Who Goes There?

In 2014 this Novella was awarded a "Retro Hugo" for best Novella. Retro Hugo's are a way for the Science Fiction and Horror communities to acknowledge works with were either written prior to the inception of the Hugo awards or because Hugo awards were not presented those years (namely during WWII.)

I was drawn to looking up and finally reading this master work from the "Golden Age of Sci-Fi" because the Book Ararat by Christopher Golden reminded me so much of the Movie "The Thing" which was based on this work.

I loved the claustrophobic feeling of the book. The thing which struck me the most was that everyone at the Artic base was 100% for making sure the monster was unable to get to the mainland and out of the base. No one had a "save your own neck" mentality, or "Let's get in bed with Big Business by getting a sample home."

I did find some of the science to be a tad wonky, but that is with the hindsight of 80 years of scientific advancement. My biggest problem was the idea that a scientist would want to thaw the discovery out in an unsterile, insecure environment. The opportunity for cross contamination would have been unsurmountable by thawing it out at the Antarctic base. But all in all it was a jolly romp and I enjoyed the read immensely.