LIFE LIST UPDATE – No. 518: Read “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell Jr.

One of my all-time favorite movies is the 1982 science fiction horror film, “The Thing.” Many of you will be familiar with this movie, which was directed by John Carpenter and starred Kurt Russell and Wilford Brimley. It’s about a group of scientists and military officers in Antarctica who come in contact with a shape-shifting alien that’s been frozen for thousands of years beneath the polar ice.

I can remember watching this movie as a kid, and I’ve always found the characters and the Antarctic setting. It’s one of those movies that when I see it on television, I can’t help but sit down and watch the rest of it. Thanks to the invention of the DVR, I’ve now got it recorded permanently at home.

What a lot of people don’t know is that this classic film is based on a science fiction novella called “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell Jr. I’ve wanted to read this novella ever since first learning about it, and I officially placed it on my “life list” last year. I finished reading it over the weekend.

First published in the August 1938 edition of “Astounding Stories,” members of the Science Fiction Writers of America voted it one of the best science fiction novellas ever written. While “Who Goes There?” does contain many of the same elements as Carpenter’s movie, there are some significant differences. Most notably, the novella doesn’t begin with a helicopter full of Norwegians trying to gun down an escaped husky.

This novella was first adapted as a motion picture in 1951 in “The Thing From Another World.” This movie was a loose adaptation of Campbell’s novella and includes a number of differences, including the fact that it doesn’t take place in Antarctica. Instead, it’s set in the Arctic, on the other end of the globe.

Carpenter’s 1982 adaptation most closely follows Campbell’s original story. Bill Lancaster wrote the screenplay and the cast included Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Keith David, Donald Moffat and Richard Masur. This movie was Rated R and was released in theatres in June 1982.

An extremely entertaining prequel to the 1982 movie, also called “The Thing,” was released in Oct. 2011, and I’m also a big fan of this movie. It’s almost entirely about the events that led up to Carpenter’s movie. Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., this movie starred Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Eric Christian Olsen. I loved this movie as well and could watch it over and over again.

In the end, I really enjoyed finally getting the chance to read Campbell’s novella, “Who Goes There?” If you’d like to read it for yourself, you can actually find a complete copy of it online at http://www.outpost31.com/books/who.txt. It doesn’t take long to read. I finished it in about two hours, and loved every minute of it.

How many of you have ever read Campbell’s “Who Goes There?” What did you think about it? Did you like it or not? Let us know in the comments section below.