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"[Science fiction] is the one literary medium left in which we have a free hand. We can do any damn thing we please."
- Alfred Bester
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| Hydropathic bed | ||
| A heated bed that used something more comfortable than water. |
Something less sloshy than water would be a useful innovation - even though waterbeds can be outfitted with compartments or big sponges to cut down on the waves.
| He lay quietly in the hydropathic bed while his heart shuddered and his eyes focused at random on objects in the room, simulating a calm he could not feel. The walls of green jade, the nightlight in the porcelain mandarin whose head nodded interminably if you touched him, the multi-click that radiated the time of three planets and six satellites, the bed itself, a crystal pool flowing with carbonated glycerin at ninety-nine point nine Fahrenheit. |
| Technovelgy from The Demolished Man,
by Alfred Bester. Published by Vintage Books in 1952 Additional resources -
|
The only downside is that, if some of the current concerns over the availability of potable water cease to pass, you may want to have a bed you can drink from - just in case.
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Science Fiction
Timeline
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'Do not waste your priceless company on the unappreciative folds of a sleep pod...'
'...so we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
