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"A science fiction story is a story built around human beings, with a human problem and a human solution, which would not have happened at all without its scientific content."
- Theodore Sturgeon
 |
| Personal Capsule | ||
| An impenetrable device containing information for your eyes only. |
| "…so they sent me out after you with this."
The tiny, gleaming sphere changed hands, and Gorm added, "It's confidential. Super-secret. Can't be trusted to the sub-ether and all that. Or So I gather. At least its a Personal Capsule, and won't open for anyone but you." Ponyets regarded the capsule… It opened in his hand and the thin, transparent tape unrolled stiffly. His eyes swept the message quickly, for when the last of the tape had emerged, the first was already brown and crinkled. In a minute and a half it had turned black and, molecule by molecule, fallen apart. Ponyets grunted hollowly, "Oh, Galaxy!" |
| From Foundation,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Doubleday in 1951 Additional resources -
|
Compare to Frank Herbert's message cylinder from his 1965 novel Dune and the Argento-Platinoid Dispatch Box from Schachner and Zagat's 1931 story Venus Mines, Incorporated.
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'A worker replaced by a nubot... had to be compensated.'
'... forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to regrow his lost fingers.'
'The car surged and lifted, clearing its top by a negligible margin.'
Science fiction authors are serious about sleep, too.
'I had explained," said Nessus, "that our civilisation was dying in its own waste heat.'
'Just what did I want Flexible Frank to do? - any work a human being does around a house.'
SF writers have thought about this since the 19th century.
