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"I kind of take it for granted that our great-grandchildren will regard us as a sort of precursor species. That they won't think of us as human and if we could see them, we probably wouldn't think of them as human either."
- William Gibson
 |
| Attractive Ray | ||
| A beam of radiation that pulls. |
This is a very early reference to what sci-fi fans have come to refer to as the "tractor beam." The term tractor beam occurs first in E.E "Doc" Smith's Spacehounds of IPC three years later.
| A spark of intense white light had suddenly broken into being on the platform beneath us, a beam of blinding light that sabbed straight up toward us, bathing the cruiser in its unearthly glow. And suddenly our ship was falling!
Sarto Sen sprang to the controls wrenched around the power-lever. "That ray!" he cried. "It's attractive! - it's pulling us down!" Our ship was vibrating now to the full force of its generators, but still we were falling... |
| Technovelgy from Crashing Suns,
by Edmond Hamilton. Published by Popular Fiction Publishing Co. in 1928 Additional resources -
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'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
'Our planes are going to start bringing in bales of discarded plastics...'
'... completely forgetting the ship at sight of the awesome figure and great head of the giant Gaut...'
'So, Ender, we will now begin your education.'
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
