Project Gutenberg 2009-07-27 Public domain in the USA. 75 Sheckley, Robert 1928 2005 Barbee, Phillips Lang, Ned O'Donnevan, Finn Barbee, Phillip Connell The Leech Reading ease score: 78.3 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read. Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net "The Leech" by Phillips Barbee is a science fiction novel written in the early 1950s. The story revolves around a monstrous, extraterrestrial life form that resembles a leech, which awakens after landing on Earth and begins to consume everything in its path. As its insatiable hunger drives it to grow uncontrollably, a battle ensues between the natural phenomena of this alien creature and the military’s attempts to contain and ultimately destroy it. The plot follows Professor Micheals, who discovers the leech when it begins to disrupt his peaceful summer. As the leech grows, devouring soil, structures, and eventually the military's attempted interventions, it becomes an insidious threat that the government seeks to eliminate. General O'Donnell, determined to assert military dominance, proposes drastic measures such as nuclear bombs to destroy the leech. However, as the creature reacts unpredictably and continues to grow, it becomes clear that brute force may not be the solution. In a climactic twist, the military’s efforts to destroy the leech inadvertently lead to its spread across the universe in the form of microscopic spores, raising questions about humanity's relationship with the unknown and its tendency towards destruction. (This is an automatically generated summary.) en Science fiction Short stories PS Text Science Fiction Browsing: Literature Browsing: Science-Fiction & Fantasy Browsing: Fiction 62423 62430 2024-10-12T16:02:31.447148 2023-09-13T06:53:24.598406 text/html text/html 58774 2021-01-05T09:40:33 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 136194 2021-01-05T09:40:33 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 application/zip 192985 2024-10-12T16:02:35.840142 application/epub+zip 191420 2024-10-12T16:02:33.221171 application/epub+zip 78459 2024-10-12T16:02:32.022148 application/epub+zip 297587 2024-10-12T16:02:37.686120 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 288535 2024-10-12T16:02:35.069126 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 103020 2022-09-13T15:48:31.483826 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 54620 54519 2024-10-12T16:02:31.118145 2023-09-13T06:53:24.373327 text/plain; charset=us-ascii text/plain 54490 2021-01-05T09:40:33 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 20952 2021-01-05T09:40:33 text/plain; charset=us-ascii application/zip 20484 2024-10-12T16:02:37.852121 application/rdf+xml 9009 2024-10-12T16:02:32.566135 image/jpeg 2495 2024-10-12T16:02:32.296147 image/jpeg 191011 2024-10-12T16:02:31.461163 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia