Talk:Black Destroyer

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A fact from Black Destroyer appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 15 November 2016 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the short story "Black Destroyer" was the basis for A. E. van Vogt's lawsuit against 20th Century Fox, as the plot of the movie Alien matched it so closely?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2016/November. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Black Destroyer.

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Citation problem

Re: van Vogt, Alfred E. (July 1939). "Black Destroyer". Astounding. {{cite magazine}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

The reception section confused me, because how could Drake and Flint be commenting on a story at the time it was published? The answer is that the link does not go to a copy of the original article, as the citation implies. What you should do is some cite book-compatible version of this:

van Vogt, Alfred E. "Black Destroyer." pp. XX–XX. In David Drake, Eric Flint, and Jim Baen, eds. The World Turned Upside Down. Riverdale, NY: Baen Books, 2005. First published in Astounding, July 1939.

I can't read the full Google copy, so I'm relying on you for the page range. :-) Citation eight needs that page range too, along with the separate referenced story in citation seven. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 07:24, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ping Maury Markowitz. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 07:25, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Inspired

Not sure I can see great congruence between this story and Alien, but a Star Trek original story features a shape shifter which in its natural state had limbs with suction cups used to remove all salt from humans which it attacked. Seems a closer match? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.41.97 (talk) 13:59, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That was The Man Trap. This story has inspired several such derivatives. See What hast thou wrought? for an account of them ... Andrew D. (talk) 14:14, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]