Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"I was driving a dynamite truck when I was 14 years old in North Carolina."
- Harlan Ellison
 |
| Master Ventriloquism Corporation (MV) | ||
| A central source of product advertising, commercials sent out to every product. |
Most products sold in America had product advertisements issuing directly from the package!
| Fascinating, those huge batteries of machines pouring out their messages to the American people. It seemed to him almost miraculous, the way the commercials were broadcast into thin air and picked up by the tiny discs embedded in the bottle or can or box or whatever wrapping contained the product, but he knew it involved some sort of electronic process that he couldn’t understand. Such an incredibly complex process, yet unfailingly accurate! He had never heard of the machines making a mistake; never, for instance, had they thrown a shoe polish commercial so that it came out of a hair tonic bottle. |
| Technovelgy from Captive Audience,
by Anne Warren Griffith. Published by Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1953 Additional resources -
|
This brief excerpt describes the life of a typical consumer in her home:
While washing the dishes. Mavis was deciding what dessert to prepare. She’d bought several new ones the day before, and now they all sounded so good she couldn’t make up her mind which to use first. The commercial for the canned apple pie ingredients was a little playlet, about a husband coming home at the end of a long hard day, smelling the apple pie, rushing out to the kitchen, sweeping his wife off her feet, kissing her and saying, “That’s my girl!” It sounded promising to Mavis, especially when the announcer said any housewife who got to work right this minute and pre- pared that apple pie could be almost certain of getting that reaction from her husband.
Then there was a cute jingle from the devil’s-food cake mix, sung by a trio of girls’ voices with a good swing band in the background. If she’d made the mistake of buying only one box, it said, she ought to go out and buy another before she started baking because one of these luscious devil’s-food cakes would not be enough for her hungry family. It was peppy and made Mavis feel better. She checked her shelves and, finding she had only one box, jotted it down on her shopping list.
On this hopeful note her thinking ended, for the soap powder box cried out, “Good morning. Mother! What say we go after those breakfast dishes and give our hands a beauty treatment at the same time.'’ You know. Mother, no other soap gives you a beauty treatment while you wash your dishes. Only So-Glow, So-Glow, right here on your shelf, waiting to help So let’s begin, shall we?”
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Captive Audience
More Ideas
and Technology by Anne Warren Griffith
Tech news articles related to Captive Audience
Tech news articles related to works by Anne Warren Griffith
| Has Elon Musk Given Up On Mars? |
| 'They Erased My Memory' Says Ariana Grande |
| 'Spikeless' Brand Swizzle Stick Detects Spiked Drinks |
| Musk Proposes Sites For Martian Cities |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
