Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"I love that computer science has made mathematics into something like an experimental science. I was never all that good at proving things, but I love doing computer experiments."
- Rudy Rucker
 |
| Power-skis | ||
| Just the accoutrement for exploration, depending on the world. |
| JOAN strapped on her power-skis and straightened up. Behind her Dome Kappa gleamed in the milky sunshine, a great bubble reflecting the feeble sunshine and the white, cloud-furrowed sky. In front of her her husband stood erect on a low hill, impermasuit shining silver, heat-gun slung over his shoulder, a tall, gallant figure facing the sinister desolation of an untamed planet . . . “Damn showoff” Joan growled, skiing laboriously toward him.
“What?” said a polite, arrogant voice in her earpiece. She had forgotten they were hooked up. “I said let’s be off.”
 (Power Skis from 'Selection' by Ursula K. Le Guin) “Right!” he said, and vanished. He had grown up in Dome Beta, near the so-called Alps, where they did a lot of skiing just for pleasure. Jaw set, teeth locked, Joan labored after him, her skis constantly trying to shoot out from under her and raising all around her great clouds of bacterial dust, through which she now and then saw his bright figure skimming on ahead. |
| Technovelgy from Selection,
by Ursula Le Guin. Published by Amazing Stories in 1964 Additional resources -
|
She continues:
But there he was, not fifteen feet from her. She circled back, cut her ski-power, and bent over him. He lay sprawled head downward on a slope, and she could make out in the dark grey twilight what had spilled him : coming over the crest of the slope he had skied down onto a stretch of naked rock, where a big patch of one of the virulent native phages had cleared away all other life and then died of starvation, leaving a few meters bare of snow for a day or two.
Compare to moon skis from Requiem (1940) by Robert Heinlein.
Heinlein also used skis in this 1949 story, published in Boys Life.
And he veered off to the right, executing a few fancy slaloms down a slope, and zoomed on till he was hardly more than a shiny dot describing a larger orbit in the distance. Free at last of the pressure of his constant presence, Joan skied on in a kind of visually alert doze. Slowly the afternoon darkened. Even a thirty-hour day sinks to evening at last. She began to feel hungry, and wondered when he would suggest they return to the bubble. But he said nothing. He wanted her to admit she was tired first. Damned if she would I She went on, drugged by the rhythm of the power-skis. Lights in Dome Kappa shone golden...
(Moonskis in 'Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon' by Robert Heinlein)
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Selection
More Ideas
and Technology by Ursula Le Guin
Tech news articles related to Selection
Tech news articles related to works by Ursula Le Guin
| Denmark Joins The 'Zero Debris Charter' To Clean Up Space |
| Starship Special Edition For Lunar Shuttle |
| Capturing Asteroids With Nets |
| Project Hyperion - Generation Ship Designers Needed! |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'... an artificial intelligence equal to the human.'
'Rayno folded up the microterm and tucked it back inside his jumper.'
'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.'
