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"One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection."
- Arthur C. Clarke
 |
| Lift Chair | ||
| A single occupant lifted by great birds. |
The basic idea was used about three hundred years earlier.
| ...Xanten constrained six Birds to a lift chair, directed them first on a wide sweep around the castle, then south to Far Valley.
The Birds aired their usual complaints, then bounded down the deck in great ungainly hops which threatened to throw Xanten immediately to the pavement. At last gaining the air, they flew up in a spiral, Castle Hagedorn became an intricate miniature far below...
 (The Lift Chair from 'The Last Castle' by Jack Vance) Xanten indicated where he wished to alight; the Birds... set Xanten down so roughly that had he not been alert the shock would have pitched him head over heels. |
| Technovelgy from The Last Castle,
by Jack Vance. Published by Del Rey in 1967 Additional resources -
|
One of the very first novels that could reasonably be called science fiction, the 1638 work The Man in the Moone by Francis Godwin, featured a trip into space courtesy of Gansas, great birds that lifted a small craft upwards.
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Science Fiction
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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.'
