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"This category [science fiction] excludes rocket ships that make U-turns, serpent men of Neptune that lust after human maidens, and stories by authors who flunked their Boy Scout merit badge tests in descriptive astronomy."
- Robert Heinlein
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| Needle-Ray | ||
| Very thin beam of destruction. |
This is an early version of this idea.
| He spun a couple of wheels briefly, pressed a switch, and from the Violet's heaviest needle-ray projector there flashed out against the prow of the scout patrol a pencil of incredibly condensed destruction. |
| Technovelgy from Skylark of Valeron,
by E.E. 'Doc' Smith. Published by Astounding in 1934 Additional resources -
|
Used just a few years later by Nat Schachner in Reverse Universe (1936):
Talbot’s hand darted down toward his belt where his needle ray dangled, stopped with a jerk. A half dozen projectors were trained on him, ready to blast him out of existence.
They came on with a rush, filling the tiny conning tower with their hulking, unwashed bodies. Flame projectors snouted in their grubby fingers — weapons that should have been under seal in the arms compartment — and hatred glared from their half-mad eyes.
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Tech news articles related to Skylark of Valeron
Tech news articles related to works by E.E. 'Doc' Smith
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Science Fiction
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'He was in a high-ceilinged windowless cell with walls of glittering white porcelain.'
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors...'
'The robant and the tiny old woman entered the control room slowly...'
'Guy named Otto Octavius winds up with eight limbs... What are the odds?'
'It is as you thought when you constructed the time crystal, my master Vaylan.'
'This was their world, their planet — this swift-traveling, yet seemingly moveless vessel.'
