The Shadow Out of Time

H. P. Lovecraft
Stories
Characters and species
Elements

The Shadow Out of Time was one of H. P. Lovecraft's stories.

It described a parasitic, "eternal" alien race who had the ability to fling their essence through time and slowly take over the bodies of other races from the inside. A direct book described them as:

"(…) immense rugose cones ten feet high, and with head and other organs attached to foot-thick, distensible limbs spreading from the apexes. They spoke by the clicking or scraping of huge paws or claws attached to the end of their four limbs."The Shadow Out of Time

While he was working on the manuscript, which was illustrated by hand with eldritch symbols and drawings of the aliens, Lovecraft found himself flung forwards in time to by a mysterious orb. After getting glimpses of many eldritch beings, including the very race he had described in the book, he found himself emerging in 2023 London, where, acting on a Guardian of the Gate gut instinct, he gave the manuscript to Giles so that he and P.R.O.B.E. could deal with the threat of the "eternal race". (AUDIO: Guardian At The Gate)

Behind the scenes

The quote read by Giles is an actual quote from the 1936 real-world novella The Shadow Out of Time, although "at the end of two of their four limbs" is simplified to "at the end of their four limbs", a discrepancy presumably accounted for by the version quoted in Guardian At The Gate explicitly being a handwritten first draft, rather than the published version.