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"SF looks towards an imaginary future, while fantasy, by and large, looks towards an imaginary past."
- Frederik Pohl
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| General Bodies Tortoise | ||
| A passenger vehicle genetically engineered from tortoise DNA and controlled by implanted electronics. |
| Nick had opened the garage door that morning and led the Tortoise out for relief from the heat. Now the family vehicle was waiting in the drive, shaded by nearby trees. Nick had bought it when he was in college and single. It had been young then, with the passenger compartment in the shell just big enough, in a squeeze, for two... As advertised, the Tortoise had grown too, maturing from the sportscar stage to coupe. Eventually, timed by gengineers like Emily to match a family's growth, it would gain the capacity of a station wagon.
...The gengineers had given it size and speed, and a cavity beneath the shell. The General Bodies shops had fitted a windshield, side windows, and doors, installed plush seats, added headlights and taillights, and wired the controls into the Tortoise's nervous system. |
| Technovelgy from Sparrowhawk,
by Thomas A. Easton. Published by Ace Books in 1990 Additional resources -
|
See also the entry for Roachster from the same book.
Compare to Robert Heinlein's Steel Tortoise, the original all-terrain vehicle.
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'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
'...the combined Wind-Suncatcher, like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
'I went to the control room where the three other men were manipulating their mechanical men.'
'The low-slung monorail car, straddling its single track, bored through the shadows on a slowly rising course.'
'It was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor...'
'... he thrust in his charging arm to replenish his store of energy.'
'...the terrible Jovian gravity that made each movement an effort.'
