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"Science fiction operates a little bit like science itself, in principle. You've got thousands of people exploring ideas, putting forth their own hypotheses. Most of them are dead wrong; a few stand the test of time; everything looks kind of quaint in hind"
- Peter Watts
 |
| Aero Bus (Flying Bus) | ||
| A flying bus. |
Sometimes referred to as a "flying bus" also called a "street airplane".
| When they next met it was by chance, in a street aeroplane. The aero was full, and they didn't take much notice of each other till something went wrong with the machinery and they were falling street-wards, probably on the top of that unfortunate shop, Swan and Edgar's. In that dizzy moment the Minister swayed towards Kitty and said, "Relax the body and don't protrude the tongue," and then the crash came.
They only grazed Swan and Edgar's, and came down in Piccadilly, amid a crowd of men who scattered like a herd of frightened sheep. No one was much hurt (street aeros were carefully padded and springed, against these catastrophes), but Kitty chanced to strike the back of her head and to be knocked silly. It was only for a moment, and when she recovered consciousness the Minister was bending over her and whispering, "She's killed. She's killed. Oh God." "Not at all," said Kitty, sitting up, very white. "It takes quite a lot more than that." |
| Technovelgy from What Not: A Prophetic Comedy,
by Rose Macaulay. Published by London Constable And Company Ltd. in 1918 Additional resources -
|
Here are the rules:
Then a picture:
"If you hope to achieve safety in a street aero
(1) Do not alight before the aero does.
(2) Do not attempt to jump up into an aero in motion."
"A will be killed because he is standing immediately beneath a descending aero bus.
B will be killed because he and others like him have shaken the nerve of the aviator."
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More Ideas
and Technology from What Not: A Prophetic Comedy
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and Technology by Rose Macaulay
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Tech news articles related to works by Rose Macaulay
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Science Fiction
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'There was a wall ahead... It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'...support the interior human structure against Jupiter’s pull.'
'Anything larger than a BB shot it picked up and placed in a tray...'
'The German chemists have discovered how to supply the needed elements in compact, undiluted form...'
'Compounds devised by the biochemists for the rapid building of bone...'
'The car faltered as the external command came to brake...'
'It is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized...'
