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"I never saw why I had to give up science in order to write, or the other way around, so I didn't!"
- Gregory Benford
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| Dropshaft | ||
| An elevator shaft with no elevator - the "lift" is from gravity or suppressed inertia. |
As far as I know, the first use of this term, although the idea had been sketched out earlier (see below).
| The Pyrotic let the dropshaft lower him, and he found the lifescoot some time later. |
| Technovelgy from Deeper Than the Darkness,
by Harlan Ellison. Published by Infinity Science Fiction in 1957 Additional resources -
|
See the entry for drop shaft from Galactic Patrol (1937) by Doc Smith. Smith has all the words, but doesn't create the phrase.
Compare to bounce tube from Robert Heinlein's 1956 juvenile Double Star.
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and Technology from Deeper Than the Darkness
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Tech news articles related to works by Harlan Ellison
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'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
