I picked up this novelization to find out what in the world happened at the end of the movie. In almost all cases the book is better than the movie, but not this time. If you want a coherent ending, this book disappoints. The last page (213) of my 1979 Del Rey / Ballantine edition has hanging sentences and paragraphs that have no beginning. Seems like someone else didn't know how to end this book either, so they choose not to. I had to press forward through the first fifty pages but the middle and most of the ending is a great read - burn the last three pages. This is not a kiddie book. A good read for young adults and adults. It is refreshing to read a novelization using vocabulary like "desiccation", "subsumed", "quiescent", and "stanchion". I appreciated the major themes, such as good and evil, more with the book than the film. Not a bad little science fiction jaunt with a fascinating topic. A better ending would have helped tremendously.
