Peter Watts' "The Things" (short story, fanfic, free)
This is a retelling of John Campbell's "Who Goes There?" from the point of view of the alien rather than humans. Or, more likely, a retelling of John Carpenter's movie adaptation titled "The Thing" of the Campbell's story (I haven't seen the movie). The title comes from movie's name.
Best piece I've seen from Watts so far. And the first one I would actually recommend others. Also among the better pieces from Clarkesworld - & I've read quite a bit of their fiction. But read or see one of the originals (linked below) first, if you are unfamiliar with them.
Fact sheet.
First published: Clarkesworld, #40 (January 2010).Download full text/MP3 from publisher's site.
Rating: A.
Added to my "best of 2010" list.
Related.
- Download any of the several versions of "Who Goes There?", including original text.
- In US only: watch Carpenter's movie "The Thing" at SF Signal or at Hulu.
- Stories of Peter Watts,
- Fiction authored by/edited by John Campbell.
1 comments:
This story is pure genius, and gave me some killer ideas for original works of my own:
-"The List of Schindler", about a heroic Gestapo agent trying to root out an evil traitor who's been smuggling Untermenchen
-"Flowers for Charlie", a story about a lab mouse who becomes superintelligent for a brief period of time and befriends a human retard undergoing the same treatment
-"Bottom Gun", which follows the day-to-day hijinks of a group of military pilots for the Red Star Circle Republic and their underdog struggle against Goose, Maverick and the rest of the Great Satan.
But seriously, how is this not some form of plagiarism? I would bet good money that the original publishers had to consult a lawyer before printing this. And the worst part? He RUINS the fucking story. Am I really supposed to believe that on "a thousand worlds" (and why is it always "a thousand" worlds? Didn't they use that line in "Slither" too?) this alien has never encountered differentiated tissue? So...the thing that had giant spider legs, the thing with the six-inch teeth that bite the doctor's arms off, the thing with eye-stalks...none of those creatures had a brain? That makes absolutely no goddamn sense. If he's going to make a crass dollar mutilating a beloved film from my childhood, he should've stuck with re-writing "ET".
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