Dec 08
The Tim’s Art Direction: Okay, start with a monster with an improbably wide rear stance. Throw in some terrified citizens in jumpsuits. Now throw some rubble flying in impossible directions in there for good measure.
Published 1980
Rear cover here.
Many thanks to… The Tim!
December 8th, 2010 at 9:53 am
From the back cover blurb:
“It was four hundred massive kilos of violence, savagery and hatred.”
That’s base slander, sir! I assure you that Rush Limbaugh weighs only three hundred and eighty kilos.
December 8th, 2010 at 9:53 am
Piserchia. How do you pronounce that? OK, thanks.
Fluger. How do you pronounce that? OK, thanks.
December 8th, 2010 at 9:57 am
Woman in red dress: “What a cute kittie! Let me cuddle yAAAGHHH!!”
Man in blue jumpsuit: “What a rotten time for my hernia to act up AAGGHH!!”
Man in purple jumpsuit (on ground): “Damn it, I can’t find my contact lens GAACKKK!!”
December 8th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
Does that Fluger (rhymes with “cougar”, not “Flubber”) have an ossified wattle?
December 8th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
That sounds like the type of word you’d make.
“Ahhh Fluger… that monster has burst right through my bloody wall!”
December 8th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
I’ll bet you that “invincible” monster is defeated by some kid in a wheelchair who tosses a glass of water at it….
December 8th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
In the future, everyone must ensure to wear a different set of colored clothing.
December 8th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Ha! That is my book. My buddy Tim was over at my house for my birthday and told me about this website and how I needed to get this picture up there.
I bought it years ago when I first googled my name and found out there was a book with my surname as the title.
The book is even worse than the title however. Almost incomprehensible.
Finally, yes, “fluger” rhymes with “cougar”. 🙂
December 8th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
I was hoping the Fluger was French, “Le Fleu-zhay”.
December 8th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
“Never before in paperback” says the back cover. And never again, say I.
Costumes: the male characters are so wearing the same jumpsuits as in classic Star Trek (remember the miners in the Horta episode?) And the lady clearly bought her dress from the same dressmaker as http://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/2010/11/clash-of-star-kings/
December 9th, 2010 at 9:53 am
First thought that came to mind: Oh no! The yellow brick road monster is getting back at Dorothy!
March 10th, 2011 at 8:12 pm
“Oh yeah!”
It’s Kool-Aid man…!
-Cheer the frightening property damage for he brings a cheap food coloring for glasses full of sugar and water! Family friendly and Reverend Jim Jones approved:-)
No! It’s a horrible monster! Aieeeee!!!!
August 25th, 2015 at 1:43 am
All right, who animated the Mayan sphinx statue?
November 14th, 2015 at 4:07 pm
‘It was four hundred massive kilos of violence, savagery and hatred. But it could only filter plankton through its soft, stiff, bristle-like teeth into its fist-sized throat.’
November 14th, 2015 at 5:05 pm
Man: “Time to take out the fluger! Let’s kick some butt!”
Woman: “Take out what?”
Man: “The fluger!”
Woman: “What’s a ‘fluger’?”
Man: “What do you mean ‘what’s a fluger’? I told you to bring it!”
Woman: “Do you guys know what a ‘fluger’ is?”
The others: “We’ve never heard of it before. Look, we have to move. That thing looks hungry.”
Woman: “Well, I didn’t bring it because I don’t know what it is either!”
Man: “The gun! You know, the fluger.”
Woman: “You mean a ‘luger’?”
Man: “Yeah, well… Whatever. Did you bring it?”
Woman: “Of course not! You didn’t tell me to bring it!”
June 4th, 2021 at 3:16 pm
King Caesar goes postal after one too many salad jokes.
June 4th, 2021 at 3:37 pm
Surely you remember the Fluger? A big dance-craze from 1965. The Capitols and Pigmeat Markham both did cash-in singles.
June 4th, 2021 at 4:20 pm
Phil@10: What Kirk, Spock, and McCoy failed to take into account was that the Horta was merely the larval stage.
June 4th, 2021 at 4:32 pm
“Say, I know you’re a monster out to kill us and all, but who does your eyes? They’re fabulous!”
June 4th, 2021 at 4:48 pm
Auditions for the new Kool-Aid mascot began briskly.
June 5th, 2021 at 1:49 am
Did poor Doris ever get a decent cover for one of her books?
If that’s the “good” monster which has been set to catch another… how horrible must the other monster be? Worse than a 400-kilo Mayan dragon?
@NomadUK: Time for the Star Trek fighting music!
June 5th, 2021 at 3:32 am
@GSS ex-noob: nah, that’s the bad monster. I read that many a year ago, and the “good” monster was pretty lame, or at least my younger self thought so.
Interestingly it came out the same year as “The Spinner” https://www.goodshowsir.co.uk/?p=12649 : I guess it was Pischeria’s monster year. (BTW, she’s actually still alive as of last wikipedia update at 92, although she hasn’t published since 1983).
I can’t recall any covers that weren’t at least sort of goofy, although some were more competently drawn.
June 5th, 2021 at 1:46 pm
Does anyone know how to set a monster? I have to reset mine every time the power goes out.
June 6th, 2021 at 2:54 am
“Mother-Fluger!”
(Sorry)
Here’s a few more Pischeria covers:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/34/ec/4a/34ec4a5cc9a21800ce732ef8167f1430.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e1/8f/9c/e18f9c363c49d855b811c782ed66c1b9.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/4b/a6/6d/4ba66dc56f6104fbfeb0bc0b4348ecbf–science-fiction-book-covers.jpg
June 6th, 2021 at 2:56 am
@Bruce: So that’s presumably the fluger. Huh.
I guess it’s as much a fluger as anything else is.
Not to be confused with “fruger”, which is someone who does the frug. Although the fluger might have interrupted the frug, if the jumpsuited people are in a disco.
June 6th, 2021 at 3:14 am
Another star trek parallel: the setting is a luxurious floating city, while the groundlings apparently have it tough.
June 6th, 2021 at 8:36 pm
A review and the back cover (bottom of page).
https://www.forfemfan.com/home/2020/5/24/the-fluger-by-doris-piserchia
@GSS 21: It depends on your definition of decent.
http://www.digitalmediatree.com/tommoody/piserchiacovers1/thumbnails/
June 7th, 2021 at 1:36 am
I keep wanting to have this turn out to be “the flying fickle fluger of fate”.
@fred: so the answer is a resounding no.
June 7th, 2021 at 4:20 am
@fred: that looks like an early Wayne Barlowe monster on the “Earth in Twilight” cover (a book, BTW, which seems to be a knockoff of Brian Aldiss’s “Hothouse” or
“The Long Afternoon of Earth.”)