Creatures From Beyond

INTRODUCTION

Human imagination has always been captured by the idea of what strange creatures may lie in waiting, somewhere beyond our ken—in the dark outside our caves, in the uncharted depths of the seas, in the infinite reaches of space.

After all, the history of humanity hasn’t always been one of brave, inquisitive explorers making discoveries—sometimes it was we who were discovered, by powerful predatory beasts forced to range beyond their former hunting grounds, or by strange birds like explosions of color in the air as they migrated to winter quarters.

The unexpected is always dramatic, the unknown always fascinating. And so our literature from the earliest times is filled with tales of dragons, rocs, unicorns, and sea serpents. In modern times, science fiction has looked out into space for strange beings, whether deadly marauders like the Martians of H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds or mysterious, almost godlike beings such as in Clarke and Kubrick’s zoo.

We still wonder: Are there creatures somewhere who are watching us? What might their purpose be? And what if they come to Earth?

Here is a collection of stories about such Creatures from Beyond, as imagined by some of the top writers of modern fantasy and science fiction.

—Terry Carr