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"The science fiction method is dissection and reconstruction. You look at the world around you, and take it apart into its components. Then you take some of those components, throw them away, and plug in different ones, start it up and see what happens."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Lunar Web | ||
| The moon ensnared by cobwebs. |
A fascinating (and fantastic!) visualization of the long afternoon of our Earth.
| The traverser, a gross vegetable-equivalent of a spider, was descending to the Tips…
The traverser was descending slowly, a great bladder with legs and jaws, fibery hair covering most of its bulk… It was like a god, with the powers of a god. It came down on a cable, floated nimbly down the strand trailing up into the sky. As far as could be seen, cables slanted up from the jungle, pointing like slender, drooping fingers to heaven… They all trailed up in the same direction, toward a floating silver half-globe, remote and cool, but clearly visible even in the glare of eternal sunshine… Unmoving, steady, the half-moon remained always in the same sector of the sky. |
| Technovelgy from Hothouse,
by Brian Aldiss. Published by Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1962 Additional resources -
|
Read the discussion about the space elevator, which has a rich history before and after the idea's treatment by sf writers.
This flight of fancy on the part of Aldiss hearkens back to the earliest stirrings of science fiction. Take a look at the entry for weightlessness and the journey of the Gansas to the moon in Francis Godwin's 1638 novel The Man in the Moone.
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Additional
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More Ideas
and Technology from Hothouse
More Ideas
and Technology by Brian Aldiss
Tech news articles related to Hothouse
Tech news articles related to works by Brian Aldiss
| SpaceX Wants A Moonbase Alpha |
| NASA Wants Self-Driving Or Remote-Controlled Vehicles For Lunar Astronauts |
| Orbital Mechanics, The Liftoff, The Turnover, The Retrograde Burn |
| Can A Human Land A SpaceX Rocket On Its Tail? |
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'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?'
'...to build up a video picture would require, say, ten million decisions every second. Mike, you're so fast I can't even think about it. But you aren't that fast.'
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
