Jack Morris is a hard-bitten carnival pitchman who likes his life simple: a traveling wax museum, a small-town Illinois midway, and the steady routine of selling thrills to passing crowds. But on a warm evening beneath a strange green-tailed shooting star, the ordinary world begins to tilt. When a frightened boy insists that one of the wax figures is alive, Morris dismisses him as fanciful—only to find, after the carnival closes, that the warning was no child's lie. Alone in the darkened tent, Morris confronts a smoky, green-lit presence slipping into the wax form of Napoleon Bonaparte. What speaks to him is not a ghost but an alien intelligence from Mars, calmly revealing that it has chosen this grotesque disguise to observe humanity unnoticed. Blending sideshow atmosphere with eerie first contact, the story turns a carnival curiosity into a chilling encounter with the unknown, probing fear, prejudice, and the limits of human certainty. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.

À propos de l'auteur

Jakes, John

John William Jakes (born March 31, 1932) is an American writer, best known for American historical and speculative fiction. His Civil War trilogy, North and South, has sold millions of copies worldwide. He is also the author of The Kent Family Chronicles. He has used the pen name Jay Scotland.