Panshin on Van Vogt

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Here's an interesting article called 'Man Beyond Man' about Golden Age great AE van Vogt's early fiction, by Alexei Panshin, sf writer and critic: http://www.enter.net/~torve/articles/vanvogt/vanvogt1.html

 

[Stalker]

But not just any story: Amazingly. . . coincidentally. . . significantly. . . perhaps even inevitably. . . the story that he singled out in this apparently completely random fashion was "Who Goes There?" by Don A. Stuart -- the prototypical example of modern science fiction.

Seems to me Panshin confused something. "Who Goes There?" was written in 1938 by John Campbell himself just before he occupied the Chief editor's chair in "Astounding". Maybe, I am mistaken? The plot was used in John Carpenter's "The thing". Even most of the names in the story were preserved in the movie like Kurt Russel's MacReady.
Very interesting though for me was the fact that Alfred van Vogt's Mother tongue was Africaans. Never knew of that!
Interesting article...

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

You're both right and wrong, Stalker - an enviably Schrodingerian state to be in! The short story 'Who Goes There' was, indeed, written by one Don A Stuart - but Stuart was merely Campbell's pen-name. Other stories by 'Don A Stuart' include 'Atomic Power', 'Twilight' and 'The Cloak of Aesir'.

 

[Stalker]

Well, it occured to me that it might be Campbell's pen-name. But the idea was all momentary. Really, the situation looks like it doesn't matter if the cat put in the box is still alive or already dead as Schroedinger's principle of uncertainty states it.