John Campbell had his first story published in 1931, in the old Hugo Gernsback Amazing Stories. During the next seven years, he not only began to rival E. E. Smith as a writer of far-out space opera, but, under the pen name “Don A. Stuart,” wrote some very perceptive and sensitive stories in quite another style. He became editor of Astounding in 1938, and wrote very little thereafter except for his thought-provoking land often just plain provoking) editorials for the magazine.
Who Goes There? was published in 1938 under the Stuart byline, and when I first read it, I didn’t know Stuart was Campbell. What I did know is that it scared the daylights out of me. It still does.
A very bad movie called The Thing from Outer Space was presumably based on it about 1950, but the resemblance was slight. James Arness stalked through it, looking like a cross between Frankenstein’s monster and a triffid, and bearing no similarity whatever to Campbell’s horror.
When I showed this verse to John, his only comment was: “Well, it’s a hell of a lot better than The Thing.”
Here’s a tale of chilling horror
For the sort of guy who more or
Less thinks being an explorer
Is the kind of life for him.
If he finds his life a bore, he
Ought to read this gory story,
For he’ll find exploratory
Work is really rather grim.
For the story starts by stating
That some guys investigating
The Antarctic are debating
On exactly what to do
With a monster they’ve found frozen
Near the campsite they have chose,
And the quarrel grows and grows, un-
Til they’re in an awful stew.
There’s a guy named Blair who wants to r-
Eally check up on this monster
And dissect it. To his conster-
Nation, everyone’s in doubt.
So, of course, he starts in pleading,
And the rest of them start heeding
All his statements, and conceding
That the Thing should be thawed out.
So they let this Thing of evil
Start to melt from its primeval
Sheath of ice; they don’t perceive a l-
Ot of trouble will ensue.
When the Thing is thawed, it neatly
Comes to life, and smiling sweetly,
It absorbs some men completely,
Changing them to monsters, too!
Now we reach the story’s nub, il
Luminating all the trouble;
Each new monster is a double
For the men they each replace.
Since it seems a man’s own mother
Couldn’t tell one from the other,
These guys all watch one another,
Each with fear upon his face.
And so then the men are tested
To see who has been digested,
And who’s been left unmolested,
But the test don’t work! It’s hexed!
So each man just sits there, shrinking
From the others, madly thinking,
As he watches with unblinking
Gaze, and wonders—Who Goes Next?
Now, they’ve found that executing
Monsters can’t be done by shooting;
They require electrocuting,
Or cremation with a torch.
When they find these Things, they grab ‘em;
They don’t try to shoot or stab ‘em;
With high-voltage wires, they jab ‘em
‘Til their flesh begins to scorch.
So the entire expedition
Eye each other with suspicion,
For they’re in a bad position,
And there’s no denying that!
Now, to clear this awful scramble,
The ingenious Mr. Campbell,
Suddenly, without preamble,
Pulls a rabbit from the hat.
Here’s the way they solve the muddle:
They discover that a puddle
Of a pseudo-human’s blood’ll
Be a little monster, too!
With this test for separating
Men from monsters, without waiting,
They start right in liquidating
All the monsters in the crew.
Thus, the story is completed.
And the awful Thing’s defeated,
But he still was badly treated;
It’s a shame, it seems to me.
Frozen since the glaciation,
This poor Thing’s extermination
Is as sad as the cremation
Of the hapless Sam McGee.