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"Science Fiction is speculative fiction in which the author takes as his first postulate the real world as we know it, including all established facts and natural laws."
- Robert Heinlein
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| Infiltrators | ||
| Surveillance devices, small and insectile. |
| As he drew the fission bomb out, he saw, on Larson's sleeve, a shiny metal bug; it clung there, riding along, its antennae quivering. For a moment Barris thought, It's an insect. Some natural life form that brushed against him when he was above ground, in the forest.
The shiny metal bug flew up into the air. He heard the high-frequency whine as it passed him, and knew it then. A tiny hammer, a version of the basic type. For observation. It had been aware of him from the moment Larson encountered him. Seeing him staring at the bug as it zipped away from them, Larson said, "Another one. There's been one hanging around me all day. It was clinging to my work smock for a while." He added, "Vulcan 3 uses them for relaying messages. I've seen a number of them around. |
| Technovelgy from Vulcan's Hammer,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Ace Books in 1960 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the scarab robot flying insect from The Scarab (1936) by Raymond Z. Gallun, the commercial fly from The Simulacra (1964) by Philip K. Dick and the blurbflies from Nymphomation (2000) by Jeff Noon.
Thanks to SFFaudio for pointing this out.
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Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
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2000's 2010's
'Nemourlon armor of reasonable weight resists penetration by most fragments and any bullet that is not both reasonably heavy and fairly high-velocity.'
'Several thousand of them formed the positioning grid on the rubble pile.'
'Its slack walls tightened, bulged, were crossed by ripples and waves of movement.'
'Norman... had never ridden any motorized device that lacked onboard steering and balance systems.'
You will note that HG Wells also figured out the aspect ratio of the future!
'As though a switch had been turned off, the pain stopped...'
'At the ringside opposite them a table had been removed to make room for a large transparent plastic capsule on wheels.'
'... he realized that the moving thing inside was - of course - a robot.'
