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"It was [H.G. Wells'] adolescent fiction, his imaginative stories, that live forever - and yet are not acknowledged in literature classes as being great literature. So to hell with the academics!"
- Greg Bear
 |
| Self-Igniter | ||
| A self-lighting cigarette. |
| Blantham stepped into the room, flung
back his cape.
“Thank you,” he said. He seated himself on the edge of a chair, extended a case. "Cigarette ?” “Thank you.” Magnus Ridolph gravely helped himself. He inhaled, frowned, took the cigarette from his lips, examined it. “Excuse me,” said Blantham, producing a lighter. “I sometimes forget. I never smoke self-igniters ; I can detect the flavor of the chemical instantly, and it annoys me.” “Unfortunate,” said Magnus Ridolph, after his cigarette was aglow. “My senses are not so precisely adjusted, and I find them extremely convenient. Now, what, can I do for you?” |
| Technovelgy from The Howling Bounders,
by Jack Vance. Published by Startling Stories in 1949 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the self-lighting cigarette from Methuselah's Children (1941) by Robert Heinlein.
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'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.'
'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'
'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
