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"Science Fiction is speculative fiction in which the author takes as his first postulate the real world as we know it, including all established facts and natural laws."
- Robert Heinlein
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| Xenephrene Interstellar World | ||
| A planet not attached to a solar system. |
| By mid-December, at a convention of
astronomers held in London, the new
world was named Xenephrene. Father
went over in one of the mail planes and
read his afterward famous paper, suggesting
the name, and giving his calculation
of the elements of the orbit of this
new heavenly body. It, was the most
startling announcement which had yet
been made, and for one newspaper
edition it got the first page. And I was
ordered to give nine minutes of broadcasting
time to it. "Xenephrene" was a globe not quite, but very nearly as large as the earth. It had come whirling in like a comet from the star-filled regions of outer space; presumably like a comet to encircle our sun and then, with a hyperbolic orbit, to depart from us forever. , It had come visually into our northern heavens, and crossed the earth's orbit on the opposite side of the sun from us. It encircled the sun - this was in December—made its turn between the orbits of Mercury and Venus, and now was supposedly departing. |
| Technovelgy from A Brand New World,
by Ray Cummings. Published by Famous Fantastic Mysteries in 1942 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the first use of the term rogue planet from Satan's World (1967) by Poul Anderson, rogue world from George R.R. Martin's 1977 novel Dying of the Light and wandering worlds from When Worlds Collide (1932) by Edwin Balmer (w/P. Wylie).
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Tech news articles related to works by Ray Cummings
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'Tell me your torments,' the Padre said, in an elderly voice marked with compassion.
'...a slender-legged tripod surmounted by a spherical body no larger than a football.'
'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
'But the stars are only atoms in larger space, and in that larger space the star-atoms could combine to form living matter, thinking matter, couldn't they?'
'...to build up a video picture would require, say, ten million decisions every second. Mike, you're so fast I can't even think about it. But you aren't that fast.'
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'
