This story represents Sturgeon's sole output between the years 1941 and 1945. Everything else that was published during this time had been written before. Sturgeon suffered from long bouts of writer's block, but was somehow able to produce this story in 9 days. It is one of his most famous stories, and was his most financially successful during the first decade of his career. The story inspired a 1974 TV-movie and a Marvel Comics adaptation by Gerry Conway and Richard Ayers in "Worlds Unknown" #6 (April 1974).