Science Fiction
Dictionary Latest By
"I don't have an e-mail address. As much as I admire the Internet I suffer literally agoraphobia, which in it's original sense means a fear of the marketplace. I do not want to receive three hundred e-mail messages per week from strangers…"
|
An early use of this term, which derives from the "trading posts" of the old American West.
Each space-post had it's own special defenses:
Blakston thanked him, inwardly
smiling at Queel’s melodramatic manner. But the warning was bom of the
Ootlandah’s not unfounded fear of
the genus loothaguri, which might be
described as an acre of animal with
but one characteristic — an appetite.
The factor himself felt no anxiety at
the approach of one of these weird
creatures, for the space post’s electrical fences could turn aside a dozen
of them.
A "trading post" (or trading station) was a place in the old West where the owner (usually called the "factor") would offer different goods for sale or barter.
Clifford Simak also made use of the trading post idea in his 1961 novel Time is the Simplest Thing. The commercial entity called Fishhook used its technology to travel the stars; different goods or products were brought back and sold in places called Trading Posts, which was taken as a sign that the company looked down on everyone else. Read this article on the transo which linked the Trading Posts together. Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
resources:
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
Brin's 1990 Novel Earth Still Full Of Predictions
'... making the point that their likenesses, every move they made, were being transmitted.'
Gaia - Why Stop With Just The Earth?
'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?'
Microsoft VASA-1 Creates Personal Video From A Photo
'...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.'
Splendid View Of Eclipse From Orbit Visualized And Repurposed By Arthur C. Clarke
'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'
Goldene - A Two-Dimensional Sheet Of Gold One Atom Thick
'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'
SpaceX Wants A Moonbase Alpha
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
Vast Apartment Living Will Get Even More Vast
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
NASA Wants Self-Driving Or Remote-Controlled Vehicles For Lunar Astronauts
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
|
Home | Glossary
| Science Fiction Timeline | Category | New | Contact
Us | FAQ | Advertise | Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™ Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved. |
||