Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
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
"There's a poetry in the materials we use to construct our world of artifacts; it speaks of our long history as a technological species."
- William Gibson
 |
| Sandtrout Glove | ||
| A living glove, formed of live creatures. |
Another of the unique creations of Frank Herbert.
| The sandtrout glove. It was the play of children. If one held a sandtrout in the hand, smoothing it over your skin, it formed a living glove. Traces of blood in the skin's capillaries could be sensed by the creatures, but something mingled with the bloods water repelled them. Sooner or later, the glove with slip off into the sand, there to be lifted into a space fiber basket. The spice sue them until they were dumped into the death still.
Ledo groped on the sand with his right hand until his fingers and countered the leathery skin of a sandtrout. It was the large one he had expected. The creature didn't try to invade him, but moved eagerly onto his flash. He explored it's outline with his free hand roughly diamond shaped. It had no head, no extremities, no eyes, yet it could find water unerringly. With the fellows you could join body to body, locking one on another by the course interlacings of extruded celia until the whole became one large sack-organism enclosing the water ... The sandtrout squirm down his hand, elongating, stretching. He felt the sandtrout becoming thin, covering more and more of his hand. No sandtrout had ever before in counter to hand such as this one, every cell supersaturated with space. No other human has ever lived before and reasoned in such a condition. Ledo felt the sandtrout growth in, spreading itself over more and more of his hand, reaching up his arm. He located another, placed it over the first one. Contact ignited a frenzied squirming in the creatures. There celia locked and they became a single membrane which enclosed him to the elbow. The sandtrout adjusted to the living glove of childhood play, but thinner and more sensitive as he lured it into the role of a skin symbiont. |
| Technovelgy from Children of Dune,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Putnam in 1976 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the equally unlikely poison-bearing invisible glove from Lies, Inc. (1964) by Philip K. Dick.
Compare, if you like, these almost entirely dissimilar items:
the hinged mittens (for space suits) from The Bluff of the Hawk (1932) by Anthony Gilmore,
the spray-on gloves from Abercrombie Station (1952) by Jack Vance,
the karatand from Stand on Zanzibar (1968) by John Brunner and the spray-on surgical glove from Altered Carbon (2003) by Richard Morgan.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Children of Dune
More Ideas
and Technology by Frank Herbert
Tech news articles related to Children of Dune
Tech news articles related to works by Frank Herbert
Sandtrout Glove-related
news articles:
- Dune Fans! Your God Emperor Is Ready
| Black Fungus Blocks Radiation |
| Lunar Biorepository Proposed For Cryo-Preservation Of Earth Species |
| Let's Make Slaver Sunflowers! Engineering Plants To Reflect Light |
| Machete-Wielding Philodendron Isn't Going To Take It Anymore |
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 Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'There was a wall ahead... It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'...support the interior human structure against Jupiter’s pull.'
'Anything larger than a BB shot it picked up and placed in a tray...'
'The German chemists have discovered how to supply the needed elements in compact, undiluted form...'
'Compounds devised by the biochemists for the rapid building of bone...'
'The car faltered as the external command came to brake...'
'It is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized...'
