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"At its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we can't predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe."
- John Brunner
 |
| Spring-Rifle | ||
| Projectile weapon designed to be resistant to countermeasures. |
| Weapon for weapon, any thug in the back alley of a large city had more, and more modern firepower; but the trick with modern warfare was not to outgun the enemy, but carry weapons he could not gimmick. Chemical and radiation armament was too easily put out of action from a distance. Therefore, the spring-rifle with its five thousand-sliver magazine and its tiny, compact, non-metallic mechanism which could put a sliver in a man-sized target at a thousand meters time after time with unvarying accuracy." |
| Technovelgy from Dorsai!,
by Gordon R. Dickson. Published by Ace Books in 1960 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the needle pipe from Ray Cummings' 1928 novel Beyond the Stars, the
needle gun from Malcom Jameson's 1941 story Slacker's Paradise, the
maula pistol from Frank Herbert's Dune, the
needle rifle from David Gerrold's 1983 novel A Matter for Men, and the
ice dart from Bart Kosko's 1987 novel Nanotime.
Thanks to Gatomon41 for contributing this item.
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'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
'...the combined Wind-Suncatcher, like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
'I went to the control room where the three other men were manipulating their mechanical men.'
'The low-slung monorail car, straddling its single track, bored through the shadows on a slowly rising course.'
'It was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor...'
'... he thrust in his charging arm to replenish his store of energy.'
'...the terrible Jovian gravity that made each movement an effort.'
