Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"If you turn away from the natural gifts that God has given you, or the universe has given you, you're going to grow old too soon."
- Ray Bradbury
 |
| Ghostwheel | ||
| A sentient computer partially built with magic. |
| The pace of events was accelerated even more after that. A crude
attempt at knocking off most of the family with a thrown bomb was made the
next day, following Caine's funeral. The would-be assassin escaped. Later,
Random was upset at a brief demonstration on my part of the power of the
Ghostwheel, my pet project, my hobby, my avocation during those years at
Grand Design. Ghostwheel is a-well, it started out as a computer that
required a different set of physical laws to operate than those I'd learned
in school. It involved what might be called magic. But I found a place where
it could be built and operated, and I'd constructed it there. It was still
programming itself when I'd left it. It seemed to have gone sentient, and I
think it scared Random. He ordered me to go and turn it off. I didn't much
like the idea, but I departed. I was followed in my passage through Shadow; I was harassed, threatened and even attacked. I was rescued from a fire by a strange lady who later died in a lake. I was protected from vicious beasts by a mysterious individual and saved from a bizarre earthquake by the same person-who turned out to be Luke. He accompanied me to the final barrier, for a confrontation with Ghostwheel. My creation was a bit irritated with me and banished us by means of a shadow-storm-a thing it is not fun to be caught in, with or without an umbrella. I delivered us from the vicissitudes by means of one of the Trumps of Doom, as I'd dubbed the odd pasteboards from Julia's apartment. |
| From Blood of Amber,
by Roger Zelazny. Published by Arbor House in 1986 Additional resources -
|
Thanks to twitter friends for suggesting this!
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Blood of Amber
More Ideas
and Technology by Roger Zelazny
Tech news articles related to Blood of Amber
Tech news articles related to works by Roger Zelazny
| Tetraplegics Dominate Avatar Races |
| IBM's Grain Of Sand Computer |
| Can An Entire Brain Be Simulated In A Computer? |
| Illustris: The Next Generation Of Universe Simulation |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'...lifted themselves to skimming flight upon whirling helicopters."
'Twenty rocket tugs towed it from its Earth hangar out into space.'
I don't need it to go fast, it just needs to amble along.
'The program raced up the screen one scan line at a time, subtly smoothing, deleting and coloring.'
'... a sound tape to supply the noise'
'The spotter descends, and we think it searches the vicinity, looking for the victim's face...'
