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"Science fiction is what scientists would do if they could - if they had enough grant money, enough time, and enough brains to do the wonderful things they would like to do."
- Greg Bear
 |
| Airchair | ||
| A floating armchair. |
| Helping the thing into Gramps’ airchair, Phillipa swore. With the maintenance the ’chair required, it would’ve been cheaper to get a nerve regen. That wasn’t Gramps’ way, though — and apparently, it wasn’t going to be the lazarus’, either. A shelter Panic had put Gramps in that chair when he was still part time with the Civil Guard, and he was damned if he’d pay out good money to correct someone else’s mistake...
 (Personality-construct from ‘Killing Gramps' by Ann K. Schwader) Moments later, the lazarus’ airchair malfunctioned. From standard height, the device dropped to within a centimeter of the floor and began spinning erratically. Dumped off sideways, “Gramps” himself sprawled in an untidy heap, mumbling at random as his verbal programming choked. “The ’chair’s fritzing again,” Phillipa called to her mother. “Didn’t Gramps just have the thing serviced before he…” Abruptly, the ’chair rose to standard height again. “What’s that again, dear?” Meredith asked from the kitchen. “You know I can’t hear with the unsealer on.” Hauling the lazarus off the floor, Phillipa managed to get it seated before her mother came out. Gramps’ second-hand ’chair had evidently developed a new circuit problem triggered by the appliance. She doubted it could be fixed, though of course Meredith — and the lazarus — would insist on trying, at considerable expense. |
| Technovelgy from Killing Gramps,
by Ann K. Schwader. Published by Aboriginal Science Fiction in 1988 Additional resources -
|
Here's a more dynamic illustration:
(Armchair from 'Killing Gramps' by Ann K. Schwader)
I'm reminded of a much more elaborate variation on this idea from Foundation by Isaac Asimov:
He had been introduced to Lepold as one of a long line of introducees, and from a safe distance, for the king stood apart in lonely and impressive grandeur, surrounded by his deadly blaze of radioactive aura. And in less than an hour this same king would take his seat upon the massive throne of rhodium-iridium alloy with jewel-set gold chasings, and then, throne and all would rise maestically into the air, skim the ground slowly to hover before the great window from which the great crowds of common folk could see their king and shout themselves into near apoplexy. The throne would not have been so massive, of course, if it had not had a shielded nuclear motor built into it.
Here's an earlier example of the same idea, in a great illustration from Amazing Stories, 1929:
(Flying Chair from 'The Flying Fool' by David H. Keller (1929))
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'The pitiless M rays pierced Earth and steel and densest concrete as if they were so much transparent glass...'
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'
'Nanny is different,' Tom Fields murmured... 'she's not like a machine. She's like a person.'
'We made a crude , small cell and were delighted - and, I admit, somewhat surprised - to find it worked.'
'...we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'The clothes and jewelery drew their tiny power requirements from her movements.'
'At the end of each appendage's eight fingers there are tinier appendages...'
'We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence,' said lead researcher Katsu Takahashi.
