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"The world is really so surreal these days that it's necessary for us to blunt it somehow in order to stay sane. The artist functions to short-circuit the buffering mechanism, so that people can occasionally perceive the weirdness of things as they are."
- William Gibson

High Kavalaan Aircar  
  Flying SUV equipped with laser weapons.  

I'm really tickled by this one, since it neatly reveals the form and intent of the modern-day sport utility vehicle. This aircar could eat Hummers for lunch.

He had seen a lot of types of aircars in his travels, but none quite like this one; huge and steel-gray, with curved and muscled triangular wings, it looked almost alive, like a great aerial manta ray fashioned in metal. A small cockpit with four seats was set between the wings, and beneath the wingtips he glimpsed ominous rods.

He looked at Gwen and pointed. "Are those lasers?"

...Gwen laughed. "Get in," she told him. "It is a perfectly fine aircar of High Kavalaan manufacture. They've only recently started turning out their own. It's supposed to look like an animal, the black banshee. A flying predator... very big in their folklore, sort of a totem... Every car built on High Kavalaan has weapons of some sort. The culture demands it..."

She threw on the gravity grid suddelnly, touched the stick an dthe aircar wrenched forward and left the ground...

Technovelgy from Dying of the Light, by George RR Martin.
Published by Baen in 1977
Additional resources -

Compare to air-car from A Matter of Size (1934) by Harry Bates.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Dying of the Light
  More Ideas and Technology by George RR Martin
  Tech news articles related to Dying of the Light
  Tech news articles related to works by George RR Martin

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