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"I don't know why I write science fiction. The voices in my head told me to!"
- Charles Stross

Repulsor Ray  
  Fires an invisible beam of electrons for propulsion.  

In our efforts to change the movement of electrons, we had found that when a stream of them was shot out in a concentrated ray, in any one direction, it produced an invisible but powerful repulsion. It was on this fact that Lantin relied to move our car in space, directing electron-streams toward the ground to raise and hold us in space, and directing other rays obliquely down toward earth, to move the car from side to side in any direction.
Technovelgy from The Time-Raider, by Edmond Hamilton.
Published by Weird Tales in 1927
Additional resources -

It really worked!

One trial we made of the car’s abilities, testing its power to move in space. Waiting until darkness concealed our trial, we entered the car and rose easily some five hundred feet above the city, the heavy car easily upheld and moved by the powerful repulsion rays. Then, circling once or twice, Lantin pointed the car east and opened up the power. A whistling gale rose outside as we rocketed across the Atlantic with tremendous speed, attaining a velocity of almost five hundred miles an hour, speeding through the atmosphere like a pointed bullet.

Compare to the ion drive from Equalizer by Jack Williamson.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Time-Raider
  More Ideas and Technology by Edmond Hamilton
  Tech news articles related to The Time-Raider
  Tech news articles related to works by Edmond Hamilton

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