John Campbell’s “Who Goes There?” is one of the most respected science fiction short stories of all time; however, I fail to see what exactly makes this story so highly regarded.The novella, which is best known for inspiring the 1950’s science fiction film “The Thing From Another World” and it’s 1982 remake, known simply as “The Thing,” is a rare case in the fact that the film version is in many ways superior to the original story.
The story is indeed suspenseful and has some truly terrifying scenes, but these are few and way too far between. The concept of the novella is actually quite good, an alien infection-like-thing is released upon a remote group of Antarctic explorers, and they are forced to attempt to trust one another, never knowing which one of them is human, and which is a monster, but, in my opinion, the novella fails to deliver this concept to its fullest potential.
The story is muddled down by an innumerable amount of characters, all of whom aren’t given enough exposure to allow the reader to care for them, or even remember who is who, and perhaps the most aggravating thing about this novella is that over half of the short story is plagued by long-winded explanations on how the creature lives, breathes, mutates, sleeps, whether or not they can kill it, who is a monster, who isn’t, and so on. I understand the necessity for these explanations; however I do not believe that they have to encapsulate entire chapters.
The book was loaned to me by my good buddy and fellow Activist reporter, Ethan York, who reviewed John Carpenter’s adaptation of “The Thing” in a previous issue of the Activist, and being a fan of the film myself, I suggest skipping reading this bee-pollen of a book and going straight for the honey, the film versions.
Overall, “Who Goes There?” is a decent novella. Fans of either movie adaption, or of the rarely touched horror-science fiction genre, should check it out, but it failed to keep me interested, which is really all I ask from the books I read.