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"the [science fiction] writer should be able to convince the reader (and himself) that the wonders he is describing really can come true...and that gets tricky when you take a good, hard look at the world around you."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Zoo Fences | ||
| Caustic water moat |
This is a great extension on a clever idea. Moats are used in zoos to keep animals who fear the water separate from visitors without an intrusive fence. If the liquid was caustic, you could probably use it even with animals who ordinarily felt no fear of water.
In the park outside the headquarters of Jorj McKie (one of the main characters), caustic water was used to fence in some of the plant life showcased in the park.
| There were bold stretches of lawn and hidden scraps of lawn, and some stretches of greenery which were not lawn at all but mobile sheets of predatory leaf imprisoned behind thin moats of caustic water. |
| Technovelgy from The Dosadi Experiment,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Berkley Putnam in 1977 Additional resources -
|
The city of Chu (the only habitable city on the surface of Dosadi) was also surrounded by rivers, which doubled as moats to keep out the feral population outside. The Dosadis themselves used "caustic" language to keep themselves isolated socially, since any sort of sincere tie with another person was only a tool that could be used against you by the unscrupulous.
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'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
