Duel, directed by Steven Spielberg in 1971. A film of his novel What Dreams May Come was released in 1998, starring Robin Williams. Stephen King has cited Richard Matheson as a creative influence on his work.
Photo by JaSunni at PicasaWeb [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.
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The novel The Shrinking Man is the basis for the movie I mentioned above, and I wanted to see how they compared. If you're talking to a book lover, you will normally hear that the book is always better than the movie. But that's not true. In this case, the film is superior to the book, and it's got everything to do with the main character, Scott Carey.
While out on a boat, Carey is covered in a mysterious, glittering mist that he later finds out is part radiation, part insecticide. He begins to shrink. Steadily. Until he lives in fear of the family cat. But he continues to shrink, until-- trapped in the cellar of their house-- he finds himself continually fighting off a very determined spider.
This book can be very interesting to read. How can a man who's literally shrinking away to nothing be able to provide for his wife and his daughter? How are his wife and daughter going to be able to cope with this situation? There's a lot of good food for thought within the book's pages. Unfortunately, one thing almost completely ruined The Shrinking Man for me-- Scott Carey.
Now, don't get me wrong. I tried to cut Carey as much slack as I possibly could. After all, how on earth would I know how I'd react if the same thing happened to me? But it was a very difficult thing to do. Scott Carey is one of the most juvenile, thoughtless, self-centered, violent-tempered, unlikable, whiny characters I've come across in years. It got to the point where I was rooting for the spider to win but feeling guilty about it because the spider probably would've suffered from horrible heartburn.
So just remember. The book isn't always better than the movie. The Shrinking Man is a case in point.
Matheson relies on the fears of above ground nuclear testing to provide the initiating cause and follows as a man relentlessly shrinks. Along the way, he faces physical dangers from insects and animals to humans including his own daughter. At the same time, his psyche is stressed as he becomes smaller than his wife and begins to question his own manhood. Eventually teenagers bully him and a pedophile even tries to pick him up. There's also the little touches such as reaching a size where communication is impossible and especially near the end, from day to day he gradually loses the ability for any control over his environment.
In the case of "The Shrinking Man", the movie version wins because, less is more. The beginning and end of the story is pretty good. The middle needed excess to be trimmed. The babysitter, lust episode was unnecessary and just plain creepy. I'd have preferred a more linear story, rather than jumping back and forth between last and present. The book is an interesting idea, the delivery is just okay. The movie is a classic and you empathize more for the main character!
The climax occurs when his small size renders him smaller than the black widow spider who attacks him, and his only defense is a common sewing pin, now spear sized to him.
I whole heartedly recommend this book to any sic-fi fan. You won't be sorry.
Top reviews from other countries
Highly recommended and let's hope it never happens to you!
On reading the book i was once again impressed as i was reading I am legend. This is a thought provoking book as was i am legend concerned in this case of the emotional problems of shrinking in size to a few inches tall
Forget the movie - read this book!









