Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"I feel like I've been very fortunate in that I've stuck like a burr to the dog-leg of the next generation of nerdism. I've been carried into the XXIth century on Bill Gates' pants-cuff."
- William Gibson
 |
| Sentenced Man | ||
| A person who commits asocial actions and lives in society, but in reduced circumstances. |
| Then he had seen the bar. Bright lights with a fog of smoke inside, looking cheery and warm. Carl had pushed at the door, and pushed again. While the people inside had stopped talking and turned to watch him through the glass. Then he had remembered the sentence and realized the door wouldn’t open. The people inside had started laughing...
The cabs and buses wouldn’t stop for him and the subslide turnstile spat his coin back like something distasteful... Days came and went after that in a gray monotony, the calendar on the wall of his room ticking them off one by one. But not fast enough. It now read 19 years, 322 days, 8 hours, 16 minutes. Not fast enough. There was no more interest in his life. As a sentenced man there were very few things he could do in his free time. All forms of entertainment were closed to him. He could gain admittance — through a side door — to only a certain section of the library. After one futile trip there, pawing through the inspirational texts and moral histories, he never returned. |
| Technovelgy from Robot Justice,
by Harry Harrison. Published by Fantastic Universe in 1959 Additional resources -
|
Eventually, the sentenced man is able to undertake work tasks that earn him days off from his sentence, returning him to full citizenship sooner:
Compare this to Jack Vance's social credit system, called strakh. See also electronic cash from Heavy Weather (1994) by Bruce Sterling and whuffie from Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctorow, published by Tor in 2003.
"When you finish your first year of sentence — a real year of work at your assigned job — you are eligible for reduction. You may apply then for other work that carries a time premium. Dangerous jobs such as satellite repair, that take two days off your sentence for every day served. There are even certain positions in atomics that allow three days per day worked, though these are rare. In this way the sentenced man benefits himself, learns social consciousness, and benefits society at the same time. Of course this doesn’t apply to you yet.”
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Robot Justice
More Ideas
and Technology by Harry Harrison
Tech news articles related to Robot Justice
Tech news articles related to works by Harry Harrison
| California Governor Candidate Calls For Voting By Phone |
| Chinese Hospital Tries Vonnegut's 'Harrison Bergeron' Cosplay |
| A Remarkable Coincidence |
| Is It Time To Forbid Human Driving? |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'...each of them is a neural mapping of the mind of a Tibetan monk who actually lived.'
'...there's a narrow belt where the climate is moderate.'
'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain, through the mediation of the electronic brain in the leg.'
'... every veephone on the continent would display, over and over, two propositions.'
'Completely silent, accurate up to about twenty meters. No recoil...'
'He wore spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.'
