Frozen Hell

By: John W. Campbell Jr.

Narrated by: Yuri Lowenthal

Length: 3 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

Fans of John Carpenter's The Thing can rejoice - here is the original, previously-unpublished, longer version of John W. Campbell's classic story, Who Goes There?, filmed as The Thing and The Thing from Another World. Recently discovered at Harvard by scholar Alec Nevala-Lee, long buried in John W. Campbell's papers, here is the original version of Who Goes There? It adds astonishing extra material to the classic story.

Included is a preface by Alec Nevala-Lee, an introduction by science fiction grandmaster Robert Silverberg, and the complete text of this newly discovered version of the classic novel.

©2019 Wildside Press and the Estate of John W. Campbell, Jr. (P)2022 Wildside Press and the Estate of John W. Campbell, Jr.

10/10 book, 5/10 narrator

While this book is great and worth the buy, this audiobook falls short due to its narrator lacking enthusiasm and life in his narration.

I HIGHLY advise you search for the audiobook that has the shorter version of “Who Goes There?” that is narrated by Steve Cooper, he does a phenomenal job at actually making the voices come to life and making the story feel alive and real.

Definitely, the better version

With the longer story, slightly better narration, better forward history notes, and nice artwork, I feel this is the much-better version. Not sure why it was pushed as having "earlier-draft flaws." No way. This is the better version. I especially like that it's a more-consistent narrator that doesn't "over-act" the dialogue. Now, if only someone would make a serious film remake of The Thing!

skip the forward...it's full of spoilers :(

if you are a fan of the film The Thing...you will enjoy this quick read.

many of the characters from the film make an appearance...Blair, Garry, Bennings...and of course McCready.

it definitely fills in some gaps in the background of why these men are there and what their roles are.

the only reason it doesn't get 5 out of 5 is because of the stupid forward/introduction gives away too many plot points etc...

on an interesting side note; the narrator seems to give the characters of Blair and McCready the same inflections as the actors from the John Carpenter film. His Kurt Russell isn't half bad!

Awesome

So much different than the movie but in a great way! Fans of The Thing should absolutely hear this version

A Bluer Sun

It was rather intriguing to hear the story about why this version was denied and how it was lost and then found. And although I enjoyed the original version, I definitely see how it wasn't entirely necessary. The way Campbell had McReady simply explain to the crew and the reader what happens in the original beginning worked just fine. This is still one of my all time favorite Sci-Fi stories. I've read dozens of times and plan to read it dozens more.

detailed descriptions throughout the story

some of the voices are hard to differentiate. This makes understanding which character is currently speaking a bit difficult.

Worth a Listen!

I really enjoyed the lost parts! They add some little tidbits for any fan of any previous iteration.

Get it for sure and enjoy!

Expanded version about as good as original

I listened to the original version of who goes there about a month ago and without the introductory material with this book I doubt I would’ve noticed what was different. Thankfully this book begins with an explanation of the discovery of the extended version and what is different, mainly the beginning of the book is much different. The reader gives a justification for the difference in the mind of the author as he frequently liked to avoid beginnings that included too much unnecessary explanation and preferred to jump right into the story and you can tell that difference when listening to this version with a full beginning. I don’t know if I just missed it in the first listen to the shorter version, but one slight problem I had with the book was how much it is gives human motivation and emotions to the alien creature. To me it was easy to think of this alien as like Covid. A virus doesn’t have motivations and does not seek to conquer the World and rule as a dictator which is one character's explanation for the aliens actions in the book. The only motivation is to survive and reproduce. I also seem to notice more religious references in this version than I remember in the other. Frequent descriptions of the alien coming from hell and a statement along the lines of it prayed to a God it hated when a creature from an alien world may not even have the religion. I guess you can say that just like technology has advanced since this book was written in the 1930s so has imagination. The concept that the thing would be completely alien to the human experience is a more modern idea in science fiction. That said this book deserves its reputation as a claustrophobic horror story that is very closely connected to the John Carpenter version of the thing. The method of determining who is infected and who is not is similar to that of the movie but the science behind why it works is much more complicated in this book than in the movie. I also think it was simplified in this version compared to the shorter version. The ending also felt different. I guess I need to listen to the shorter version again. The reader is fine, nothing special. He makes a decent attempt to do different voices for the characters.

John W. Campbell Would Be P.I.*.*.E.D. Right Now

Don't waste your credit or money. I wasted money on this one. John W. Campbell would be PISSED if he heard this travesty of a narration to his book.

First off, the "Narrator" sucked and killed the whole story within the first 45 mins. As I listened to this while I was at work, I'd go through 10 minute periods of listening to what sounded like someone just talking and not telling a story. Every character sounded the same. I'd have to rewind because I wouldn't have the faintest idea what happened because the narrator just would go on reading like delivering a lecture. I've heard eulogies that had more life than what this dude brought to the table. There was no change in tone or inflection to what the scene called for or differentiation of characters.

Not to mention the mispronunciation of names throughout the book. For example the name Norris, he pronounced it as NARris. I'd love to hear him say 'North Pole' just once. I don't think there's a NARTH pole.

Also, Whoever left the review saying the narrator's Kurt Russell wasn't half bad, obviously never heard Kurt Russell talk and it was left by a bot or some fake account. I would honestly like the deck that person with a hardcopy of this book for that The "Narrator" didn't sound even remotely close to him. Wasn't even in the same zip code. He didn't even have the same mannerisms.

Very little added.

The first part of how they found IT. Was added, that was it. The reading was slow and boring. If you read who goes there, then don’t get this book. It’s almost word for word. Just poorly performed