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John W. Campbell Jr is well and truly canceled nowadays, for not just racist views but actions, refusing to publish black authors or even stories with black protagonists. But his own stories and his editorship at Astounding Science Fiction–where he elevated sci-fi from pulp to literature and mentored most of the great early writers in the genre–exert lasting influence. No story has been more influential than Who Goes There?, which became the basis for the great films The Thing From Another World and John Carpenter’s The Thing.
The latter is the more loyal to the original text, which Carpenter noticed bore a resemblance to Agatha’s Christie’s And Then Were None, with its remote local, gradual deaths and hidden perpetrator. But there’s a really fascinating key to the dread of the tale revealed in this review of Alec Nevala-Lee’s book on Campbell’s Astounding years: Born in Newark, N.J., in 1910, he was raised by combative parents who embodied the extremes of their son’s divided personality: his father, an engineer with Bell Telephone, stressed rationality, planning and control over emotions, while his mother was a wild, tantrum-prone woman who couldn’t be controlled so much as fought “to a draw.” After their divorce, Campbell grew up, like many writers, unhappy, lonely and distressed; he often felt like a disappointment to his father, and his mother’s unpredictable cruelties instilled in him a deep sense of panic about a world that couldn’t be adequately rationalized or controlled.Read in that context, the novella takes on a chilling psychological depth as cold as the polar setting. (Reviewed:) Grade: (B) Tweet Websites:-WIKIPEDIA: John W Campbell -FILMOGRAPHY: John W. Campbell Jr (IMDB) -ENTRY: John W. Campbell American author and editor (Encyclopaedia Britannica) -ENTRY: Campbell, John W, Jr (Encyclopedia of Science Fiction) -ENTRY: John W. Campbell (Fantastic Fiction) -ENTRY: John W Campbell (Internet Speculative Fiction Database) -ENTRY: Creators » John W. Campbell (TV Tropes) -ENTRY: SFF Author: John W. Campbell (Fantasy Literature) -ENTRY: John W Campbell (SF Gateway) -INDEX: John W Campbell (Free Speculative Fiction Online) -AUDIO INDEX: John Wood Campbell, Jr. (LibriVox) -INDEX: John W Campbell Jr (Internet Archive) -INDEX: John W. Campbell Jr (Project Gutenberg) -INDEX: John W. Campbell (Standard eBooks) -OBIT: John W. Campbell of Analog, Science Magazine, Dead at 61 (NY Times, July 13, 1971) -WIKIPEDIA: Who Goes There? -RADIO PLAY: "Who Goes There?" By John W. Campbell (A Late Nite Sci Fi Radio Drama) -ETEXT: Who Goes There? By John W Campbell (Baen Books) -ETEXT: Who Goes There? [PDF] -ESSAY: The Atomic Age (John W. Campbell, November 1945, Astounding Science Fiction) -AUDIO INTERVIEW: John W. Campbell (1962) (Interview by Fred Lerner) -PODCAST: Astounding John W. Campbell and the Golden Age of Science Fiction (Geno Abbott) -PODCAST: Episode 65: We're Officially Done with Lovecraft and Campbell with Alec Nevala-Lee (Our Opinions are Correct, August 27, 2020) -EXCERPT: The Man Who Made Science Fiction What It Is Today: On John Campbell Who "Influenced the Dreamlife of Millions": from Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction. (Alec Nevala-Lee, November 7, 2018, LitHub) -AUTHOR SITE: Alec Nevala-Lee -ESSAY: John W. Campbell, a chief architect of science fiction’s Golden Age, was as brilliant as he was problematic (Scott Bradfield, Nov. 15, 2018, LA Times) -ARTICLE: John W. Campbell Award Is Renamed After Winner Criticizes Him: Jeannette Ng, who won the prize this year, said the man it was named after “set the tone of science fiction that still haunts the genre.” (Peter Libbey, Aug. 28, 2019, NY Times) -ESSAY: John W Campbell, for whom this award was named, was a fascist (Jeannette Ng, Aug 18, 2019, Medium) -ESSAY: "Racism and Science Fiction" (Samuel R. Delany, August 1998, NYRSF) -ESSAY: The Sins of John W. Campbell Revisited (Powered by Robots) -ESSAY: Storm Over Campbell Award (Mike Glyer, 8/21/19, File 770) -ESSAY: Jeannette Ng, John W. Campbell, and What Should Be Said By Whom and When (John Scalzi , 8/20/19, Whatever) -ESSAY: The Father of Science Fiction: The Best of John W. Campbell (Alan Brown, July 5, 2018, Reactor) -ESSAY: John W. Campbell: The Man Who Inspired Two Awards (Christopher McKitterick) -ESSAY: Remembering John W. Campbell (1910-1971) (SF Radio) -ESSAY: John W. Campbell, Jr. at 105 (Adventures Fantastic) -ESSAY: SF Intertextuality: Lovecraft and Campbell (R. L., November 2001, Science Fiction Studies) -ESSAY: What Do H. P. Lovecraft and John W. Campbell, Jr. Have in Common? (Adventures Fantastic) -VIDEO ARCHIVES: “John W. Campbell” (YouTube) - -REVIEW: of Who Goes There? By John W Campbell (Christopher Fried) -REVIEW: of Who Goes There? (e. Magill's, The Unapologetic Geek) -REVIEW: of Frozen Hell by John W. Campbell (Mark Yon, SFF World) -REVIEW: of Frozen Hell (Richard A Lupoff, Locus) -REVIEW: of Forgetfulness by John W Campbell (Classics of Science Fiction) -REVIEW: of John W. Campbell, Jr.: "The Machine," "The Invaders," & "Rebellion" (M Porcius Blog) -REVIEW: of Night by John W Campbell (Dr. Jason W. Ellis, Dynamic Subspace) -REVIEW: of Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee (BlackGate) -REVIEW: of Astounding (Andy Duncan, SFRA Review) FILM: -FILMOGRAPHY: John W. Campbell Jr (IMDB) -WIKIPEDIA: The Thing From Another World -WIKIPEDIA: The Thing (1982 film) -FILMOGRAPHY: The Thing (1982) (Rotten Tomatoes) -PODCAST: The Thing (Video Nasty Project) -VIDEO: Exclusive John Carpenter intro to The Thing (National Science and Media Museum, 17 Jun 2008) Book-related and General Links: |
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