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"I don't know why I write science fiction. The voices in my head told me to!"
- Charles Stross
 |
| Trip-Box | ||
| A teleportation device. |
| "Can you come through right now?"
"Maybe." He glanced at the gleaming cage to his left. "But what's this all about?" "I'll have to tell you in person. Please reverse the transfer charges. It is important, Mr. Singer." "All right. I'll come." He moved to his trip box and began its activation. It whined faintly for an instant. Zones of color moved upward within the shafts. "Ready," he said, stepping into the unit. Looking down, he saw that his feet were growing dim. For a moment, the world was disarrayed. Then his thoughts fell back into place again. He was standing within the unit similar to his own... |
| Technovelgy from Eye of Cat,
by Roger Zelazny. Published by Pocket Books in 1982 Additional resources -
|
Another thing I like about this expression is that you can make a cool (or even "groovy") verb out of it:
Teleportation is, of course, a science fiction staple. Compare to libra-transmitter from Into the Meteorite Orbit by Frank R. Kelly, the cosmic express from The Cosmic Express by Jack Williamson, Jaunte from The Stars My Destination and the Transo from Time is the Simplest Thing by Clifford Simak.
See also Compare to the telepomp from The Man Without a Body (1877) by Edward Page Mitchell, the
displacement booth from Flash Crowd (1972) by Larry Niven, the
stepping discs from Ringworld (1970) by Larry Niven and the
trip box from Eye of Cat (1982) by Roger Zelazny.
Also, see the Transo from Time is the Simplest Thing by Clifford Simak and the geofractor (1939) from One Against the Legion by Jack Williamson.
He was nowhere on the premises, and they guessed that he had tripped out from one of the downstairs boxes.
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'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...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
