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"I did more research, and realized I almost would rather be a biologist than a writer, because there was incredible stuff going on!"
- Greg Bear
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| Farcaster | ||
| A portal for traveling between distant stars; inexpensive, instantaneous travel to remote worlds. |
One of the common literary devices used to fix the problem of having your characters visit another star system; the problem being that if your characters travel in ordinary space, they will probably be dead by the time they get there.
Simmons does much more with these devices in his story; I don't want to spoil the story by revealing the details. He details very carefully how the use of this device often ruins the very thing people use farcasters to come and see; technology as simple as the interstate highway has brought our national parks to the point of closing to visitors.
| News traveled almost instantaneously through the megadatasphere of a hundred and sixty Web worlds. To scratch the curiosity itch one had only to pass a universal card across a terminex diskey and step through a farcaster. |
| Technovelgy from Hyperion,
by Dan Simmons. Published by Doubleday in 1989 Additional resources -
|
The farcaster technology was also developed by The Core, a group of disaffected artificial intelligences that effectively seceded from human space.
Compare to the gate from The Gate to Xoran (1931) by Hal K. Wells, the Invasion Gate for Aliens from Monsters of Mars (1931) by Edmond Hamilton, the gateway from Wanderer of Infinity (1933) by Harl Vincent, the Jiffy-Scuttler from Prominent Author (1954) by Philip K. Dick and the Ramsbotham Gate from Tunnel in the Sky (1955) by Robert Heinlein.
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'Space-sickness is one of the most unpleasant sensations that a human being can experience. Not all are subject to it...'
'...I saw a nice black heavy-looking cloud sailing by just now, and I can get the electrical machine out in five minutes to draw it down.'
'From a distance it could resolve the cosmic rays reflected from various substances.'
'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
'He had travelled the space-lanes of the solar system for the greater part of his life...'
'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
