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"On-line gaming environments are completely different things... Essentially it's massive global role-playing."
- Peter Watts
 |
| Saddle | ||
| A comfortable riding saddle - minus the horse. |
| They were closer now and it seemed to him that they were sitting in
invisible chairs that traveled very fast. He saw that they were humanoid, to a degree at least, and there were only three of them. They came in with a rush and stopped very suddenly a hundred feet or so from where he sat upon the steps. He didn't move or say a word -- there was nothing he could say. It was too ridiculous. They were, perhaps, a little smaller than himself, and black as the ace of spades, and they wore skin-tight shorts and vests that were somewhat oversize and both the shorts and vests were the blue of April skies. But that was not the worst of it.
 (From The Big Front Yard) They sat on saddles, with horns in front and stirrups and a sort of bedroll tied on the back, but they had no horses. The saddles floated in the air, with stirrups about three feet above the ground and the aliens sat easily in the saddles and stared at him and he stared back at them. Finally he got up and moved forward a step or two and when he did that the three swung from the saddles and moved forward, too, while the saddles hung there in the air, exactly as they'd left them. |
| Technovelgy from The Big Front Yard,
by Clifford Simak. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1959 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the flycycle from Larry Niven's 1970 novel Ringworld and the Hawking mat from Hyperion (1989) by Dan Simmons.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Big Front Yard
More Ideas
and Technology by Clifford Simak
Tech news articles related to The Big Front Yard
Tech news articles related to works by Clifford Simak
Saddle-related
news articles:
- Jet-Powered Hoverboard Works!
| Musk Idea Of Cars Talking To Each Other Predicted 70 Years Ago |
| Waymo And Tesla 'Autonomous Cabs' Are Piloted By Remote Drivers |
| Maybe It's Too Soon To Require Autonomous Mode |
| Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon |
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'There was nowhere on the planet where science and technology could not provide one with a comfortable home...'
'Most men updated their PIP on New Year's Day...'
'...a misshapen, many-tentacled thing about twice the size of a man.'
'He was in a high-ceilinged windowless cell with walls of glittering white porcelain.'
