Sci-fi short story with giant blobs on jungle planet?

August 24, 2011 6:04 PM

Yet another sci-fi short story identification... this one about a jungle planet inhabited by giant destructive protoplasms. But it's *not* "Parasite Planet".

I know it sounds just like "Parasite Planet" and it's probably a ripoff, but the story I'm recalling was specifically a voyage of discovery -- a mission lands on the jungle planet and finds huge bare swaths, which are rapidly repopulated by the native jungle life. Eventually they realize that there are enormous amorphous lifeforms (like shoggoths or the doughpots of "Parasite Planet") that carve the swaths of destruction, and witness a battle between two of them, and then are almost consumed. They end up hiding in their spaceship in the mountains and one of the creatures tracks them down.

posted by j.edwards to Writing & Language (7 answers total)

This is a very long shot, because I can't find a useful synopsis or a copy of the text online and I don't own the anthology it's in, but could it be "The Unfinished" by Frank Belknap Long? "Two space explorers land on a remote jungle planet where they confront hostile natives." The title sounds plausible - a jungle with bare patches could be seen as unfinished - and your giant blobs sound as if they could be construed as hostile natives. Copyright 1951, first appeared in the April 1951 issue of Super Science Stories, and later published in "Space Odysseys", ed. Brian W. Aldiss, and the single-author collection "Night Fear".

If not, and I'm certainly expecting not, can you remember when you read it, how old it seemed at the time, and/or whether you read it in a magazine or a book? Might help someone else make an identification.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 7:15 PM on August 24, 2011

This is ringing bells... were they fourth-dimensional creatures?
posted by Kattullus at 7:33 PM on August 24, 2011

Response by poster: "The Unfinished" doesn't appear to be it -- tracked down the Mindwebs episode and gave it a listen.

I read it within the last few years, almost certainly in some kind of anthology (I pretty much only read sci-fi in that form). I've been going through the anthologies I still have around but unfortunately I also tend to give them away once I'm done.

The story definitely struck me as an older one, very much in the "crew of hardy space explorers outwits superior life form" genre.

Kattullus, I don't recall any specific mention of fourth-dimensionality offhand...
posted by j.edwards at 7:48 PM on August 24, 2011

It sounds a little like the thread from a Pern story...
posted by garlic at 8:08 PM on August 24, 2011

Best answer: You're thinking of "The Immeasurable Horror" by Clark Ashton Smith.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 9:59 PM on August 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

Oh good, someone got it! The full text is at Harvey's link, but here's the obligatory ISFDB list of anthologies it appears in, in case you're still wondering where you read it.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 4:04 AM on August 25, 2011

Response by poster: Fantastic, thank you! I think I must have read it in "The End of the Story".
posted by j.edwards at 4:44 AM on August 25, 2011