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"the [science fiction] writer should be able to convince the reader (and himself) that the wonders he is describing really can come true...and that gets tricky when you take a good, hard look at the world around you."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Anacronopete (Time Machine) | ||
| A flying electric-powered time machine. |
Before H.G. Wells, there was Enrique Gaspar! Who described an "Anacronópete", which can be translated as "the time machine" or literally as "that which flies against time."
 ('An immense crystal disk... allowed the travellers to contemplate the scenery') The Time Machine, as we have said, had a type of basement above which rested the floor of the hold. Steps embedded in the thick walls led to a large door, the vehicle's only entrance. This was rectangular in shape. Standing in the corners were four imposing tubes, the exhaust pipes that, with their openings twisted toward the four cardinal points, looked like enormous blunderbusses bent to resemble the number seven... An immense crystal disk, brushed by each puff of wind, allowed the travellers to contemplate the scenery from inside with the aid of powerful optical instruments and to correct the ship's heading while en route. |
| Technovelgy from El Anacronopete,
by Enrique Gaspar. Published by Not Known in 1887 Additional resources -
|
Thanks to Mundungus for pointing this item out.
Compare to the time machine from The Time Machine (1895) by HG Wells, the Dutch clock from The Clock That Went Backward (1881) by Edward Page Mitchell, precogs from The Minority Report (1956) by Philip K. Dick, the chronoscope from Legion of Time (1938) by Jack Williamson, and the time-telespectroscope from The Exile of Time (1931) by Ray Cummings.
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