Wednesday, March 23, 2016

The Science Fiction Horror Movie Pocket Computer

Last week I posted a flow-chart about how to write a science fiction story. Little did I know that it came from the fertile, somewhat unusual mind of Gahan Wilson. Nor did I know that it was originally published in "The Year's Best Science Fiction No. 5" in 1972 (not to mention other places later on). Thanks to the extensive research provided by Art Coleman, I now share the full piece as Mr. Wilson intended.



The Science Fiction Horror Movie Pocket Computer

By Gahan Wilson

Have you ever been seized by a certainty, halfway through the second reel of a science fiction horror movie, say, when Dr. Yamamura laughs off the silly native fisherman‘s legend about a clam the size of Kyoto, that you‘ve seen it all before? Or fallen prey to an over-whelming sense of déja vu when the Zirconium robot starts eyeing the leading lady's boobs and makes lewd short-circuit noises? Or had an odd premonition when Pastor Feebley heads for the grounded saucer with a Bible under his arm, mumbling something about the Unity of All Life, and you see a creature that looks a lot like a 500-pound side order of potato salad peer out of a porthole and tuck a minister bib under its chin?

But if you're the sort of person who ends up watching sci-fi movies in the first place, then chances are that over-riding all will be the brute compulsion to sit there, glued to the TV tube or riveted to your seat; a compulsion to stick with it to the bitter end, to find out whether or not the blue rodents from Jupiter’s Rings do get Monique Van Vooren pregnant or if the Fish Sticks from Formalhaut will succumb to the Electrostatic Thermonator. Let‘s face it -- you have to see how the damned thing comes out.

Now, however, thanks to me, you can do just that, and without wasting another moment, by employing my remarkable Science Fiction Horror Movie Pocket Computer, a copy of which you will find reproduced on this page.

Properly used, the Science Fiction Horror Movie Pocket Computer can save you hours of unhealthy exposure to the dangerous radiations of your home set and cut short your stay in seedy cinemas.

How does it work?  Well, take it through a test run and see.



1 comment:

  1. Thanks, Dan. I've been carrying around a hard copy of Gahan Wilson's Science Fiction Horror Movie Pocket Computer since the 1970's, worried that it was the only copy left in the world. But you fixed that. Gahan Wilson was a kind of genius.

    Visualizing his notion that, "Pastor Feebley heads for the grounded saucer with a Bible under his arm, mumbling something about the Unity of All Life, and you see a creature that looks a lot like a 500-pound side order of potato salad peer out of a porthole and tuck a minister bib under its chin?" always evoked a laugh.

    Thanks so much.

    ReplyDelete