First of all, regardless of its pitfalls I would absolutely recommend this novella. It's a quick read that's completely worth it. 

The good: The premise and plotting of this book is so compelling. For the entire book you're only told who one of the

Thing impersonators

is, and everyone else is up in the air. When the book sticks to the psychological thriller aspect of this scenario - that

anyone could be a Thing and there's no way of knowing who or how many

- the book is amazing. I love that the book sometimes lingers on the horror of

the Thing

, but mostly cuts away from

heavy action or dramatic

moments that other books would linger on. This often helps keep the tension up and the attention focused on how the men are reacting to these circumstances, which is I think what the book does best. The 30's sci-fi is really fun, I liked Campbell's ideas of how technology might advance to allow a group of people to live for months on end at the south pole, and what they might be doing there. Campbell also clearly did his research, and I appreciate that each character's motivations remain consistent and make sense, even

the Thing's

to the extent of what we know. 

The bad: At times the book is confusing to keep tension and momentum going and build atmosphere, but at time it feels unintentionally confusing. Despite frequently describing minute parts of the setting in language that felt out of place from the rest of the book, I was often confused about where people were. At some point I remember snow being mentioned when I hadn't even realized the characters were outside. I was also frequently confused about who was who since a lot of characters are introduced with little detail very quickly. I think the story loses something when you don't know how many people are crowded into how small of a room, who those people are, and if a scene is happening outside where it's extremely cold and easy to get lost. In some instances the confusing timeline added to the feel of the book, but in others I think it took away from emphasizing either how quickly a situation can devolve or how long the men have been living in a really tense situation. Lastly, while I appreciated Campbell's research in some respects, that man had trouble killing his darlings. There are several instances where characters explain or discuss something scientific or world-buildy. In a lot of these instances, dialogue would have felt more natural and tension/momentum higher if these things had remained unsaid, alluded to, or summarized.
 

Because I love the good so much and I think a lot of the bad can be chalked up to this being written in the 1930's, this gets 4 stars from me. I really liked it! If this had received a modern editing treatment, it would probably be 5 stars. 100% recommend, and it was fun to read during a snow storm as part of my winter challenge. Also, the screen treatment in this edition gets 1 star. Thank god studios went with Carpenter's vision instead.