Preview by Frank Belknap Long
Preview by Frank Belknap Long is a science fiction short story written in the mid-20th century. It probes the uneasy boundary between cinematic illusion and alien surveillance, suggesting that a simple movie preview can become a conduit for otherworldly intrusion. A suave publicist, Mr. Scanlon, gathers critics for a private screening to showcase Stella, a star he touts as a radically “stripped” realist. The film opens as an impeccably authentic Western, then
reality buckles: a tentacled being crosses the screen, the landscape shifts, and Stella herself transforms into a blue-green, many-limbed creature. In the theater, Scanlon vanishes without a trace. The narration then withholds explanation, revealing that a week later saucer-faring beings descend and erase from humanity’s minds the treasured knowledge of Earth—obliterating any memory of the preview and its warning. The tale leaves a stark hint that the screening was watched, perhaps staged, by alien observers, and that human imagination invited their gaze. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Long, Frank Belknap, 1903-1994 |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Emshwiller, Ed, 1925-1990 |
| Title | Preview |
| Original Publication | New York: King-Size Publications, Inc., 1955. |
| Series Title | Produced from Fantastic Universe, January 1956 (Vol. 4, No. 6). |
| Credits | Tom Trussel (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature |
| Subject | Science fiction |
| Subject | Short stories |
| Subject | Motion pictures -- Fiction |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 78072 |
| Release Date | Feb 28, 2026 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 5161 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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