Who Goes There?
- 230
- Pages
- about 4 h
- Reading time
- Retro Hugo Award for Best Novella
Affiliate link: buying through it supports BookRank at no extra cost to you.
Our view
“Who Goes There?” is a lean, ingenious piece of science-fiction horror, and its paranoid premise still works almost ninety years on. Researchers at an Antarctic outpost face a shapeshifter able to imitate any living being, so trust itself becomes the danger. John W. Campbell wastes little time before the threat arrives. Some readers find the characters hard to tell apart and the science dated.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Who Goes There? is a science fiction horror novella by American author John W. Campbell, written under the pen name Don A. Stuart. Its story follows a group of researchers and support personnel trapped in a scientific outpost in Antarctica that has been infested by shapeshifting monsters able to absorb and perfectly imitate any living being, including humans.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 6.8 across 83 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 36% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Science fiction average of 7.8. That is how 7.5 comes out. A further +0.10 comes from the small bonus for major awards.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.6 | 5 | 6% |
| Hardcover | 6.8 | 78 | 94% |
Frequently asked
How long is Who Goes There??
It has 230 pages — shorter than 89% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Science fiction — and a score of 7.5, the closest to this book.
