Well, finally got to listen to it. I enjoyed it, a bit more at the start than by the end. I would assume it was inspired by the comments on the DVD commentary track about how Carpenter and the cast amused themselves during filming with an ongoing debate as to whether those who had become the THING would even know they were the THING (that is - did it replicate everything, including memory, and then control, or was it total replication and replacement?). I thought the viewpoint was interesting, although as it went on I almost wanted it to be a little *more* alien, it seemed to rely a bit too much on human terminology in its thought processes (I realize that that is a tightrope that has to be walked when writing from an alien POV, for my money the one word that kept getting under my skin was "shapeshift" - and I didn't feel the rest of the story supported a reading where the THING integrates its hosts languages, either).
I liked its realization that humans died/ended. Good stuff. Nice reader choice as well.
Unfortunately, though, I still felt what I'd feared (and I'll try to be brief so as not to relegate this to the other split off thread) - it's really great to have a story idea like this but other considerations outside of the creative act should be taken up and, to put it bluntly, Campbell - and even more so Bill Lancaster, let's be honest here - did a lot of the heavy lifting and Peter Wells was able to take advantage of their work to produce his. I mean, there's even direct lifts of Lancaster's dialogue and scenarios here (in fact, I felt that that was one of the weakest points - the need to have to go back and "explain" why certain scenes in the movie happened the way they did if we, with this new story, are now privy to inside knowledge of who was THING and who wasn't - so the cardiac paddles scene gets to be replayed because the THING has to explain why it would allow itself to be hurt - hmmmm...) and so Wells also gets to kind of ride the coattails of a memorable, wonderfully ambiguous ending (while providing us with an answer to that ambiguity that, honestly, I never wanted).
But, I know, it's only a story. A story I enjoyed listening to, a story that obviously had some depth to it and much thought behind it, - but sorry, IMHO a story that has an eternal asterisk next to it and really shouldn't have been up for an award (whether it be a Hugo, a Parsec, a Shirley Jackson, a BSFA, a Ted Sturgeon Memorial or a Locus - although as Eytanz pointed out, I guess none of those are awards for originality either). A fun story, a thoughtful story, but not whole work on its own.
I wonder if a story about Freddy Krueger(tm) musing on his indeterminate state between NIGHTMARE(tm) films, eternally defeated (different every time), eternally resurrected (just by being remembered), aware that he's in a film series (thanks to NEW NIGHTMARE(tm) - FREDDY VS. JASON(tm), that followed, actually had him directly addressing the audience in his opening narration), heck - pissed that he's treated like an action figure to be pitted against another franchise "monster", and then horrified to find he's being resurrected in a different form, retooled for the next generation of dumber teens who he hates - I wonder if such a story would be as warmly embraced? Lots of neat ideas there, lots of meat, but shouldn't writing be something more than that? Maybe not.