The Bodysnatchers has both immediate and distant predecessors. The theme of extraterrestrial invasion, originated by H. G. Wells's War of the Worlds (1898), proved popular in the early 1950s.

Robert Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End and John Wyndham's Day of the Triffid's, all published between 1951 and 1955, explore the topic of extraterrestrial threats to humanity.

Finney's use of an ordinary person (rather than an adventurer or professional) narrator is a well-established tradition with science fiction and its predecessor, the scientific romance.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818; generally credited as the beginning of science fiction), Wells's The War of the Worlds (1898), Robert C. Sherrif's The Hopkins' Manuscript (1939), and numerous other novels use the device of the innocent, inexperienced protagoniststoryteller who finds himself in the midst of extraordinary events. The device allows a writer the liberty to posit incredible situations (like the artificial creation of life or the...