The Body Snatchers

The Body Snatchers is a science fiction horror novel by American writer Jack Finney, originally serialized in Collier's magazine in November–December 1954 and published in book form the following year. The novel describes the town of Mill Valley, in California's Marin County, being invaded by seeds that have drifted to Earth from space. The seeds, grown from plantlike pods, replace sleeping people with perfect physical duplicates with all the same knowledge, memories, scars, etc. but are incapable of human emotion or feeling. The human victims disappear forever. The duplicates live only five years and cannot sexually reproduce; consequently, if unstopped, they will quickly turn Earth into a dead planet and move on to the next world. One of the duplicate invaders claims this is what humans do – use up resources, wipe out indigenous populations, and destroy ecosystems in the name of survival.