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
"I was involved in a cloning project. .. to send me into outer space along with a lot of other people. Not the whole me - just a hair from my head, while I still had some. I would thus pop up in another galaxy in the distant future."
- Arthur C. Clarke
 |
| Centipede-Machine | ||
| Multi-legged transport. |
| As he spoke, the Martian official before them had uttered a hissing
call, and in answer to it a long shape of shining metal raced into
the vast hall and halted beside them. It was like a fifty-foot
centipede of metal, its scores of supporting short legs actuated by
some mechanism inside the cylindrical body. There was a
transparent-walled control room at the front end of that body, and in
it a Martian at the controls who snapped open a door from which a
metal ladder automatically descended.
The Martian official gestured with a reptilian arm toward the ladder, and Milton and Lanier and Randall moved carefully out of the cube-chamber and across the floor to it, each of their steps being made a short leap forward by the lesser gravity of the smaller planet. They climbed up into the centipede-machine's control room, their guide following, and then as the door snapped shut, the operator of the thing pulled and turned the knob in his grasp and the long machine scuttled forward with amazing smoothness and speed. In a moment it was out of the building and into the feeble sunlight of a broad metal-paved street. About them lay a Martian city, seen by their eager eyes for the first time. It was a city whose structures were giant metal cones like that from which they had just come, though none seemed as large as that titanic one. Throngs of the hideous crocodilian Martians were moving busily to and fro in the streets, while among them there scuttled and flashed numbers of the centipede-machines. |
| From Monsters of Mars,
by Edmond Hamilton. Published by Astounding Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the robass from The Quest for Saint Aquin (1951) by Anthony Boucher, the centipede from Killing Titan (2015) by Greg Bear and the walking fort from The Killing Machine (1964) by Jack Vance.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Monsters of Mars
More Ideas
and Technology by Edmond Hamilton
Tech news articles related to Monsters of Mars
Tech news articles related to works by Edmond Hamilton
| Cruise Autonomous Car Drives Aimlessly For An Hour |
| Fast Charging A Bus In 20 Seconds |
| Segway S-Pod Fulfills Dire 1928 SciFi Prophecy |
| Drone-Based Aerial Hammock |
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.
|
'A tumblebug does not give a man dignity, since it is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized on a single wheel.'
'It was time - time to go again. She touched the leaf. She was wanted.'
'It's rewiring things... squeezing silver toothpaste in a ribbon along the printed circuitry.'
'There was a heap of discarded ore where Grantline had carted and dumped it...'
'...it resembled conventional human-operated transportation vehicles, but with one exception -- there was no driver's cabin.'
