Good Night, Mr. James

This one is a deep cut, first published in 1951. It begins as a straightforward adventure, with a protagonist tasked with hunting down a dangerous alien that’s gotten loose on Earth. It becomes increasingly clear that something isn’t right, though, and eventually, our hero realizes that he’s actually a replicant, sent to do this job because his original was too cowardly to do it himself, and that his only hope of survival is to murder his original and take his place. I first read this when I was nine or ten years old, and the growing sense of horror as… show more.