BUG-EYED MONSTERS

Thirteen glimpses of intergalactic zoology--monster-from-outer-space stories gathered from various magazines. And it probably isn't surprising that the standouts here play the monster bit largely for laughs: the editors' ""The Last One Left,"" wherein the hero's psychotherapist turns out to be a pink-tentacled alien; Isaac Asimov's ""Hostess""--about a policeman, his biologist wife, and their six-legged alien doctor houseguest (the ""alien who came to dinner""); and Laurence M. Janifer's ""The Bug-Eyed Musicians""--entries from a Grove's Dictionary of Alien Composers. Among the more straightfaced winners: Donald A. Wolheim's imaginative and macabre short-short ""Mimic"" (the ultimate chameleon); and Robert Bloch's similar ""Talent,"" about an ""orphan"" found on an orphanage doorstep who grows up to be the most staggeringly talented actor alive and can impersonate anything or anyone, from Groucho to Godzilla. Along with a portfolio of monster cartoons by Gahan Wilson--a reasonably representative sampling of a supremely limited genre.