The Monsters are Due on Maple Street and Muse

The Monsters are Due on Maple Street and Muse and great examples of science fiction. Both stories include aliens from different planets and technologies that are not yet discovered by humans today. In Monsters, they had a space saucer and a pad that controlled all the electricity on Maple Street. In Muse they had other technologies used to transport them around.

Both stories show a lot of Xenophobia. In The Monsters are Due on Maple Street, the people who live on the street start experiencing weird things with their electricity. Then, a small boy mentions a story about aliens manipulating people like they do in the story. Because of this and an overpowering sense of xenophobia, the entire street turns on itself. The neighbors begin interrogating the other neighbors and become so frightened by the thought that aliens are among they. In the end, they end up killing one of their own and are sent into a scrambling frenzy as the foreign aliens sit peacefully on top of a hill. In Muse, the xenophobia is shown by the people's fear of the space slugs, the Ickys. Despite the benefits of the slugs, when people are carrying them, they are just different. Because different is scary, the father of the musician relatiates and kills the slug in fear that it is taking control over his son.

Personally, I enjoyed both The Monsters are Due on Maple Street and Muse because both had pretty unpredictable endings and I really like the topic of xenophobia. However, I would have liked a little more background on the aliens presented in both stories. Despite that, both of the stories kept me interested until the end and were fun to watch and read.