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
"It was my preferred entertainment when I was a kid, so when I set out to be a writer, it was perfectly natural that I should write the sort of stories that I used to enjoy reading."
- John Brunner
 |
| Virtual world metaphor | ||
| use of fanciful imagery to represent real-world data systems in a virtual world. |
| Mr. Slippery followed Erythrina down narrow paths, deeper and deeper into the swamp that represented commercial and government data space. Occasionally he was aware of sprites or simulators watching them with hostile eyes from nests off to the sides of the trail. These were idle creations in many cases – program units designed to infuriate or amuse later visitors to the plane. But many of them guarded information caches, or peepholes into other folks affairs, or meeting places of other SIGs.
Light came up from the water itself, a Pearly luminescence that shown upward on the trunks of the water bound trees and sparkled faintly in the droplets of water in their moss and leaves. That light was the representation of the really huge databases run by the government and the largest companies. It did not correspond to a specific geographical location, but rather to the main east west net that stretches through selected installations from Honolulu to Oxford, taking advantage of the time zones to spread the user load. |
| Technovelgy from True Names,
by Vernor Vinge. Published by Dell Binary Star in 1981 Additional resources -
|
Compare this to the use of similar imagery in William Gibson's 1984 novel Neuromancer. Also, compare Vinge's idea to the rifle range from the 1963 novel Way Station by Clifford Simak, the virtual reality from the 1982 novel The Judas Mandala by Damien Broderick and the virtual reality construct from the 1966 novel The Age of the Pussyfoot by Frederik Pohl.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from True Names
More Ideas
and Technology by Vernor Vinge
Tech news articles related to True Names
Tech news articles related to works by Vernor Vinge
| Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness? |
| Jetson Orin Nano Super 70 Just $249 |
| Automatic Bot Traffic Is 38 Percent Of HTTP Requests |
| Neuroplatform Human Brain Organoid Bioprocessor Uses Less Electricity |
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
'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
