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"The SF approach: an awareness that things could have been different, that this is one of many possible worlds, that if you came to this world from some other planet, this would be a science fiction world."
- Neal Stephenson
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| Telebook | ||
| A book made available in text on a television screen. |
| They turned the pages, which were yellow and crinkly... and then, when they turned back to the page before, it had the same words on it...
"Gee," said Tommy. "What a waste. When you're through with the book, you just throw it away, I guess. Our television screen must have had a million books on it and its good for plenty more. I wouldn't throw it away. "Same with mine," said Margie. She was eleven and hadn't seen as many telebooks as Tommy had. |
| Technovelgy from The Fun They Had,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Children's Magazine in 1951 Additional resources -
|
This is not quite the same as an electronic book; but it does pretty effectively predict the existence of services like the Gutenberg project, which has many thousands of books onscreen in text form.
Take a look at the description of tanks from Murray Leinster's 1946 short story A Logic Named Joe. It specifically mentions the idea of a central repository that can find requested information and then display it on a screen (a "logic or vision-receiver) at your own home.
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Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
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'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
