A New Dawn: The Complete Don A. Stuart Stories

by John W. Campbell Jr.

Contains all of John W. Campbell's Don A Stuart stories.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Short Stories

462 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

John Wood Campbell, Jr. was an influential figure in American science fiction. As editor of Astounding Science Fiction (later called Analog Science Fiction and Fact), from late 1937 until his death, he is generally credited with shaping the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction.

Isaac Asimov called Campbell "the most powerful force in science fiction ever, and for the first ten years of his editorship he dominated the field completely."

As a writer, Campbell published super-science space opera under his own name and moody, less pulpish stories as Don A. Stuart. He stopped writing fiction after he became editor of Astounding.

Known Pseudonyms/Alternate Names:

Don A. Stuart
Karl van Campen
John Campbell
J. W. C., Jr.
John W. Campbell
John Wood Campbell

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0 stars. I have not read all of the stories in this collection yet, but have read "Twilight" and "Who Goes There." Both are excellent stories (Who Goes There was included in the Top 20 Short Stories of all time).

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read both John Campbell’s A New Dawn and GL Borges’ Labyrinths in the same month is something of a lesson in paths of least resistance: both are collections of short stories, largely science fictional, and written roughly about the same time (1920s-30s), but Borges’ complicated posits on the nature of infinity sometimes requiring multiple reads to fully understand made Campbell’s tales of alien invasion and Conan-esque adventure seem superficial and pulpy by comparison and were easily rushed through.

And pulpy they are. A New Dawn is a collection of John Wood Campbell’s short stories written under the pseudonym Don A. Stuart for the wealth of scifi magazines of the day (Campbell was already a well-known space adventure writer, but adopted the Stuart pseudonym to pen stories of a more brooding, atmospheric tone).

While the stories of humanity’s enslavement and eugenics at the hand of alien masters, the entropic death of civilization millions of years in the future and death and destruction as the very physical laws of the universe begin to unravel are certainly darker than some of their Flash Gordon contemporaries, they’re still pock-marked by clichés of the day that today we might find quaint: futures hundreds, sometimes thousands of years hence where the most advanced mode of transportation is still propeller planes, computers operated by rotary-phone style dials, and the most destructive weapons ever conceived by man that have to wait until their vacuum tubes to warm up before being fired.

This kitsch value aside, the book’s crowning achievement is still its best known short Who Goes There?, made famous by its two adaptations to the screen: Howard Hawks’ 1951 The Thing from Another World, and John Carpenter’s 1982 The Thing.

The story beautifully fosters the atmosphere of paranoia, claustrophobia and questions of identity when an Antarctic expedition stumbles across an alien being frozen in the ice for what appears to have been millions of years. When part of the creature thaws, its nature becomes apparent – a composite organism whose every cell is an autonomic whole, capable of imitating not only the physical appearance, but behaviors and even thoughts of any other organism it “digests” by incorporating that organism’s cells into its own.

Soon no one in the isolated camp trusts another, not knowing who’s been digested and who has not, the result being a gruesome “test,” the Carpenter movie version of which has been voted one of the scariest moments in film.

Creepy though that may be, the origin of the story lends an even creepier insight. Campbell’s mother had a twin sister who disliked John. When younger, the sisters would apparently swap roles, leaving the unsuspecting boy never knowing when the woman tending to him was his loving mother or her spiteful doppelganger.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn't much get into this collection of classic sci-fi stories. Many of the stories are predictions of alien races and the very distant future of earth. This collection includes "Who Goes There?", which is the story The Thing is based on. I was really looking forward to reading this. It has some really great ideas, but really fails in the execution. Much of the story is filled with characters arguing over who is human and who is not. Their arguments just spin on far too long until you just don't care anymore.

[RJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some ingenious stories here that expand the mind as any good science-fiction should. Some stories continue continuity between tales, furthering the narrative of the last, but I prefer the one and dones like Atomic Power and of course Who Goes There that make you feel like you've read something truly revolutionary.

[TrumanCoyote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually a bit of a letdown...not quite as cool as I remembered. "Twilight" sort of flat and sketchy--no interaction with the far-distant futurians; also the structure was a bit clumsy (a good idea though to have another future man act as intermediary narrator). And a lot of the dialogue was pretty Star Trekish; still, can't get much better than "Who Goes There?" (that cramped Antarctic feeling).

[Jon]

This anthology contains two stories nominated for the 1939 Retro Hugo Awards:

Best Novellete: “Dead Knowledge” by Don A. Stuart [John W. Campbell] (Astounding Stories, January 1938) ~ 3.0-3.5 stars read 7/9/2014

and

Best Novella: “Who Goes There?” by Don A Stuart [John W. Campbell] (Astounding Science-Fiction, August 1938)

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Who Goes There?" was great, but the others were not upto Campbell's editorial standards (which were very high, according to all the "golden age" authors).