"The Other Side of Here" by Murray Leinster

Newark...Manhattan...Baltimore- one by one they went out. A succession of thriving communities suddenly put out like a guttered flame. Men, women, children sprawled like grotesque mannikins. 

Steve Waldron knew it couldn't be plague. There had to be some connection with the disappearance of the nation's top scientists. And then he plunged to the center of a dead city and gaped at an unbelievable truth. What could he do against a force fearsome enough to engulf the entire nation?

The Other Side of Here is an science fiction novel by American writer Murray Leinster, first published as a five-part Astounding Stories serial in 1936, under the title "The Incredible Invasion". It was first published in book form, in a "thorough revision",as one side of an Ace Double, in 1955. The novels tells the story of "an invasion from the fourth dimension", foiled by an insurrection against the invaders' home government.

Groff Conklin praised Other Side on its 1955 publication, as "a vivid, galloping melodrama based on his favorite theme of alternate worlds".P. Schuyler Miller's review was more tepid, saying "It would have been great stuff twenty years ago; it's merely smooth stuff now." Anthony Boucher dismissed the novel as "for completists only".

E. F. Bleiler wrote that the novel, in its original form as The Incredible Invasion, was "Good in [the] beginning, but the perpetual chase and backtracking lose conviction after a time. The characterizations are not as strong as is usual with Leinster. . . All in all, not worth reading except as a period piece. Academic critic David Seed praised Leinster for "cleverly the ambiguous role of the media in selectively reporting the news and also in juggling the popular interpretations of the invasion".