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"I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled 'Science Fiction' and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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| Communicator | ||
| A small device that works to communicate over large distances. |
As far as I know, the first use of this expression in science fiction:
| The flying vessel had gone through the zone of feeble radiations which comprised the outer detector screen of the Fenachrone. But, though tenuous, that screen was highly efficient, and at its touch there burst into frenzied activity the communicator built by the captive to be actuated by that very impulse. |
| Technovelgy from Skylark of Valeron,
by E.E. 'Doc' Smith. Published by Astounding in 1934 Additional resources -
|
It may have dials! from One Against the Legion (1939) by Jack Williamson:
The tiny sound, peculiarly penetrating and insistent, was humming from the communicator hung by its thin chain about his neck. The Commander’s lean deliberate hands, drawing the little black disk from under his clothing, trembled slightly.
“It’s Legion Intelligence,” he told Giles Habibula. “An emergency call.”
Giles Habibula watched apprehensively as he touched the dial, whispered a code response, and lifted the little disk to his ear. The straining ears of the old Legionnaire failed to hear anything. And the face of Jay Kalam didn’t lose its grave, contained reserve. But his failure to breathe, and his frozen stiffness, betrayed enough.
“You’ve had bad news, Jay,” whispered Giles Habibula, when at last the Commander lowered the disk and broke communication. “Aye, mortal bad!”
...The Commander of the Legion found the small black disk of his communicator. His thin, trembling fingers turned the tiny dials, and tapped out a code signal. His thin lips whispered into it. Hal Samdu sat watching, his face rigid as a statue’s.
At last Jay Kalam lowered the instrument.
Compare to the Dirac transmitter from Cities in Flight (1957) by James Blish, the
comlink from Star Wars (1976) by George Lucas, the
communications disk from Exiles of the Moon (1931) by Schachner & Zagat, the
Ullran enunciator from Uller Uprising (1952) by H. Beam Piper, the
sleeve communicator from First Contact (1945) by Murray Leinster.
See also the audio relay (Robert Heinlein, 1951), the distrans (Frank Herbert, 1965) and the communications implant (Niven and Pournelle, 1981).
Km! Krrr! Km!
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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.'
