I've read several interpretations and background information on "The Colour out of Space" by H.P. Lovecraft, which all say his goal was to create a kind of truly alien monster - a color instead of a bodily being.
However, today, the story sounds too much like a description of radioactivity: mutating plants and animals, creeping sickness and decay, the diminishing material of the meteor. Even the "strange colors" can be interpreted as gamma radiation (radioactivity was discovered when photo plates close to Uranium were changed, as if they had been exposed to light).
In 1927, when the story came out, radioactivity was already well known, but not so feared. In fact, it was still the time of radio-quackery, when slightly radioactive potions, creams and powders were sold as "miracle treatments", but the dangers also became known slowly.
Lovecraft put quite a lot of scientific elements in his stories, although not always correctly. Could he have known about dangers of radioactivity, which might be the basis for the effects described in this story?
