Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell
161 pages, Paperback
April 2009 by Rocket Ride Books
First published August 1, 1938 Astounding Science Fiction
Retro Hugo Award: Best Novella (2014)
Let’s get one thing out of the way. John W. Campbell is not fondly remembered. In 2019 Jeanette Ng won the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the 2019 Hugo Awards at the Dublin Worldcon and she started her speech with “John W. Campbell, for whom this award was named, was a fascist. Through his editorial control of Astounding Science Fiction, he is responsible for setting a tone of science fiction that still haunts the genre to this day. Sterile. Male. White. Exalting in the ambitions of imperialists and colonizers, settlers and industrialists.”
I don’t disagree with her, and should be noted that in their own way some of SF fandom agreed with her at the time. Lots of writers accepted Campbell because his magazines were two of the best markets in the genre. Fredrick Pohl and Don Wollheim had very famous debates with him early in the fandom community. Judith Merril famously confronted him more than once. Barry Malzberg did the same in the 60s, although he still had a certain respect for the man.
His role as editor was where he had the most impact both positive and negative. While I absolutely understand Ng’s position and agree an award for new writers has grown past his name. At the same time, I think Campbell is an interesting study. He knew his influence too, as he told a young Asimov “I’m an editor. When I was a writer, I could only write one story at a time. They’re fifty writers out there writing stories they’ve talked with me about.” In the case of this one story, I have to admit he wrote one of the best and most important SF horror hybrids in the very first year of the Golden Age.
Who Goes There? Is more than canon, or classic it is foundational and it would have been without the Howard Hawks or John Carpenter movies. It inspired AE Van Vogt (who went on to be THE SF writer of the 40s) the kick in the pants to become a writer. Famously he read half of it while standing at a newsstand in his native Canada. In 1973, the story was voted by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the stories representing the "most influential, important, and memorable science fiction that has ever been written." It was promptly published with the other top-voted stories in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two. And in 2018 researcher Alec Nevala-Lee found an early draft called Frozen-hell, which was published in 2019. Throughout this time Who Goes There has almost always been in print.
It was first published under the name Don A. Stuart, as he was the editor it was his way to sneak in his own work. He had an elaborate bio for him and it was some years before some of the Stuart stories were re-issued under this name. This edition I read and am reviewing is the 2009 paperback with an introduction by Logan’s Run co-author William F. Nolan and a screen treatment he wrote for Universal in the late 70s.
The place stank… This is how it looked in the August 1938 issue of Astounding.
To get an idea of how long ago it was published just one month after veterans of the battle of Gettysburg at the battle site. Let that sink in. Considering that with Campbell sat down to write this story with hard science for a time before WW2 it holds up amazingly well. It reaches heights of paranoia and terror that it is worth throwing out who Campbell may have been and just looking at the story itself. Because so much of the classic 1982 film is here in this story.
Having seen the movie many times but having not actually read it in decades I was surprised that the names and several of the plot points were there. It was quite the concept, not all the execution is perfect. All that was easily forgiven for me considering the date when it was written. I had heard that the Carpenter film was faithful to the story but I was struck by the same names and even the same characteristics being given to Norris, Blair, and Macready.
Although Macready in the film is just a pilot he is also a scientist in the story. Right from the beginning, there is a scale and scope that give the vibe a cosmic feel that seems Lovecraft or Weird Tales influenced as we know many other authors adopted that tone at this point. Campbell opens the story with the smell and gives us a real sense of the grime and the cold. “Even here four feet below beneath the drift wind that droned across the Antarctic waste above the ceiling, the cold of the frozen continent leaked in, giving meaning to the harshness of the man.”
I was surprised that we skipped directly to the block of ice. I am assuming the Frozen Hell version starts earlier. The editor famously gave Asimov the advice to start his stories earlier and cut opening pages often. (great advice BTW). As they stand over the brick of ice with an alien lifeform in it Macready fills them in. The ship was frozen so far below the ice that it must have crashed before the ice came and was below for Twenty million years.
It is amazing how much holds up but it is mind-boggling that in 1938 JWC was creating concepts that were being used almost word for word in the 1980s version. “Only this creature, the cell nuclei can control those cells at will. It digested Charnauk, as it digested, studied every cell of his tissue, and shaped its own cells to imitate them exactly. Parts of it- parts that had time to finishing changing are – dog cells.”
Then the story when to the blood testing, Blair isolates himself. And then the paranoia. Anyone could be the thing.
“The point Norris makes is that ¬they thaw, and live again. There must have been microscopic life
associated with this creature. There is with every living thing we know. And Norris is afraid that
we may release a plague -¬ some germ disease unknown to Earth -¬ if we thaw those microscopic
things that have been frozen there for twenty million years.”
The real fear of the story is the growing paranoia. Just as in the Carpenter movie that uses transformation and devolution to shock the audience, but builds suspense with moments like this. “Connant was one of the finest men we had here – and five minutes ago I’d have sworn he was a man. Those damnable things are more than imitation.”
Another thing about this moment is in the movie I have always wondered if the copies know that they are an alien copy, I have always thought that the alien hid inside them until exposed. But I thought a lot about that after reading that last passage.
Who Goes There? Is an undeniable classic, a turning point in the genre and a must-read for anyone interested in the canon of both SF and horror. The problematic nature of Campbell is a bummer but judging this work on its own merits it is one of the best novellas ever written in two genres.
As for Bill Nolan’s screen treatment...
This is tough. I respected Bill, think he was an underrated writer whose output for 2,000 plus published pieces is unfuckwithable. The problem with this treatment, is a few years later The Thing did get made by one of the greatest horror directors who ever lived, and it is his masterpiece. Nolan’s treatment if it was made and we never saw the Carpenter movie, this version may have impressed us all. I couldn’t unsee the strengths of the final movie.
Nolan’s treatment has three women, the base is filled with couples which totally changes the dynamic. It has the crew seeing the ship crash and taking away the frozen alien and twenty million years part. All big nopes for me. One cool reveal at the end of something under the base is a neat invention that almost justifies the crashing ship. It would have made a good movie, but in no way was it better than what we got. Still, it was interesting to read. And made this paperback edition a little cooler.
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