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"This category [science fiction] excludes rocket ships that make U-turns, serpent men of Neptune that lust after human maidens, and stories by authors who flunked their Boy Scout merit badge tests in descriptive astronomy."
- Robert Heinlein
 |
| Surface Car | ||
| A specialized vehicle for traveling on a planetary surface. |
Compare this term to the more futuristic "aircar" (which first appeared in The New York Times in 1871!).
| At the landing field itself, under the blazing carbon dioxide lamps, a small man drove up in a surface car, showed an authorization to the guard, passed into the burglar-proof enclosure. |
| Technovelgy from Satellite Five,
by Arthur K. Barnes. Published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1938 Additional resources -
|
Philip K. Dick uses this, and similar ideas, in Progeny (1954):
It was a good feeling. He had felt it before, during years of business dealings in the “Colonies”, the frontier, the fringe of Terran civilization where the streets were still lit by electric lights and doors opened by hand.
Yet another of the terms like like groundcar, post-crime and static house.
ED DOYLE hurried. He caught a surface car, waved fifty credits in the robot driver’s face, mopped his florid face with a red pocket-handkerchief, unfastened his collar, perspired and licked his lips and swallowed piteously all the way to the hospital...
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Satellite Five
More Ideas
and Technology by Arthur K. Barnes
Tech news articles related to Satellite Five
Tech news articles related to works by Arthur K. Barnes
| Orb Nomad Zero-Emission Electric Aircraft |
| The Amazing Lightfoot Electric Scooter With Solar Assist |
| Leader-Follower Autonomous Vehicle Technology |
| Inmotion Electric Unicycle In Combat |
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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.'
