Before Plan 9: Plans 1-8 From Outer Space

by Tony Schaab (Editor), Jonathan Maberry, Patrick D'Orazio

Greetings, my friend – the Amazing Criswell here. Anyone who is familiar with Ed Wood’s "classic" film Plan 9 from Outer Space knows that the sometimes-nefarious aliens and their ninth attempt to interact with humanity didn’t quite work out. What we don’t know is what were the first eight Plans? When did they happen? What did they entail? How and why did they fail? This book, my friend, will answer those questions. With serious and humorous stories spanning many time periods and genres, including science fiction, horror, noir, steampunk, and speculative fiction, "Before Plan 9" boasts an impressive array of writing talent, including national and New York Times best-sellers and multiple literary award winners. This collection is narrated by yours truly, the Amazing Criswell, as I offer you my sage words of wisdom and my unique presentation before each spectacular tale. Use this tome, my friend, to learn when throughout history the aliens have had their influence, and perhaps it will help to prepare us for their next Plan. If you don’t heed my warning and choose not to read this book, then God help you… in the future! BONUS as a special preview, also included in this book is the first chapter of the upcoming novelization of "Plan 9 from Outer Space," by Edward D. Wood, Jr. and Tony Schaab.

Genres: Science Fiction

344 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[WendyB · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now that was a lot of fun!

[Stephen]

Greetings, my friends. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I shall spend the rest! of our lives. But this is not a book about the future, it is one about the past. Specifically, it's a prequel to the 1950s cult classic, Plan 9 from Outer Space. For those who have never experience the particular pleasure of it, the film features aliens making contact with Earth, who have hopes of convincing us not to blow up the universe by creating three "zombies", two of whom are actually vampires. I watched it a few weeks ago as part of a series of 1950s SF (along with Them! The Beast from 20,000 Fanthoms, Satellite in the Sky, and World Without End) and have since become morbidly fascinated with the work of Ed Wood. How could I resist this little volume, each story-chapter documenting the nine previous plans that the mysterious aliens visited upon the Earth? Like the movie, this book of tales is more comedic than thrilling, and by plan 8 the novelty had worn off on me entirely. The premise is that roughly since the Age of the Dinosaurs, the same group of aliens has been cloning itself and maintaining a watch over Earth, attempting to persuade Earthings (first intelligent dinosaurs, then humans) not to blow up the galaxy. The stories are most clever early on, as the authors insert the aliens into the tale of Odysessus (turns out all those gods and monsters were alien creatures, who knew?), ancient Egypt (aliens did build the pyramids!), and the story of the Pied Piper. There are numerous references to other SF stories and legends -- Roswell, obviously -- and even one particularly funny hat-tip to Ed Wood himself. In a chapter set in Victorian America, a scientist named Glen must pretend to be a woman to find out where mind-control corsets are taking all the wives of his village; naturally, he asks people to call him Glenda. The Nazi antics seem like something out of an old Captain America plot (Heil Hydra!), and then we get a bunch of monster movies towards the end. Some references attempt to explain the silliness of the film, like the alien saucers being suspended by wires: an alien complains that Earth's atmosphere is so turbulent that their ships are damaged and having to be towed by other ships in higher orbits.

If you find Plan 9 from Outer Space to be in the "so bad it's good" kind of movie, you may enjoy these little stories to a degree. My enthusiasm waned after the Victorian story, which I think is my favorite.

[Gerd]

"Before Plan 9" is a hommage anthology to the famously "worst movie ever made", and as such the stories are accordingly a showcase of varying degrees of bad.

Some do live up to the source material, like "Plan 1 from the Lesser-Heralded Parts of The Odyssey" by Patrick D’Orazio, although this reads more like a spoof of terrible seventies movie making.
Some of it far surpasses the source material, most noteable "Plan 4 from the Clockwork Country" by Tonia Brown, which delievers a delightful comedic, female driven, take on bad SF invasion movies.

"Plan 6 from the Nazi Regime" by Rob Silvera serves also as a sequel to Ed Wood's "Bride of the Monster"

With Jonathan Maberry and Craig DiLouie the anthology can even claim some better known writers to its credits.

All in all, if you are a fan of the "so bad it's entertaining" genre of movies, which often get made with more enthusiasm than actual talent or money put in, there's some good entertainment to be found here. My advise is to read it a story or two at a time with long pauses inbetween, for else it may get to samey.
No rating from me, because as said the stories do aim to be bad.