The round-robin novel Cosmos was the product of a scheme orchestrated in 1933 by a young Raymond A. Palmer, then editor of the fanzine Science Fiction Digest. This remarkable feat of amateur publishing involved the recruitment of sixteen professional authors, each of whom contributed a chapter loosely developed from a plot outline provided by Palmer. We’ve written extensively about Cosmos, especially on the The Cosmos Project website.

While Cosmos represented an impressive achievement in influence and coordination, the resulting fiction was somewhat predictably irregular — and in some cases, terrible. In 2020, we launched a writing contest that sought to address what we saw as the worst flaw. The final chapter, contributed by none other than Edmund Hamilton, fails to draw together the previous elements in the story and left us entirely unsatisfied.

Several authors stepped up to offer alternative conclusions to the novel. We announced the winners and published their submissions in 2021.

The success of this contest led us to initiate a sequel. The 2021 Cosmos Prize was established as encouragement for artists to illustrate two parallel round-robin works, both titled The Challenge From Beyond. Ten prominent professional authors wrote chapters based on the title — five for a science fiction version, and five for a fantasy version. The results were published in the September 1935 issue of Fantasy Magazine. You can read the works as they originally appeared here.

We were delighted when Sara Light-Waller, winner of the 2020 Cosmos Prize, also submitted a terrific entry for the 2021 prize. We then waited anxiously for other aspiring and/or accomplished artists to take up the Challenge… From Beyond. We’ve had numerous expressions of interest, but no further credible submissions.

It’s past time to give Sara her due. We’re pleased to present her four illustrations. The first three capture scenes and characters from the science fiction version of the story, written by Stanley G. Weinbaum, Donald Wandrei, Edward E. Smith, Ph.D., Hal Vincent and Murray Leinster. She created two full renderings for this story. Page numbers are as they appeared in the original fanzine, where numbers spanned multiple issues in a volume. (Click the images for expanded views.)

Sara submitted just a single illustration for the fantasy version of Challenge From Beyond, written by C.L. Moore, A. Merritt, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Frank Belknap Long, Jr. Her exceptional work on this piece recalls for us the style of Virgil Finlay.

Congratulations to Sara! As the winner of the 2021 Cosmos Prize, she’ll receive $300 in cash and copies of The Visual History of Science Fiction Fandom.

Stay tuned to First Fandom Experience for more news about our continuing work to bring to life the history and impact of science fiction fandom.