Sinister Barrier
A classic novel by Eric Frank Russell first published in Unknown in 1939.
The main character, Bill Graham, investigates the suicide of a series of famous scientists and slowly discovers that they all had treated themselves with an odd combination of chemicals, and that something they saw after the treatment drove them to insanity or suicide. (Another victim: Benjamin Bathurst.)
Graham treats himself, and discovers that he can now see gaseous blobs — Vitons — which appear to be feeding off human emotion. Apparently intelligent, they seem to be milking humanity and controlling it to produce the maximum of emotion, causing wars and other evils.
He starts spreading the word and is immediately chased by the Vitons. As more and more people become aware of them, the Vitons switch from herding to extermination.
Sinister Barrier is a novel based on Charles Fort's idea, "I think we're property" of some unknown advanced race. Forteanism had a fairly significant impact on fans and more than anything bought Fort's ideas into the mainstream (of sf anyway) as a fertile source of ideas.
| Publication | 1939 |
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