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"Does it open a new horizon for my thinking? Does it lead me to think new kinds of thoughts, that I would not otherwise perhaps have thought at all? These qualities are what [make] science fiction ...unique."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Automaton Chess Master | ||
| A man-shaped device that plays flawless chess. |
| One of this nation of mighty conjurors created a man out of brass and wood, and leather, and endowed him with such ingenuity that he would have beaten at chess all the race of mankind, with the exception of the great Caliph, Haroun Alraschid. |
| Technovelgy from The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade,
by Edgar Allen Poe. Published by Godey's Lady's Book in 1845 Additional resources -
|
Poe here is writing about the Mechanical Turk, first displayed in 1770. It presented the public with an astonishing automaton playing chess, but which in reality concealed a chess master in its lower cavity, moving pieces with levers and magnets.
Compare to the automaton chess player from Moxon's Master (1911) by Ambrose Bierce.
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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.'
