John W. Campbell, Jr. (1910–1971)

An unbearable violet flame leaped suddenly in the skies, shrieking a thousand feet in the air. A rain of black metal separated from a solid clump to spread in a long, stretching line that reached down and down in masses to the waiting earth. It settled at the base of a giant rock, finally, as a second long rain of metal reached down and down.

I started reading this book in late October, as it starts with a a science fiction/horror novella suitable for Hallowe'en. I liked the the solution that the men came up with for identifying which people and animals were actually clones of the monster. It was much cleverer than the solution in the 1950s film adaptation "The Thing From Another Planet", which was changed to something much easier to understand. I'm going to try to see the 1980s version "The Thing", as that is supposed to be a very good film.

I enjoyed all the stories in this book except "Blindness" which was a bit too physics heavy for me, but my favourites were "Who Goes There?", "Frictional Losses" and "Elimination".… (more)

A short novella written in 1938, its a closed room mystery set on a research station in Antarctica. It was the basis for the 1951 movie; The Thing from Another World and John Carpenter's The Thing in 1982. That's the movie I remember from the early days of HBO, I'm sure I've seen it at least a half dozen times. As I was reading this story, I couldn't help but see Kurt Russell and Wilfred Brimley in their namesake parts. A little far fetched on the science side, but how could it not, since it was written over 80 years ago. A pretty good October read.… (more)