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Study 178 - Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Part 2 (Patreon)

Published:
2026-09-11 15:32:42
Imported:
2026-09
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We've infiltrated Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney and we're spreading the excitement!

Special thanks to our reader, Erik Peabody! Check out his new horror fiction podcast: DEGENERATED!

Next up: THE THRILLING CONCLUSION!

Comments

ESTY

“A communication disruption can mean only one thing: invasion” Firstly, I am retracting my previous comment, and instead I just want to say: that you are all doing a great job, and everyone likes you. Secondly, to everyone, don’t worry so much! Why not relax a little, try enjoying a nice nap in the afternoon.

Eldritch Golem (JPM) (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-20 10:00 When I first read Finney’s The Body Snatchers the chapter where Jack busts out his folder of strange newspaper clippings and starts reciting a litany of weird events really bowled me over because I immediately realized that Finney was quoting Charles Fort of Lovecraft’s “The Whisperer in Darkness.” Finney never gives a direct citation to Fort – which has led me to wonder if Jack, a struggling writer, might actually be intended as a stand-in for Fort – but the allusion is unmistakable if you’ve read Fort’s work. The rain of frogs is the giveaway. Also, as I’ve commented before, Fort was a huge influence on a number of notable weird fiction writers who you’ve covered on this show: Frank Belknap Long, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Lieber, George Allan England, Eric Frank Russell, Edmond Hamilton, Robert Barbour Johnson, Richard Matheson, etc. etc. ... But was Finney a Fortean like the above mentioned, or, like HPL, did he just find Fort’s work creatively stimulating but not credible? To find out I reached out to Joshua Blu Buhs’ author of Think to New Worlds: The Cultural History of Charles Fort and His Followers (2024). According to Buhs the answer is… unknown. However, Buhs did tell me that Tiffany Thayer – basically Fort’s August Derleth (who was also Fortean) – did highly recommend Finney’s short story “I’m Scared” (Collier’s, Sept. 1951) as an “excellent example of Fortean fiction.” Finally, I thought it was worth mentioning that reception among Forteans to The Body Snatchers was decidedly mixed. Fortean Anthony Boucher, co-founding editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, loved the novel while Fort’s biographer Damon Knight described the whole story as “ludicrous nonsense.”
2026-09-11 18:23 When I first read Finney’s The Body Snatchers the chapter where Jack busts out his folder of strange newspaper clippings and starts reciting a litany of weird events really bowled me over because I immediately realized that Finney was quoting Charles Fort of Lovecraft’s “The Whisperer in Darkness.” Finney never gives a direct citation to Fort – which has led me to wonder if Jack, a struggling writer, might actually be intended as a stand-in for Fort – but the allusion is unmistakable if you’ve read Fort’s work. The rain of frogs is the giveaway. Also, this will all come up again at the story's conclusion. Now as I’ve commented before, Fort was a huge influence on a number of notable weird fiction writers who you’ve covered on this show: Frank Belknap Long, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Lieber, George Allan England, Eric Frank Russell, Edmond Hamilton, Robert Barbour Johnson, Richard Matheson, etc. etc. ... But was Finney a Fortean like the above mentioned, or, like HPL, did he just find Fort’s work creatively stimulating but not credible? To find out I reached out to Joshua Blu Buhs’ author of Think to New Worlds: The Cultural History of Charles Fort and His Followers (2024). According to Buhs the answer is… unknown. However, Buhs did tell me that Tiffany Thayer – basically Fort’s August Derleth (who was also Fortean) – did highly recommend Finney’s short story “I’m Scared” (Collier’s, Sept. 1951) as an “excellent example of Fortean fiction.” Finally, I thought it was worth mentioning that reception among Forteans to The Body Snatchers was decidedly mixed. Fortean Anthony Boucher, co-founding editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, loved the novel while Fort’s biographer Damon Knight described the whole story as “ludicrous nonsense.”

When I first read Finney’s The Body Snatchers the chapter where Jack busts out his folder of strange newspaper clippings and starts reciting a litany of weird events really bowled me over because I immediately realized that Finney was quoting Charles Fort of Lovecraft’s “The Whisperer in Darkness.” Finney never gives a direct citation to Fort – which has led me to wonder if Jack, a struggling writer, might actually be intended as a stand-in for Fort – but the allusion is unmistakable if you’ve read Fort’s work. The rain of frogs is the giveaway. Also, this will all come up again at the story's conclusion. Now as I’ve commented before, Fort was a huge influence on a number of notable weird fiction writers who you’ve covered on this show: Frank Belknap Long, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Lieber, George Allan England, Eric Frank Russell, Edmond Hamilton, Robert Barbour Johnson, Richard Matheson, etc. etc. ... But was Finney a Fortean like the above mentioned, or, like HPL, did he just find Fort’s work creatively stimulating but not credible? To find out I reached out to Joshua Blu Buhs’ author of Think to New Worlds: The Cultural History of Charles Fort and His Followers (2024). According to Buhs the answer is… unknown. However, Buhs did tell me that Tiffany Thayer – basically Fort’s August Derleth (who was also Fortean) – did highly recommend Finney’s short story “I’m Scared” (Collier’s, Sept. 1951) as an “excellent example of Fortean fiction.” Finally, I thought it was worth mentioning that reception among Forteans to The Body Snatchers was decidedly mixed. Fortean Anthony Boucher, co-founding editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, loved the novel while Fort’s biographer Damon Knight described the whole story as “ludicrous nonsense.”

Jason Thompson

The racially tinged scene where the pod people remind him of the old Black man who had been putting on an act is the most shocking scene in the book and one of the few I remember from reading it decades ago. (And it is very unlike any of the film adaptations of the book— the idea that the pod people arent emotionless but actually despise humanity.) Another weird road not taken is that it suggests the pod people have a *grudge*, though they don’t ever seem to represent any kind of sympathetic uprising or to have any justification for their actions, so probably the metaphor isnt meant to go too far. I’d like to believe it was done as a proto civil rights message to make the presumed white reader think about things, but I think it’s hard to say without knowing more about Finney’s politics; perhaps at least the 1950s was a time when the existence of code switching could be mentioned to white audiences. Anyway the scene is so specific it feels like something Finney really experienced, or at least heard of secondhand.

Viking Guitar

Vague Johnson: the porn magazine for myopia fetishists.

Eric - Speaker in Digressions

In the driveway next to the house where the air conditioner drips, there's a slimy, wet patch that has trapped a bunch of fluffy dandelion seed pods. I'm now looking at it with more alarm.

Stacey Cahan

Can't believe y'all were talking about the X-Files and the mad gasser of Mattoon in nearly the same breath and didn't mention "The Post-Modern Prometheus" episode of the X-Files. Paralyzing/anesthetizing gas plus home invasion? Two great tastes that taste great together! (thought the writers of that episode, probably)

Scott Lloyd

Chris, with regard to the “soundless laugh“ scene, I interpret the opened mouth “shake” being reserved for only the most uproarious pod comedy moments, which we may equate to a hardy belly laugh, while the soundless laugh of the common, baseline humor would earn a wide, toothy smile, every person staring at somebody else, maybe trading stares so everyone in a group gets to make eye contact. At least that’s how my family does it… 😱

Eric - Speaker in Digressions

Now that I've had a good night's sleep, I'm a bit embarrassed about my comment yesterday! Everything is perfectly fine here.

Jim Cannon

Having not read the story, but being familiar with the film(s), I found myself wondering during the first episode where the pods were. I thought maybe that could be one of the differences between the book and the movie(s), but here in part two the pods show up. So now I am wondering why they weren't mentioned in the earlier chapters, when they find the gestating duplicates. What do you guys think? Was Finney just trying to emphasize the weirdness of the scenes and the altered states of the viewers, that they don't notice the vegetable matter the clones are growing out of? Or, since you mentioned this was published serially, did Finney just forget to mention them and never went back to revise the earlier scenes? Or is it something else, some other effect Finney was trying to evoke?

Jim Cannon

Characters in stories never go to the authorities because they expect no one will believe them, and also so they can be the heroes of the story. But at the same time, many of the paranormal events that we are familiar with are only familiar because somebody saw some weird stuff and called the cops. A story is a story, of course, and truth is stranger than fiction and all that, but I guess once in a while I'd like to see the police or the fire department or the FBI take the weird fiction's protagonist seriously.

Jb Lee

I really like the fact that the pods will duplicate things OTHER than human -- pod tin cans, pod axe handles, etc etc. They don't seem to care, they just need something to become to continue their life cycle. I don't believe any movie has made use of that; the closest we came was in the 1978 film, when the dog and his owner were fused into one. I haven't seen all of them. (The 1978 version is my favorite of the three I have seen.) And so the cold chill of cosmicism creeps in -- to these things, a human being, a tomato can, a lifeless skeleton, all the same -- and no matter what they become, it ultimately crumbles to dust, seeds grow out of it, and they leave the desecrated and lifeless world behind in search of another. No desire to take over the world, just the savage biological need to complete their cycle and move on, world by world, throughout the cosmos. They're as bad as Galactus! Hawkwind's song FABLE OF A FAILED RACE is about these things. "Our legends tell/we came from a seed/that traveled at/a whirlwind speed/till it came to rest/upon this land/what once was green/is now all sand..."

Jb Lee

In Joseph Payne Brennan's stories SLIME and THE CORPSE OF CHARLIE RULL you'll get your wish; those cops waste no time in organizing to deal with monsters. Not a second of disbelief.

Wulf Mungus

Funny enough, the thought of not noticing the world around us is something I've been thinking about recently. I live in an apartment, and will walk my dog around the complex at night. I almost never see anyone moving in or out, cuz I'm usually all locked up in my home when I'm out of work. Instead I'll see units that are empty, seemingly over night. Then re-occupied equally as sudden. I had never attributed anything sinister to this... until now

David Halstead

According to recent commercials, the Human Chair is now employed at Denny's.