Frozen Hell Audiobook By John W. Campbell Jr. cover art

Frozen Hell

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Frozen Hell

By: John W. Campbell Jr.
Narrated by: Yuri Lowenthal
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Fans of John Carpenter's The Thing can rejoice - here is the original, previously-unpublished, longer version of John W. Campbell's classic story, Who Goes There?, filmed as The Thing and The Thing from Another World.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. Adventure Fiction First Contact Science Fiction Classics Scary
Classic Sci-fi Story • Claustrophobic Horror • Phenomenal Voice Acting • Fleshed-out Characters • Creative Concept
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As a cosmic horror fan, I was very excited to listen to the story that inspired “The Thing”! I loved the story as an engineer. It’s fascinating to hear the outdated ways in which people understood natural phenomena even less than 100 years ago. The cherry on top is Yuri Lowenthal (who I know from my childhood as Ben 10 and more recently as Spider-Man) does a great job narrating!

Ben 10 is Narrating Eldritch Horror

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I’ve been on a scifi kick for a while and I of course found my way to Mr. Campbell. I plan on reading this and the shorter version who goes there. I read he relentlessly would cut his books down if they messed with the flow. I can see why he cut this one down but all in all it’s great read.

Lovely but

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I can see how John Carpenter made his film "The Thing" from the story. Very good.

The Blood Test

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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!

Definitely, the better version

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

Get it for sure and enjoy!

Worth a Listen!

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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.

Expanded version about as good as original

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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!

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

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

Awesome

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it's a great story. I love The Thing. but the characters make so many assumptions, and jump to so many conclusions when discussing the monster that I can't help but wonder if the author didn't understand how how to show instead of just tell.

so many assumptions are made!

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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.

10/10 book, 5/10 narrator

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