John carpenter The thing is a classic sci-fi horror film that has scared audiences for decades. But the film was inspired by an earlier story published in the 1930s, “Who Goes There?” by acclaimed editor John W. Campbell Jr., and it turns out there’s more to this story. A researcher recently discovered an unpublished manuscript of the story, and a small press is using Kickstarter to publish it.

Campbell is best known as the longtime editor of Breathtaking science fiction (now Facts and fictions of analog science), one of the most influential science fiction magazines of all time. But before resuming publication in 1937, he worked for years as an author, often writing under the name Don A. Stuart. In his book Unbelievable: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard and the Golden Age of Science Fiction (release next week), Alec Nevala-Lee notes that Campbell was inspired in part by explorer Richard Byrd, and possibly HP Lovecraft’s classic horror story “At the Mountains of Madness”. In 1938, a short story like “Who’s going there? appears in Astonishing, which has become a favorite among the sci-fi fan community. The story was then adapted in 1951 as The thing from another world, while the remake of John Carpenter The thing happened three decades later. A prequel to Carpenter’s film, also titled The thing, was released in 2011.

While researching her book, Nevala-Lee discovered that “Who’s Going There?” Was not the first version of the story: Campbell had written a novel, which he then shortened for publication in Astonishing. Nevala-Lee went through all of Campbell’s surviving letters while researching his book and came across a reference to a box of manuscripts he had sent to Harvard. “I hadn’t heard of this anywhere else,” Nevala-Lee said. The edge, “and it doesn’t appear on an occasional online search, but I eventually found an entry in the catalog at [Harvard’s] Houghton Library. Inside he found the original and complete manuscript of Frozen hell. “I couldn’t believe what I found there.”

Nevala-Lee says that if Campbell had mentioned Frozen hell a few times, but never indicated that it was a novel. “I don’t think anyone has had the slightest idea of ​​its existence,” he explained. He notes that the original story features a brand new opening and a “huge 45 page section that describes the discovery of the alien spaceship.” By comparison, the version that was finally released condensed a lot of that.

“There are some interesting details in the restored draft, but what’s really fascinating is how it changes the structure of the whole story, which goes halfway from a sci-fi adventure to the horror. I love this kind of unexpected change in tone, and while I understand why Campbell decided to modify it to focus on the psychological side, there is something very modern – and effective – about the way it abruptly goes. from one genre to another. “

He then contacted Campbell’s daughter, Leslyn, who referred him to John Gregory Betancourt, who manages Campbell’s literary estate and an independent publishing house called Wildside Press. Betancourt said The edge that Nevala-Lee’s discovery of the full story was a “once in a lifetime” event. “It’s like learning that your favorite book was cut out for magazine publication, and now you can read the full story,” he says. He explains that the fuller version of the book adds more character and story development, which was lightened up for his debut in the magazine. Betancourt described the draft as “fragmentary and pieced together from a partial final draft and a draft,” which he “then compared to the published version of” Qui y va? ” “Betancourt said he hopes the final version will live up to what Campbell initially expected. “I tried to turn the story into what John W. Campbell would have written if it had appeared in its full form, as it was originally written.”

On its Kickstarter page, Wildside Press says its edition will include a cover drawn by artist Bob Eggleton, an introduction by author Robert Silverberg, and will come with a preview of a sequel story written by Betancourt. $ 7 will give contributors an ebook edition of the story (plus a copy of the original “Who Goes There” and 10 additional ebooks), $ 12 will get you a paperback and a $ 25 pledge will provide you with a hardcover edition. The project has since exceeded its fundraising goal of $ 1,000 (it grossed nearly $ 16,000 at the time of this article’s publication), and the final version is expected to reach backers in January 2019.