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Writer Recommendation

The name "Fredric Brown" probably doesn't mean much to you guys. He was a pulp writer in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, across a number of genres: crime-mystery, horror and science fiction. He is probably best known for writing the short story that was adapted into the Star Trek (original series) episode "Arena." **

I recently read an anthology of his short stories and his novel "The Mind Thing." He's quite good, especially when he's being blackly humorous, which is quite often. He also wrote lots of short-shorts, which makes it easy to consume a lot of his stuff in a short sitting.

Anyway, I mention him here because I have the strong impression he had a possession fetish. At any rate, it's a motif that shows up more often than would seem otherwise likely. IIRC, around six of the short stories in The Fredric Brown Megapack featured possession, and the novel The Mind Thing is about a body-hopping space alien trying to arrange an invasion of Earth. If possession fiction is your thing, this is someone you should check out.

Though fair warning should be given (as I know the audience for this kind of thing): there's no TG action (it's usually aliens doing the possessing) and animals feature as the hosts.

** I gather there's a vexed story about this claim. According to what I've seen on line, the writer of the Star Trek episode had never read Brown's story, and it was only after other members of the writing staff pointed out the similarities that the decision was made to credit Brown as the adapted author. This is probably one of those situations where it's best not to inquire too deeply into the actual facts. Suffice it to say that ST's "Arena" is so much like ST's "Arena" that an "adapted from" claim is entirely plausible.