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"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
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| Floating Robot | ||
| A robot that floats in mid-air. |
| There was something before him in the darkness — something hanging in mid-air in that Stygian gloom! The hair prickled erect on his scalp and his spine crawled. For there, before his aching eyes, a glow came up; a brilliant crimson glow, shot with silver flashes of incandescence. And its light revealed the most fantastic being Marshall had ever seen in any nightmare.
 ('The Floating Robot' by David Wright O'Brien) It was a nameless thing of gleaming red metal, perhaps five feet in height. It had a formless head, with odd projections that might have been eyes, but there were no eyes in them. It had metallic arms, terminating in almost human hands. It had no legs, but a round bottom almost ludicrously like an untippable salt cellar, ringed by a band of what seemed to be radioactive gold. And it floated effortlessly perhaps a foot above the floor... "I am Yolan," repeated the monster, rather querulously. "What is this world? Why have I been trapped in this dark place? I am Yolan. I am Yolan." |
| Technovelgy from The Floating Robot,
by David Wright O'Brien. Published by Fantastic Adventures in 1941 Additional resources -
|
Fans of Star Trek: The Original Series might recognize this robot:
Here's the cover for Fantastic Adventures for January, 1941.
('The Floating Robot' by David Wright O'Brien)
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Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
'... nothing was perfected until M. Pantalon announced the completion of his automatic valet.'
'...its streets were of remarkable width, with few or no buildings so high as mosques, churches, State-offices, or palaces in Tellurian cities.'
'...it was all composed of tiny, identical cubes, carefully laid to form a tilelike surface.'
