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"I don't know why I write science fiction. The voices in my head told me to!"
- Charles Stross
 |
| Robot Fish (Metal Fish) | ||
| Fake flounders for sport fishermen on Martian canals. |
Earliest use of the idea of a "robot fish", as far as I know.
| Deveet’s line tightened. He pulled in a streamlined, flapping object from which the light glistened wetly. “Good catch,” complimented Jonner. “That’s worth a full credit.” Deveet unhooked his catch and laid it on the bank beside him. It was a metal fish: live fish were unknown on Mars. They paid for the privilege of fishing for a certain time and any fish caught were “sold” back to the management at a fixed price, depending on size, to be put back into the lake. “You’re pretty good at it,” said Jonner. “That’s your third tonight.” “It’s all in the speed at which you reel in your line,” explained Deveet. “The fish move at pre-set speeds. They’re made to turn and catch a hook that moves across their path at a slightly slower speed than they’re swimming. The management changes the speeds once a week to keep the fishermen from getting too expert.” |
| Technovelgy from Atom Drive,
by Charles Fontenay. Published by If in 1956 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the robofish from Slow Life by Michael Swanwick.
At Kokomo Joe’s a 1989 story by Brooke Stauffer, contains the actual phrase:
The waves was twinklin’ in the sunshine and there was flyin’ fish around the bow thick as crickets. Once one of ’em jumped too high and landed on deck. I went to throw it back but then I seen it was busted open an’ there was wires and things sticking out of the hole. A robot fish, who’d of thought it? But there was real ones too!
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Atom Drive
More Ideas
and Technology by Charles Fontenay
Tech news articles related to Atom Drive
Tech news articles related to works by Charles Fontenay
Robot Fish (Metal Fish)-related
news articles:
- Ultra-Realistic Robotic Arowana Robo-Fish
| It's A Giant Robot! You Reporters Have Been Warned! |
| Tactile Skin Supplier Map |
| Robot Bees 3D Printed By Festo |
| DIY Robot Scorpion Crushes It |
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'... completely forgetting the ship at sight of the awesome figure and great head of the giant Gaut...'
'So, Ender, we will now begin your education.'
'What strange sensitivity! What an amazing development of science was manifested in every move and act and word of this Robot!'
'Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair or to perch on a flagpole in imitation of a giant bird, even in the windy city of Chicago.'
'The thirty-odd miles of The Factory’s circumference...'
'Wandering mines, you took them out on the edge of the desert, set them down and activated them.'
'Once in the very first weeks of the war, before everyone had been evacuated from the surface...'
