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"Science fiction has gotten more accurate as we've gotten closer to the present, because science fiction stories have not only attracted, but also generated current scientists."
- Larry Niven
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| Floater (Vehicle) | ||
| A gentle conveyance distinguished primarily by antigravity power. |
As far as I know the first real use of this term in science fiction, although the word is used earlier in Nowlan's Armageddon—2419 A.D. published in 1927 to refer to devices that let individuals float in mid-air.
| A dark shadow drifted slowly across the room, and they turned to see a five-passenger floater sinking slowly, gently, to Earth. The nude figures about the pool below were scampering from beneath it. It landed gently, as, all about the city, other floaters were landing gently, but surely, despite the efforts of human occupants.
As the one below landed, there was a soft boom, and a sharp hiss, a cry of surprise and fear as half a dozen people. crowded into the little machine, tumbled out. Then more cracklings, a few snapping sparks, then silence. |
| Technovelgy from The Machine,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1935 Additional resources -
|
Another quote, this time from Installment Plan (1959) by Clifford Simak:
One instant it was floating level, a thousand feet above the ground, descending gently, with its cargo stacked upon it and the riding robots perched atop the cargo. The next instant it tilted as first one motor failed and then a second one. The load of cargo spilled and the riding robots with it. The floater, unbalanced, became a screaming wheel, spinning crazily, that whipped in a tightening, raging spiral down upon the base.
THE mishap came at dusk, as the last floater was settling down above the cargo dump, the eight small motors flickering bluely in the twilight.
(Floater in 'Installment Plan' by Clifford Simak)
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'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
