Who Goes There [Paperback]

John W. Campbell's novella "Who Goes There?" is a science fiction tour-de-force; a collection of 7 short stories which were primarily featured during the American magazine Astounding Science Fiction during the late 1930's. The legendary Isaac Asimov was quoted as saying that Campbell was "the most powerful force in science fiction ever, and for the first ten years of his editorship he dominated the field completely" and I would have to second this sentiment. For any young pre-published novelist wishing to delve into this complicated and sometimes overly used genre, I would heartily recommend that they pick up this novella as, personally, it is a pure and utterly brilliant lesson in science fiction.

Who Goes There

The first of the seven short stories and, what I consider the lengthiest, is a claustrophobic horror set amidst the barren, icy wasteland of Antarctica. A team of researchers discover a crashed alien ship and, with that, an alien which had been frozen for, seemingly, billions of years. As a decision is made to thaw the creature out for study, it becomes apparent that The Thing is not dead. Thawing revives the alien, a being which can assume the shape, memories, and personality of any living thing it devours, while maintaining its original body mass for further reproduction leading to the team questioning who is human and who isn't.

Blindness

Perhaps the shortest of those included in this novella, Blindness charts the life of a scientist, a dreamer, of a journeyman wanting to succeed in finding an infinite source of power whilst, simultaneously, discover the mysteries behind atomic power. In order to achieve his dream, he concludes that the Sun must hold the greater powers of all and, together with his ever-trusting assistant; he sets about designing a spaceship which would be able to approach the sun and collect the data they need. His work eventually leads him on his ultimate space flight and, at a sacrifice, finds what he is looking for.

Frictional Losses

Following an alien invasion across the entirety of the world, the survivors look to rebuild, to start again and look to move forward amongst their diminished numbers. Unfortunately, whilst the alien invasion was repelled, human losses were great and worry sets amongst the survivors that a second invasion is very likely. Old Hugh Thompson spends his days scavenging the ruins of the larger cities, attempting to research and build parts for restoring an alien weapon; however, he stumbles across something completely different which ultimately saves the last of human kind.

Dead Knowledge

An expedition to a neighboring solar system, finds a research team on a seemingly abandoned planet much similar to our own; with vast cities of towers, automobiles, streets, pavements, parks and tropical, heated climates. Immediately on setting down do our intrepid travellers come across the realisation that the city is not inhabited but what could have caused the population to have fled? There are no signs of war, threat or terror, nor are there any signs of wildlife; there are no birds or insects to be found. On further exploration, only do we begin to find out the chilling event that befell a great and once powerful race.

Elimination

John Grantland, an American patent-lawyer, is approached by an arrogant young inventor who claims to have discovered how to revolutionize energy and how to apply this. In his dissuasion, Grantland tells the tale of a couple of inventors he came across many years back who developed a television set that was able to see the entire history of time from its explosive beginning to the many thousands of possible futures.

Twilight

Jim Bendell, travelling late one night, stops to pick up a hitch hiker - one with an especially curious tale; he is a time traveller from a distant future where man has made an efficient and endlessly powerful machine that takes care of their every need. The hitch hiker goes on to explain of how he has seen the Twilight of humankind's civilization, on the verge of extinction in a world where they lack curiosity, vigor and the ability to reproduce. Ultimately quite a simple tale, this, however, is well-written and beautiful.

Night

Night is a sequel to Twilight and follows the exploits of a traveller who has returned to Earth in early 20th century, recounting his time at Night of humankind's civilization upon which he finds the sun and the earth, frozen and dying. Again, similar to Twilight, this is simple tale constructed in an expert fashion.

Each and every one of Campbell's short stories are well crafted, succinct and an absolute delight to read and, given the years in which he wrote them - some 80 years ago now, they still stand the test of time and seem as fresh now as when they were first published. The stories themselves have also clearly inspired science fiction throughout its history and it is only unfortunately that Campbell didn't decide to turn any one of his ideas into a fully fleshed out novel given their originality and potential depth in character and story.

Whether you are a fan of the genre or not, I highly recommend purchase of this 244 paged paperback novella to anyone with a love for well-written books.

5/5

I got the audiobook version from audible.com and i DO NOT REGRET IT, great book, which lead to a great film.

I was a massive fan of john carpenters film, I bought it on three formats (hd-dvd,dvd and now blu ray) so i had to get to listening to the audiobook...it doesnt disappoint.

Has all the suspense of the film, you can't work out who is who, my only issue is that the scene they find out whos who is too short and felt abit rushed, I wish this was longer than it is, the story has so much more you could do with it

Was The Thing the first movie I ever bought on Blu-ray? I think it might just have been...

I'm an unabashed fan - what can I say? I must have seen John Carpenter's adaptation of Who Goes There? twenty times or more, all told - any excuse is a good excuse - and without fail, whenever in recent memory the credits have scrolled I've made a mental note to hunt out the tale upon which The Thing is based. Oh, and Howard Hawks' 1950s monstrosity The Thing From Another World. That too.

Yet till now, I never did...

...and I'm kind of wishing I never had, at all.

Because it's a pretty tepid novella. Even having made the usual allowances one must for fiction from another era, Who Goes There? seemed to me forgettable pulp - certainly not the "timeless genre classic" (p.10) Logan's Run author William F. Nolan describes in his punchy introduction. Its characters, of which there's something of an over-abundance, are to a one so thin as to appear transparent; and though the notional concept at its core, of an alien desperate to see its species survive after untold millennia frozen in a glacier, still hits home - particularly the shape-shifting and the subsequent paranoia Carpenter made so much of - Campbell seems leagues more interested in exploiting every last drop of the melodrama the premise entails, and haplessly documenting some talking heads talking nonsense.

Perhaps it wasn't always nonsense they were talking... perhaps it's dreadfully crass of me to assert as much. But even allowing for the foibles of such fiction in the late thirties, Who Goes There? is unequal to any variety of comparison with Carpenter's masterful adaptation. The bare bones of the story are there, at least, but the film fashions a body around those bones - developing the potential of certain threads of character and narrative Campbell seems profoundly uninterested in, and abandoning those others than simply do not work - where the author of the original novella is content to present a picked-clean corpse.

Rocket Ride Books, however, have gone above and beyond with this edition of Who Goes There? Let's give the small press start-up credit where credit's been duly earned, because Campbell's novella is but one part of the classy package they've put together - and were it that alone, I might still recommend it, whatever its failings, as a curiosity to fans of either film version.

But the Rocket Ride reissue of Who Goes There? goes the extra mile, coming complete with the informative introduction aforementioned, and a whole other thing: the spec script William F. Nolan wrote for Universal Studios' consideration in the late 70s, when they were sniffing around the idea of another adaptation. So not the screen treatment John Carpenter used a few years later - that was from the pen of the late and lamented Bill Lancaster - but a third distinct take on Campbell's tale; an iteration more straightforwardly science fictional than either of the others, and wreathed in Americana. I'm glad, ultimately, that Nolan's script wasn't the basis of The Thing, but assuredly it makes for a fascinating what if?

For collectors, then, the value-packed Rocket Ride edition of Who Goes There? should make for a no-brainer of a buy. It'll be a harder sell to those with less interest in the cinematic lineage of John W. Campell's original story - poised to continue, against all odds, in a very promising prequel slated for later in 2011 - though those potential readers too would be well advised to look beyond the pulpy melodrama of Who Goes There? itself to the pitch-perfect extra features and deleted scenes of this bounteous re-release.