Shape-changing aliens disguised as human beings infiltrating and invading Earth: this novel by Poul Anderson has the same premise as the TV series, The Invaders. Fran told me of a concluding Invaders episode which I later saw but which differs from the concluding episode described in the Wikipedia article. When killed the aliens dissipated. This enabled the hero to kill them with impunity but prevented him from getting a dead alien dissected to prove their existence. Anderson's shape-changers do not revert to their original form when killed. Nor does the vombis, a shape-changer in James Blish's "A Style in Treason." No one knows a vombis's true form so, of course, there are legends. How plausible is shape-changing? Some Marvel Comics shape-changers were persuaded to become cows, then hypnotized to believe that they were merely cows.
2 comments:
Shape-changing would be difficult to account for in evolutionary terms. Particularly since aliens would have to be extremely different at the molecular level. It would be more credible for the ability to be artificial.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Well, you managed to rationalize the shape changing abilities of the Shadowspawn in your A TAINT IN THE BLOOD books.
Ad astra! Sean
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