Talk:The Father-thing

Novels: Short story / Sci-fi Low‑importance

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The Body Snatchers influence

When reading this story I was struck by how closely the concept matched The Invasion of the Body Snatchers film, and I set out to see which one came out first. It turns out that The Invasion of the Body Snatchers was based on a serial by Jack Finney called The Body Snatchers. Both The Father-thing and The Body Snatchers came out in 1954. So it's pretty likely that one influenced the creation of the other. Which influenced which? Which came first?

After a little digging, it appears that The Body Snatchers was published in Collier's Magazine in November and December of 1954.[1] While "The Father-thing" came out in F&SF in December 1954.[http ://www.philipkdickfans.com/frank/thing1.htm] So it appears that Dick's story was directly inspired by Finney. --noosph e re 22:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I incindentally saw a film recently, Invaders from Mars (1986 film), and I was striken by the resemblance between the scenes with the father in the beginning of the fim and the father-thing. But when I made some additional search, I discoverd that the film was a remake of Invaders from Mars (1953 film), so ... another influence for Dick? Asavaa (talk) 20:31, 9 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How could a story that came out in December 1954 be influenced by a story that came out in November and December 1954? F&SF had a lead time of months. Unless Finney shared his unfinished story with PKD, it's just not possible.

PKD wrote multiple takes on the alien body swap idea in the 50s. And so did plenty of other people. Nigel Kneale, talking about his 1953 Quatermass Experiment, called it a "classic plot" for sci-fi, and said all he had done was view it from a different angle than the straightforward horror one. He gave the 1951 adaptation (The Thing from Another World) of John C. Campbell's 1938 Who Goes There as an example. PKD, like every fan of science fiction in the 1950s, had probably seen and read multiple such stories, but Body Snatchers wasn't one of them. (Or Quatermass', probably, even if PKD's Human Is almost reads like a satire of the movie adaptation.)

Invaders from Mars, on the other hand, might have been an influence on PKD body-swap stories, including this one.) --50.0.128.21 (talk) 05:10, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Further info: The Scott Meredith Literary Agency received the manuscript from PKD on 21 July 1953. F&SF expressed interest a few months later. He rewrote the story (twice) at the behest of editors Tony Boucher and Anthony McComas, and submitted the final version on 6 Sep 1953. (The cover letter is included in The Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick: 1938-1971.) That's still more than a year before Body Snatchers was serialized, and probably well before it was even commissioned. --50.0.128.21 (talk) 09:15, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comparison with Bradbury

I removed a comparison of this story to the writing of Ray Bradbury. It's possible there is a published critique, review or study that could provide a WP:RS, but I could not find anything that specifically compares this short story to anything by Bradbury. Jack N. Stock (talk) 05:27, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]