Millenium by John Varley:
Science Fiction Inventions, Technology and Ideas

This novel gives the reader quite a ride. Time-travelers from the future saving humanity by figuring out how to pull passengers off doomed planes before they crash? Varley excels at alternating the normal world that we know with a very convincing future history. Select an invention:

Big Computer - wide-screen Jehovah
Just like it says; this computer knows it all.

Cerebral Microprocessors
Added boost for maxxed out minds.

Gnome - built into life support
A person who requires so much life support, they are built into the chair.

No Human Programmers
The idea that computers are too complicated and too important to be programmed by human beings.

People-Sorter - catalog them quickly
A device able to sort human beings with incredible speed.

Post Office - special package delivery
A vault used to store time capsules left by travelers to the past; not your usual delivery service.

Revitalizer Console. - perk up your bloodstream
A kind of automated medical marvel; it optimizes your body chemistry for better health, tops off your fluids, etc.

Sherman
A sex robot.

Skinsuit
Wearable artificial, full-body skin.

Skull Alarm
Implanted wakeup call.

Speedcap - late? Go ballistic!
Short for speed capsule (?); sometimes, going ballistic is the fastest way to get there.

Time Capsule - time traveler's use them
A hollow block of metal, impervious to the elements, used by time travelers to send messages to the future.

Timepress - time in a bottle
A device that makes time go more quickly in a limited area.

Twonky - trashes the time stream
A futuristic artifact left by time travelers in the past which, if discovered, could cause a paradox.

Wimp - body without a mind
A special-purpose body; grown without personality, but physically intact.

Wimp Vault
Lots of spare bodies.

 

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