The Color Out Of Space

Author: H P Lovecraft

Throughout the 1920s and 30s, the science fiction and weird fiction that appeared in American genre magazines was often hard to tell apart. Weird fiction writers often used science fiction tropes, and vice versa. A clear example of this is Lovecraft's novelette, The Color Out of Space, which first appeared in Hugo Gernsback's Amazing Stories, though it used the familiar setting of Lovecraft's horror fiction for a tale of alien invasion. A meteorite crashes to earth outside Arkham, and witnesses notice strange globules of colour emitted by it. Gradually, the effects of the meteorite despoil the land, ruining crops, killing cattle and sending the family of the local farmer insane. Eventually the colours are seen trying to return to space, but some remain on the land. Why it's on the list: There's a long history of science fiction merging with horror, and this is a prime example, by one of the definitive writers of the inter-war years.