Reviews for The best of John W. Campbell

The average rating for The best of John W. Campbell based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-02-19 00:00:00 Cody Pata I'm town between 3 and 4 stars, because a lot of these stories in this book were not my cup of tea. HOWEVER, the reason why I read this collection was all because I wanted to read the short story Who Goes There?, which is the basis of one of my favorite horror sci-fi films, The Thing. I would give that story five stars, and I'd give another short story in the collection, Elimination five stars as well. I really appreciated the introduction and the postscript. In the Introduction I learned quite a bit about the development of sci-fi literature. Prior to reading, I was ignorant of the role John. W. Campbell played in the history of the genre. I liked that this collection included his earliest works and moved through his writing career chronologically because you can see the progression in his storytelling skills as you turn the page. The ideas expressed in his early works are fascinating and impressive, and I respect that, even if the characters and plot development were lacking. That was apparently how sci-fi was back then, though, so you can't really blame him for his "crude" writing. After going through all the stories (and admittedly I skipped/skimmed over some) I can say that Who Goes There? is probably his best work. It's a truly frightening story that has both great characters AND great science, and the prose is the best that I've seen from him based on the collection.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-09-05 00:00:00 John Bovit 4 stars