“Goodbye, this part of my life. Turning off the lamp was like turning off a light in his mind” (230).
I was somewhat surprised by Richard Matheson’s short story “Third from the Sun” which was the basis for the essential Twilight Zone episode of the same name. The short story features a nameless family who join with their neighbors to flee in the night and confiscate a space ship so they can head toward a planet, the “third from the sun” with a livable atmosphere and a nearby moon. This short story offers a paranoid vision of humanity living on another planet and the trademark twist ending reveals that they are headed for Earth.
In contrast, in the Twilight Zone episode, the characters are all given names and they are brought into tense conflict with their slinking, slimy, looming boss named Carling (played by Edward Andrews). Both the short story and the Twilight Zone episode are excellent examples of 20th century American speculative fiction. “Third from the Sun” was first published in Galaxy Science Fiction magazine in 1950.
Matheson, Richard. The Best of Richard Matheson. Edited with an introduction by Victoria LaValle. Penguin Classics. New York, NY (2017).
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One of my favorites from Richard Matheson for The Twilight Zone and one of the best TZ twists at the end. Thank you for your short story review.
This.is my favorite episode it makes you think.this was a story of parallel earths