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John Wood Campbell Jr. Campbell wrote super-science Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing opera under his own name and stories under his primary pseudonym, Don A. Campbell began writing science fiction at age 18 while attending MIT. He published six short stories, one novel, and six letters in the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories from to This work established Campbell's reputation as a writer of space adventure. When in he began to write stories with a different tone, he wrote as Don A. From until the later part of that decade, Campbell was prolific and successful under both names, though he stopped writing fiction shortly after he became editor of Astounding in It is as editor of Astounding Science Fiction later called Analog Science Fiction and Fact from late until his death for which Campbell is primarily remembered today. Also, inCampbell started the fantasy magazine Unknownalthough it was canceled after only four years. Referring to his time spent as an editor, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction wrote: "More than any other individual, he helped to shape modern sf. An increasingly strong interest in pseudoscience later alienated Campbell from Isaac Asimov. Campbell and Astounding shared one of the inaugural Hugo Awards with H. Shortly after his death inthe University of Kansas science fiction program established the annual John W. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted Campbell inin its inaugural class of two deceased and two living persons. John Campbell was born in NewarkNew Jersey[7] in His father, John Wood Campbell Sr. John was unable to tell them apart and says he was frequently rebuffed by the person he took to be his mother. After one year at Duke Universityhe graduated with a Bachelor of Science in physics in Campbell began writing science fiction at age 18 while attending MIT and sold his first stories quickly. From January to JuneAmazing Stories published six of his short stories, one novel, and six letters. He stopped writing fiction after he became editor of Astounding. Between December 11,and June 13,he hosted a weekly science fiction radio program called Exploring Tomorrow. The scripts were written by authors such as Gordon R. Dickson and Robert Silverberg. They divorced in and he married Margaret Peg Winter in He spent most of his life in New Jersey and died of heart failure at his home in Mountainside, New Jersey. Editor T. Three were part of a space opera series featuring the characters Arcot, Morey, and Wade. A complete novel in the series, Islands of Spacewas the cover story in the Spring Quarterly. Orlin Tremaineand several stories featuring lead characters Penton and Blake appeared from late in Thrilling Wonder Storiesedited by Mort Weisinger. The early work for Amazing established Campbell's reputation as a writer of space adventure. When in he began to publish stories with a different tone he wrote as Don A. Stuart, a pseudonym derived from his wife's maiden name. From until the later part of that decade, Campbell was prolific and successful under both names. Campbell held the amateur radio call sign W2ZGU, and wrote many articles on electronics and radio for a wide range of magazines. Tremaine hired Campbell to succeed him [17] as the editor of Astounding from its October issue. Lester del Rey 's first story, in Marchwas an early find for Campbell, and inhe published such an extraordinary group of new writers for the first time that the period is generally regarded as the beginning of the "Golden Age of Science Fiction", and the July issue in particular. Heinlein 's first story, " Life-Line ", and the next month Theodore Sturgeon 's first story appeared. Also inCampbell started the fantasy magazine Unknown later Unknown Worlds. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction wrote: "More than any other individual, he helped to shape modern sf", [2] and Darrell Schweitzer credits him with having "decreed that SF writers should pull themselves up out of the pulp mire and start writing intelligently, for adults". Campbell often suggested story ideas to writers including "Write me a creature that thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man" [27]and sometimes asked for stories to match cover paintings he had already bought. Campbell had a strong formative influence on Asimov and eventually became a friend. By his own example and by his instruction and by his undeviating and persisting insistence, he forced first Astounding and then all science fiction into his mold. He abandoned the earlier orientation of the field. He demolished the stock characters who had filled it; eradicated the penny dreadful plots; extirpated the Sunday-supplement science. In a phrase, he blotted out the purple of pulp. Instead, he demanded that science-fiction writers understand science and understand people, a hard requirement that many of the established writers of the s could not meet. Campbell did not compromise because of that: those who could not meet his requirements could not sell to him, and the carnage was as great as it had been in Hollywood a decade before, while silent movies had given way to the talkies. One example of the type of speculative but plausible science fiction that Campbell demanded from his writers is " Deadline ", a short story by Cleve Cartmill that appeared during the wartime year ofa year before the detonation of the first atomic bomb. As Ben BovaCampbell's successor as editor at Analogwrote, it "described the basic facts of how to build an atomic bomb. Cartmill and Campbell worked together on the story, drawing their scientific information from papers published in the technical journals before the war. To them, the mechanics of constructing a uranium-fission bomb seemed perfectly obvious. Campbell convinced them that by removing the magazine "the FBI would be advertising to everyone that such a project existed and was aimed at developing nuclear weapons" and the demand was dropped. Campbell was also responsible for the grim and controversial ending of Tom Godwin 's short story " The Cold Equations ". Writer Joe Green recounted that Campbell had. Godwin kept coming up with ingenious ways to save the girl! Since the strength of this deservedly classic story lies in the fact that the life of one young woman must be sacrificed to save the lives of many, it simply would not have the same impact if she had lived. Between December 11,and June 13, Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing, Campbell hosted a weekly science fiction radio program called Exploring Tomorrow. Green wrote that Campbell "enjoyed taking the 'devil's advocate' position in almost any area, willing to defend even viewpoints with which he disagreed if that led Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing a livelier debate". As an example, he wrote:. Finally, however, Green agreed with Campbell that "rapidly increasing mechanization after would have soon rendered slavery obsolete anyhow. It would have been better for the USA to endure it a few more years than suffer the truly horrendous costs of the Civil War. He wrote. It's my bet that the South would have been integrated by The only way slavery has ever been ended, anywhere, is by introducing industry According to Michael MoorcockCampbell suggested that some people Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing slavery. He also, when faced with the Watts riots of the mid-sixties, seriously proposed and went on to proposing that there were 'natural' slaves who were unhappy if freed. I sat on a panel with him inas he pointed out that the worker bee when unable to work dies of misery, that the moujiks when freed went to their masters and begged to be enslaved again, that the ideals of the anti-slavers who fought in the Civil War were merely expressions of self-interest and that the blacks were 'against' emancipation, which was fundamentally why they were indulging in 'leaderless' riots in the suburbs of Los Angeles. InCampbell published an essay supporting segregated schools and arguing that "the Negro race" had failed to "produce super-high- geniuses". Delany 's Nova a month before it was ultimately published, with a note and phone call to his agent explaining that he did not feel his readership "would be able to relate to a black main character". Campbell was a critic of government regulation of health and safety, excoriating numerous public health initiatives and regulations. Campbell was a heavy smoker throughout his life and was seldom seen without his customary cigarette holder. In the Analog of Septembernine months after the Surgeon General 's first major warning about the dangers of cigarette smoking had been issued January 11, Campbell ran an editorial, "A Counterblaste to Tobacco" that took its title from the anti-smoking book of the same name by King James I of England. He said that tobacco's calming effects led to more effective thinking. However, Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing a one-page piece about automobile safety in the Analog dated MayCampbell wrote of "people suddenly Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing conscious of the fact that cars kill more people than cigarettes do, even if the antitobacco alarmists were completely right His critiques of government regulation of health risks were not limited to tobacco. In a number of other essays, Campbell supported crank medicine, arguing that government regulation was more harmful than beneficial [41] and that regulating quackery prevented the use of many possible beneficial medicines e. In the s Campbell became interested in Joseph Rhine's theories about ESP Rhine had already founded Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University when Campbell was a student there[44] and over the following years his growing interest in parapsychology would be reflected in the stories he published when he encouraged the writers to include these topics in their tales, [45] leading to the publication of numerous works about telepathy and other " psionic " abilities. This post-war "psi-boom" [46] has been dated by science fiction scholars to roughly the mids to the early s, and continues to influence many popular culture tropes and motifs. His increasing beliefs in pseudoscience would eventually start to isolate and alienate him from some of his own writers. He wrote favorably about such things as the " Dean drive ", a device that supposedly produced thrust in violation of Newton's third lawand the " Hieronymus machine ", which could supposedly amplify psi powers. InCampbell worked closely with L. Ron Hubbard on the techniques that Hubbard would later turn into Dianetics. When Hubbard's therapy failed to find support from the medical community, Campbell published the earliest forms of Dianetics in Astounding. Ron Hubbard 's initial article in Astounding that "[i]t is, I assure you in full and absolute sincerity, one of Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing most important articles ever published. Campbell continued to promote Hubbard's theories untilwhen the pair split acrimoniously over direction of the movement. Asimov wrote: "A number of writers wrote pseudoscientific stuff to ensure sales to Campbell, but the best writers retreated, I among them. Campbell championed far-out ideas He pained very many of the men he had trained including me in doing so, but felt it was his duty to stir up the minds of his readers and force curiosity right out to the border lines. He began a series of editorials There was bitter opposition to this from many including me — I could hardly ever read a Campbell editorial and keep my temper. Damon Knight described Campbell as a "portly, bristled-haired blond man with a challenging stare". Algis Budrys wrote that "John W. Campbell was the greatest editor SF has seen or is likely to see, and is in fact one of the major editors in all English-language literature in the middle years of the twentieth century. All about you is the heritage of what he built". Asimov said that Campbell was "talkative, opinionated, quicksilver-minded, overbearing. Talking to him meant listening to a monologue Campbell talked a good deal more than he listened, and he liked to say outrageous things. British novelist and critic Kingsley Amis dismissed Campbell brusquely: "I might just add as a sociological note that the editor of Astounding, himself a deviant figure of marked ferocity, seems to think Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing has invented a psi machine. Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr.

Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Campbell Jr. Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Who Goes There? Campbell Jr. Who Goes There? William F. Nolan Goodreads Author Introduction. Campbell classic about an antarctic research camp that discovers and thaws the ancient, frozen body of a crash-landed alien. The creature revives with terrifying results, shape-shifting to assume the exact form of animal and man, alike. Paranoia ensues as a band of frightened men work to disc "Who Goes There? Paranoia ensues as a band of frightened men work to discern friend from foe, and destroy the menace before it challenges all of humanity! With a new Introduction by William F. Nolan, author of Logan's Runand his never-before-published, suspenseful Screen Treatment written for Universal Studios inthis is a must-have edition for scifi and horror fans! Get A Copy. Paperbackpages. More Details Original Title. Retro Hugo Award for Best Novella Other Editions Friend Reviews. To Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Who Goes There? Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Who Goes There? I first read "Who Goes There? Campbell, as a young adult and I have a lot of residual affection for it, and that's clearly coloring my 4 star rating for it. It's gloriously, unabashedly pulp SF and it's fromso just know that going in. Once you get over the occasionally deep purple prose and the fact that there are only male scientists at this camp, there's a great story here. This is a old-fashioned SF monsters-from-space horror story about a malevolent, incredibly dangerous space alien that terrorizes an isolated scientist's camp in Antarctica. An expedition of scientists finds a spaceship encased in ice that's probably been there for millennia. One deep-frozen alien is outside of the ship; it looks like there are a few more inside. In attempting to bust the door of the spaceship open and get inside, the scientists set off an explosion that burns up the magnesium-hulled ship. That may be a peaceful, friendly expression on its face. No one figures that it would have any real life to it after its long freeze. But of course, it does. And now something's on the loose and no one is quite sure what it is or how to deal with it. The claustrophobic feel of the isolated camp, the cold and ice everywhere, and not knowing which of your friends and colleagues have been taken over by the alien writhing tentacles alert! I can see why it's been made into a film three times. The image of a few shrieking drops of blood view spoiler [, shrinking away from a hot needle hide spoiler ]is permanently imprinted on my brain. It's short on characterization but the plot makes up for it, IMO. Free online here at Baen. Read when you're in the mood for some good old-fashioned SF horror! Side note: I reread this classic SF novella to get a better basis for understanding and appreciating the Nebula award-nominated short story " Things With Beards. Shelves: sleep-with-the-light-on. Abruptly it rumbled disapproval throatily. Then it laughed gurglingly. View all 26 comments. It was first published in the August edition of the "Astounding Science Fiction" magazine, under the pen name Don A. The story is set in Antarctica, Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing an isolated group of scientific researchers find the body of an alien creature in the ice. They realise that its spaceship must have crashed there 20 million years before. With misgivings, they proceed Who Goes There? With misgivings, they proceed to thaw the creature, which then disappears. The premise of the story is a good one, and there are lots of possibilities for tension and paranoia, all of which Campbell tries to create. However it is now sadly dated and feels extremely overwritten. Passages which should be chilling and horrific come across to a modern reader as unbelievable. In its worst excesses it is so over-the-top as to be funny, "They haven't seen those three red eyes and that blue hair like crawling worms. Crawling - damn, it's crawling there in the Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing right now! Three mad hate-filled eyes blazed up with a living fire, bright as fresh-spilled blood, from a face ringed with a writhing, loathsome nest of worms, blue, mobile worms that crawled where hair should grow -" "The last I saw the split skull was oozing green goo, like a squashed caterpillar About four feet tall - three red eyes - brains oozing out? The fact that the story has been filmed several times shows that there is a good basic storyline; material for a horror film. The idea that the alien could mutate or "morph" into any other creature, is fodder for many imitations since. Who can you trust? And who is the alien? It fed on the paranoia of the time between the two World Wars. Here is a slightly less "pulpy" quote, "The cells are made of protoplasm, their character determined by the nucleus. Only in this creature, the cell nuclei can control those cells at will This is a member of a Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing intelligent race, a race that has learned the deepest secrets of biology, and turned them to its use. Perhaps as modern readers we are now too cynical to enjoy pure pulp. Just over forty years ago, init was voted one of the finest science fiction novellas ever written, by the Science Fiction Writers of America. But that time was slightly closer to when it was written than to the present, and the world has seen a lot of changes since. John W. He was the editor of "Astounding Science Fiction" as well as a contributor, from just before this story until his death. He is generally credited with shaping what is called the "Golden Age" of Science Fiction. Isaac Asimov said that Campbell dominated the field completely for Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing first ten years of his editorship, calling him "the most powerful force in science fiction ever. View all 21 comments. Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing every 'we are trapped and a monster is killing us one by one and now we are turning on each other' story or movie is indebted to this novella - highly recommended! View 2 comments. The sole reason for wanting to read this book was for the titular novella Who Goes There? I was pleasantly surprised that this edition also included 6 other short stories. The other 6 stories were so much shorter and in truth rather uninteresting, I felt the best way to look at them as additional bonus material. Jul 11, Brian rated it did not like it. I can't understate how terribly this thing was written. While the premise was interesting enough to create a classic in the hands of someone with a talent for the craft I'm looking at you, John Carpenterthis original story fails on all levels. John W. Campbell - Wikipedia

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Hang on a second. Hello everyone, my name is Lee, and I'm a science fiction fan. There, now I've got that out of the way I can crack on. As a self-confessed fan of science fiction, you might expect me to be au fait with John W. While most of the world was busy killing each other in World War Two, the science Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing genre was busy reinventing itself. Gone were the pulp era tales of derring do amongst the stars. In their place was big, hard, space opera. A world in desperate need of stories about a better one found just Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing a place in the libertarian futures described monthly in publications like Astounding Stories. Astounding Storiesnow Analog Science Fiction and Factis the longest running science fiction magazine of them all. Back in the days when new authors rose to prominence mostly through short stories published in genre magazines, Astounding Stories was the magazine that chose to give people like Asimov et al. And the editor who oversaw the magazine during this significant period? Why, it was John W. Genre magazines don't have the popular appeal they once did, and while I've vaguely heard of Analog I couldn't tell you a great deal about it. I certainly wasn't aware until I started reading Who Goes There? The second fact is that while he was a prolific writer of well received short stories for magazines in the s, he never seemed to write that big break out novel that pushes authors out of the magazine stands and onto the bookshelves. Seven of Campbell's best short stories are to be found in this collection, including his most famous work, the eponymous Who Goes There? Almost predictably, it's his Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing famous work because it has a popular film adaptation: John Carpenter's horror classic The Thing. That's one of my favourite horror films, and yet I had no idea it was based on a Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing story, much less one from the s. The gist of the story is that a remote research station in Antarctica discovers a crashed alien ship with one frozen alien on the side. They assume the alien is dead but it is soon revealed to not only be alive but able to assume the shape and memories of any living thing. I don't say this often, and it pains me to do so, but I think the film version is better. The big problem when adapting a novel into a movie has always been that the character's thoughts, usually a crucial aspect of the writing, simply don't fit on the screen. Half the writing is instantly lost taking with it character and plot developments, jokes, suspense, and so on and so forth. Here, though, that works to the film's advantage. If an omniscient narrator told us the character's thoughts then we'd instantly know which ones were and weren't secretly aliens. The film Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing have to worry about this. Campbell's approach is to write in a minimalist style, essentially recording the character's dialogue and gestures, and that's about it. And you don't realise how much you'll miss all the other aspects of writing until they're not there. The other six stories in the collection don't have this issue to deal with, and I enjoyed them all a great deal more. Despite coming from the s the science discussed in them is surprisingly mature, with atomic energy, the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, and the heat death of the Universe all being used as background plot points. There's also a nice balance between showing the fallibility of scientists and showing the ability of science as a whole to help people. This collection is ultimately a nice little insight into its time. Science was finally being understood at its most fundamental level leading to hope for our future, yet there were economic woes on one side of the Atlantic and political woes on the other. World War Two was rapidly approaching and after that the world had to look forward to decades of a new kind of war and a new kind of weapon, with total annihilation of the enemy finally a tenable and terrifying possibility. Given all that, I suppose being stuck in the Antarctic with a shape-shifting alien doesn't look so bad after all. Eggpants Jun 25, A great birthday gift! I enjoyed reading the original story that inspired two movies, one from the 50s and one from the 80s. As a bonus, there is a screen treatment done by William Nolan author of Logan's Run. Let me start with the short story by John Campbell. A great idea with a somewhat poor execution. Having seen both movies that drew inspiration from this story, I could see both films in the characters and plot that Campbell wrote. That helped me follow the story. To have read this inthough, I wonder if I'd have been hooked or been able to follow the idea from start to finish. A great notion, executed by two directors, but hard to follow from the original story. Maybe with a few rewrites, Campbell could have nailed it. But, both films owe their result to Campbell's original idea. The treatment by Nolan, at the end, is something entirely different. Done init reads like the worst films of the present day. Sensationalistic, without solid character development, it was rejected by the studios. I'm so glad. The film that John Carpenter put together in is the closest to the original story idea and captured, better than Campbell, the paranoia and fear of the story. I Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing like the 50s film, in context, but Carpenter's ruled. Campbell is a master storyteller. This is the novella upon which The Thing was based. That said, I am not a horror Who Goes There?: The Novella That Formed The Basis Of The Thing, not in the slightest. Home Groups Talk More Zeitgeist. I Agree This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and if not signed in for advertising. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms. Who Goes There? A cunning, intelligent alien who can shape-shift, thereby assuming the personality and form of anything and anyone it destroys. Soon, it is among the men of the expedition, killing each in turn and replacing them by assuming their shape, lulling the scientists one by one into inattention and trust and eventually, their destruction. The shape-shifting, transformed alien can pass every effort at detection, and the expedition seems doomed until the scientists discover the secret vulnerability of the alien and are able to destroy it. Moskowitz theorized that it was this game which lead to uncertainty of identity and clever masquerade which lead to feelings of helplessness and terror that Campbell funneled into what would be his greatest novel. This word is regarded as one of the greatest horror stories to emerge in the field of science fiction writing. It was also the basis for one of the great early science fiction films and its remake decades later. Books Read By artturnerjr - All topics Hot topics All discussions Join to start using. As a self-confessed fan of— no, wait. Freshly thawed beasty evil inside a meat suit maybe even yours. Eggpants Jun 25, A great birthday gift! John W. CiaraCat Jan 9, Astounding Science Fiction 08 by John W. Adventures in Time and Space by Raymond J. Who Goes There by John W. Reel future by Forrest J. The Thing [ film] by John Carpenter. You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data. The Thing from Another World. Arkham Sampler Survey by August Derleth Classics of Science Fiction This is a single novella, not a collection of stories. Information from the Italian Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language. References to this work on external resources. Wikipedia in English None. A distant, remote scientific expedition taking place at the North Pole is invaded by a space alien who has reawakened after lying dormant for centuries after a crash landing. No library descriptions found. Book description. Haiku summary. Add to Your books. Add to wishlist. Quick Links Amazon. Amazon Kindle 0 editions. Audible 0 editions. CD Audiobook 0 editions. Project Gutenberg 0 editions.