(pb; 1940)
From the back cover
“Like a great, lethal snake, plague creeps through the galaxies. No conscious entity can halt its progress, and life is slowly draining from planet after planet.
“Only one super-intelligence
is capable of preventing cataclysm. To do it, he must penetrate far beyond
infinity─to the formless, deathless creature out to kill the universe.”
Review
Plot: Ardath, an alien (a Kyrian), early in Earth’s history, begins traveling through time to gather a group of super-intelligent humans from different periods, to create a race of “mental giants,” wise super-beings to counter an entropic, plague-bearing cloud making its way through the universe. Of course, as with anything involving humans, things go awry─beginning with crafty caveman Thordred,, and culminating with the super-smart Stephen Court, born in the early twentieth century.
Creature is a
fun, fast-moving, pulpy, and Conan the Barbarian-esque/hurly-burlish
read. It has an episodic feel, with comic book-y elements of what (these days)
might be called sexism: Court’s potential girlfriend, Marion, is shown as ditzy,
even though she’s a scientist; several of the barely sketched characters are
little more than racial stereotypes, though they’re otherwise respectfully
presented. For readers who can get past those last two elements─relatively light
and briefly mentioned for its era─this could be a well-written,
feels-like-it-was-dashed-out science fiction/action distraction to kill an hour
or two.
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