Seeing the film prior to reading the story lends to it a sense of familiarity, as the director pulled character names and bits of dialogue to use in the script. The scenes here ring out as we’ve come to expect from the Carpenter film. After contemplating the ethical question of thawing it and risking harming the men at the base with an unknown bacteria or viral agent, they decide to proceed to examine the thing, believing the theory that only smaller animals with less complex cellular systems can come back to life after a deep freeze. Through the block of ice they can see that whatever it is is clearly not human. The story begins quite in the middle of things as a group of scientists at an outpost in the Antarctic have discovered something buried in the ice. Combine that with our never-ending quest of discovering who we are, and you’ve got one mighty tale of survival. Paranoia rules the day, which leads to mistrust and aggression. When faced with the frigid cold, isolated from everyday civilization, people tend to become more sensitive to every perceived delusion.
There is nothing more harrowing than man attempting to survive the elements. Our focus here is not of the films, but of the inspiration, specifically how this story, though resiliently science-fiction, also captures the mood and tone of weird fiction pitch perfect. Set in one of the coldest regions in the world, Campbell’s Antarctic tale made such an impact that it has been adapted into film four times, first in the 1950’s, then in the 70’s in an almost recognizable form, later still most famously in John Carpenter’s The Thing, then finally only recently in a prequel/reboot film of the same name. How fitting that this novella embraces the bitter chill and isolation of winter. One such tale, Who Goes There? is the subject of this month’s explorations of the cold, desolate cosmos. With a hard-scientific background, Campbell also wrote several stories of his own before taking the helm at Astounding. Heinlein, Campbell introduced the world to the pioneers of science-fiction. Showcasing writers like Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Campbell edited Astounding Stories of Super-Science (later Analog Science Fiction and Fact) from 1937 until his death in 1971. Known for heralding in the ‘Golden Age’ of Science-Fiction, John W.
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