So there's an old book, well, a short story really, called "who goes there?"
That was the book that John carpenters the thing was based on. And I believe Alan dean foster wrote a novelization for that movie...
So a novel, based on a movie, based on a book/short story.... Just thought I'd throw that out there. :-)
PS. Speaking of the thing, and this short story it's based on, I was always amazed that this short story had 3 movies and a video game based on it. A black and white movie (which was terrible), John carpenters movie (classic), the prequel from 2011 (had some highs and lows, but I enjoyed it), and the sequel-game on the Xbox and PS2 (which was kinda cool, too). The short story that inspired all this is quite good! I got it in hard cover, collected with a few other short stories, a couple of years ago. It was kinda hard to find but worth the search. I've read it a number of times already.