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Book Review: Frozen Hell: The Book That Inspired “The Thing” by John W. Campbell, Jr., illustrated by Bob Eggleton

Frozen Hell: The Book That Inspired “The Thing” by John W. Campbell, Jr.,  illustrated by Bob Eggleton (Amazon.com)

Wildside Press, 2019

ISBN-13: 9781479442829

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition

 

Frozen Hell is John W. Campbell, Jr.’s original and previously unpublished novel that became the novella “Who Goes There?”, and the basis for three movies (The Thing from Another World (1951), The Thing (1982), and The Thing (2011)). The book includes three extra chapters at the beginning. The story opens with McReady, Vane, Barclay, and Norris arriving at a camp to investigate a magnetic anomaly that has occurred in the area. Upon their excavation, the team unearths a piece of highly polished metal and a frozen creature with blue skin and three red eyes. The description of the Thing is fantastic, and I don’t do it justice here, but I also don’t want to take away from the reader experience. Blair and Copper arrive at the camp later, and they make the decision to take the body back with them. Little do the men know that by returning to basecamp with the body the hell that will be unleashed. Paranoia and isolation run rampant through the camp after the body is found to be missing. When they do realize what is happening, it may already be too late.

Material that is included in this volume are, as mentioned, new chapters that detail the discovery of the Thing and its metal spacecraft, as well as rich description of the Antarctic landscape and atmosphere. Some reviewers felt that this took away from the story, but I felt that it added a slow burn element, and I’m a sucker for deep description of landscapes. I understand this element isn’t for everyone, however. The book includes a preview of a sequel written by John Betancourt. Alec Nevala-Lee provides a great discussion of how he found the manuscript in Campbell’s archival collection in Harvard’s Houghton Library. Robert Silverberg introduces the book, and the illustrations and wraparound full colour cover by Bob Eggleton add a nice spooky touch to the book. The text and table of contents needed an additional review by an editor, but otherwise the book was put together well. I would recommend this as a great companion piece to Campbell’s “Who Goes There?”.

Recommended

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on June 8, 2020 by , Reply

Interview: Cecilia Abate, aka Horror Scholar, Talks to Lizzy Walker

Cecelia Abate

We’re a little past Women in Horror Month, but why limit ourselves to one month a year? There are way too many awesome women who are a part of the horror community to do that. Monster Librarian primarily reviews fiction, but I actually like reading nonfiction, too, as it widens my knowledge of horror and I think makes me a better reviewer. Also, despite academic jargon, the ideas can be really compelling. Any researcher who doesn’t have the resources of a university or similar institution knows the challenge of actually getting your own stuff written, researched, and published. Enter Cecilia Abate, aka Horror Scholar, founder of Horror Scholar Journal, a new online journal that provides an avenue for independent researchers to get their work published. Reviewer Lizzy Walker had the opportunity to interview Cecilia recently, so read on to learn more about her!

 

Lizzy: Hi, Cecilia! Tell Monster Librarian readers about yourself.

Cecilia: Hi there! I’m an independent horror academic & researcher with a focus in data-heavy quantitative analysis. I run a research brand under the title Horror Scholar and am currently employed at Google during my daylight hours.

 

Lizzy: Describe your path to horror studies. How did this become an interest for you?

Cecilia: Actually, total accident. As I was getting through my BA, I remember *hating* pop culture studies and literary analysis. I was rereading Frankenstein for a sci-fi studies course and I bought an edition which had about 4 analytical essays included in the back. I remember flipping through them and just scoffing, being like, “Oh my god, who cares? The monster is a monster, leave it alone.”

Somehow, in the next few years, that opinion completely reversed. I did my last essay of my college career on colonialism in The Nightmare Before Christmas. And as I was laughing at myself writing it, I started to go “oh no… this is actually a lot of fun.”

 

Lizzy: What made you start Horror Scholar Journal?

Cecilia: Frustration and a drive to lead a project, honestly. At the time—I don’t fully remember the line of thought, but I remember being frustrated at the gap between being an independent academic (not backed by a university, therefore less credible) and needing my work published. And I sort of thought, “You know what? I’m gonna do it myself. I’m gonna make a change here.”

 

Lizzy: The inaugural Issue of Horror Scholar Journal which focuses on American Horror Story was great. Could you talk about your American Horror Story research you started prior to the journal?

Cecilia: Thank you! So in 2015, I started conceptualizing a thesis about the usage of sexual violence on AHS, but I didn’t have the numbers to back it up, which resulted in me starting a data project to record and process all the incidents of sexual violence on the show. I’ll be doing that until the show ends and I’m currently almost caught up – I’ve got to finish the numbers for the previous season.

 

Lizzy: So, Hannibal is the focus of Issue 2. What made you want to focus on this iconic horror figure?

Cecilia: One of the things that pushed me was the passion of his fans! The Hannibal fandom is SO ALIVE. While I know is most certainly due to the 2013 show, there are still tons and tons of classic Lecter fans out there. When I put the call for theme suggestions out on Twitter, the Hannibal fans answered strongest of all. It’s a rich canon, the books & movies are great, and it made for a bunch of very strong essays.

 

Lizzy: What can we expect for more themes of future issues of Horror Scholar Journal?

Cecilia: Phew. My girlfriend most recently suggested the Alien franchise, which is a pretty strong bid. Ideally, I’d like to take on things that aren’t the most obvious suggestions. Like, I’d never do “Dracula” or “Frankenstein” because the topics have been diced every which way already.

 

Lizzy: Why should librarians recommend Horror Scholar Journal as a resource?

Cecilia: I’ve always seen librarians as a particularly revolutionary and rebellious arm of academia, so I think my goals for Horror Scholar align with those sentiments – accessibility (both intellectually and financially), critical thought, creativity.

 

Lizzy: Do you have any upcoming projects you would like to mention?

Cecilia: I’m prepping a paper on vampire identity and social strata in What We Do In The Shadows and Being Human (UK). While I’m secretly not hyped for this paper, I AM hyped for attending the Popular Culture Association Conference for the first time to present it!

 

Lizzy: How can people get in touch with you for more information?

Cecilia: My email, horrorscholar@gmail.com is fine – OR we’re available on FB and Twitter! www.facebook.com/horrorscholar or www.twitter.com/scholarhorror.

Posted on March 6, 2020 by , Reply

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro Guest Post: Writing on the Walls

Among her other accomplishments, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro is the author of the Count St. Germain series of vampire novels, which begins with Hotel Transylvania, a nominee for HWA Vampire Novel of the Century. The 25th (and newest) book in the series,Commedia della Morte, will be released this month. Chelsea has shared her insights into libraries and the research process in the past, and today, as part of the blog tour for Commedia della Morte, she’s got something to say about the the importance of literacy, in all its incarnations. Thank you, Chelsea, and good luck!

 

In Praise of the Written Word


When researching Blood Games many years ago, I found myself reading a fascinating book on graffiti throughout the Roman Empire; there was a lot of it. Most of it was fairly typical: Good fortune to Pulcheria, who has the greatest tits in the Lupanar; Marcus Flavius is a cheating pig; Greens forever; Arnax will beat Sepulins on Saturday’s Games; special at Antonius’ trattoria today and similar kinds of comments; a few were more pointed and political, but all of them provided significant insight into the attitudes and behavior of a large portion of the people of Rome. The examples in the book were an engaging collection, and more so because they were familiar — modern graffiti are much the same. Yet there are vast stretches of history that seem to be graffiti-less, and what little exists is pictures, not words. Which first and foremost tells you that in those times, most people could not read or write: graffiti is proof of a level of literacy that is not often encountered in many historical eras, or a great number of cultures. The Romans were unusual in that they encouraged reading and writing in almost all classes of society, and along with it, kept public records and documenting all manner of transactions, which makes researching their history and culture far easier than, say, researching everyday life in Moscow in the fifteenth century, or in the Amazon basin in 1920. Archaeologists discover ancient and often unknown cultures that remain largely a mystery due to the absence to some form of written language, starting with the presence or absence of graffiti.

Social continuity is contained in many aspects of the society, but the one that bestows the greatest continuity is written language, which allows the understanding of one generation to be built upon by subsequent ones, thereby retaining a reliable line between past and future, and keeping a link from the present to the future. If you want to put this to the test, read some of the theories about Egyptian hieroglyphics that were embraced before the Rosetta Stone was found and decoded, and then look at what we learned about that vanished civilization afterward. And yes, it was vanished in spite of some of the most spectacular monuments ever built, walls and walls of graffiti and bas-relief carvings, paintings in tombs, and papyrus scrolls. The written word revealed the ancient Egyptians to us as no pyramid or temple ever could, and it is through the written word that we have learned what all those tremendous artifacts were all about.

Of course, language changes over time, words mutate, new words come into use, old ones fade away, but where there is writing and reading, the culture remains coherent. As wonderful and revealing as folklore is, it does not offer the level of documentation written accounts do. Where literacy is rare, folklore flourishes, adapting over time to changing conditions among those who do not read or write, and although folklore provides context and sagas of all sorts, it does not allow the development of society through cumulative thought, be that thought academic, commercial, legal, entertaining, pragmatic, or aligned to any other endeavor.

When literacy is restricted, learning is compromised. When reading and writing are limited to one sector of society, information becomes the tool of that sector. Writing and reading provide opportunities for moving beyond the “what is” to the next step, and that next step emerges when thought is made lucid through writing and accessibility to others who read and write. So welcome graffiti: it means that language is active and that most of the society can read and write, can think for themselves, and know how to question what they see around them, and can pass all those things and many, many others on to those who come after us, as well as enriching our own lives.

Posted on March 23, 2012 by , Reply