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"The science fiction method is dissection and reconstruction. You look at the world around you, and take it apart into its components. Then you take some of those components, throw them away, and plug in different ones, start it up and see what happens."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Sun-Engine | ||
| A device that absorbs solar rays for power. |
Earliest use of this particular phrase.
| Curwood turned away, lips tight. He forced himself to take note of the surroundings. The buildings around were of a strange, ornate architecture. Toward the center line of the valley, where the sunlight was strongest, were the huge machines he had vaguely seen through the visor of his air-helmet during his first descent into the Blue Mist. Mirrored and skeletal, they seemed to be some sort of sun-engine. Thin vanes within glass spheres began already to rotate as the sun’s rays poured into them. |
| Technovelgy from Valley of Lost Souls,
by Eando Binder. Published by Amazing Stories in 1939 Additional resources -
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Compare to the sun plant (solar motor) from The Lotus-Engine by Raymond Z. Gallun, published by Super Science Stories in 1940.
See also the power planet from Power Planet (1931) by Murray Leinster, the near-space solar energy collector from Star Maker (1937) by Olaf Stapledon, the solar energy beam from Masquerade (1941) by Clifford Simak and the solar station from Isaac Asmov's 1941 story Reason.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Valley of Lost Souls
More Ideas
and Technology by Eando Binder
Tech news articles related to Valley of Lost Souls
Tech news articles related to works by Eando Binder
| China Steals Strato Airship Design From Google App Engine |
| Biohybrid Jellyfish Explore The Ocean |
| 3D-Printed Exoskeleton Learns From Your Hand |
| Smartwatch Powered By Slime Mold |
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Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
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'This was their world, their planet — this swift-traveling, yet seemingly moveless vessel.'
'Gaines and Harvey mounted tumblebugs, and kept abreast of the Cadet Captain...'
Accompanied by a small selection of similar ideas from science fiction.
'...war-balloons, or, as it would be more correct to call them, navigable aerostats.'
