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"I think a lot of kids whose mental growth outruns their maturity gravitate to science fiction."
- Dan Simmons
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| Watercouch | ||
| A couch filled with water, rather than springs and cushions. |
This is a very simple extension of a now common idea; make use of waterbed technology in other rooms in your house.
| And there are times when I am so full of learning and being and doing that the moments zip past and the days are packed, and other times when I am floating in slack water beside a current, and the world is sliding speedily by. There was plenty to do. I didn't feel like doing it. Albert was bursting with news from Heechee Heaven and the Food Factory. I let him purge himself. But the synoptics plopped into my mind without raising a question or even a ripple; when he was through reporting about architectural deductions and interpretations of maunderings of the Dead Men I turned him off. It was intensely interesting, but for some reason I was not interested by it. I ordered Harriet to let my simulacrum deal with everything routine and tell everyone who was not urgent to call me another time. I stretched out on the three-meter watercouch looking out over the weird Brasilia skyline, and wished that it were that couch in the Food Factory, connected to someone I loved. |
| Technovelgy from Beyond the Blue Event Horizon,
by Frederik Pohl. Published by Ballantine in 1980 Additional resources -
|
Lots of people think that science fiction writer Robert Heinlein invented the waterbed; see the entry for hydraulic bed, from Stranger in a Strange Land for a more complete story.
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| Tortoise Mobile Smart Stores |
| Sony Pocket Air Conditioner Is Phil Dick's Idea! |
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Science Fiction
Timeline
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'Space-sickness is one of the most unpleasant sensations that a human being can experience. Not all are subject to it...'
'...I saw a nice black heavy-looking cloud sailing by just now, and I can get the electrical machine out in five minutes to draw it down.'
'From a distance it could resolve the cosmic rays reflected from various substances.'
'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
'He had travelled the space-lanes of the solar system for the greater part of his life...'
'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
