The Kansas Tourism Bureau should send a copy of this book to PZ Myers. Giant squidlike aliens and enmity of the gods would make great attractions.
Neatorama explains the cover of Joseph Millard's 1964 exposé of the wonders of Kansas:
THE GODS HATE KANSAS by Joseph Millard
INVASION FROM THE STARSIt began with the landing of nine meteors in Kansas. Then, suddenly, it exploded into a massive catastrophe.
First, the meteorite investigating team were turned into automatons, ruled by an unknown, alien intelligence. They barricaded themselves from the world and began building a rocket project, aimed at traversing the stars.
Then the Crimson Plague struck, sweeping over Earth's population, destroying human capacities and defying scientific probing.
Only a few escaped the invasion from outer space, among them astrophysicist Curt Temple, whose girlfriend, Lee Mason, was enslaved, her personality changed.
Curt knew he had to pit his slim knowledge against the most perfect intelligence in the cosmos to save the world - and the woman he loved.
A Monarch Books Original Novel. Published in February 1964. © 1964 by Joseph Millard. Cover Painting by Jack Thurston
Kansas scientists do indeed know a lot going to war with alien invaders claiming to represent "the most perfect intelligence in the cosmos." Millard's novel may have foretold the invasion of creationists in Haviland, during the town's meteorite festival last summer.
HT: Tony.
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They actually made a movie out of this one, in 1967, called "They Came From Beyond Space."
Here's a brief review of the book from a science fiction site (http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/2004/cur0407.htm):
Curiosities
Bud Webster
The Gods Hate Kansas, by Joseph Millard (1941)
THERE ARE those books whose titles are, in many ways, so spectacular that one fears they might overshadow the books themselves. There is Jack Butler's Jujitsu for Christ, for example, or Dwarf Rapes Nun, Flees in UFO by Arnold Sawislak.
And there's Joseph Millard's The Gods Hate Kansas. Right from the start you know you're in for somethingdifferent. First of all, the title begs the question: Do the gods, in fact, hate Kansas, and if so, why? Well, don't hold your breath waiting for the answers. All we know is how the gods show their displeasure by bombarding Kansas with more meteors per square mile than any other state.
Nine of them hit the Earth at the beginning of the story, the investigating scientists are zombiefied, and work begins on a spaceship. There's a beautiful (zombiefied) woman, loved by a (nonzombiefied) scientist, who, if not mad, is certainly awfully cranky by the end of the book, and there are aliens. What more could you want?