Origin of Fantastic Universe:

On April 14, 1978, Richard Hodgens (the first person to join Henry Noel in forming the New York C. S. Lewis Society) declared that "Forms of Things Unknown" is a bad story but an interesting puzzle. He believed it was written in response to the October 1958 cover of Fantastic Universe magazine, an American pulp. The cover painting by Virgil Finlay was an original which did not illustrate any story in the magazine. The surprise ending in "Forms of Things Unknown" has an astronaut encounter a Gorgon on the moon and get turned to stone, as in the Finlay painting.

Dale Nelson responded to Hodgens in the Society's Bulletin, CSL. by revealing that nine months before the Finlay painting was published William Sambrot's excellent short story "Island of Fear" appeared in the 18 January 1958 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. There an adventuresome tourist visits an unknown island in the Aegean where he encounters a Gorgon and is turned to stone.

 

 

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