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"I can't tell whether or not there's going to be a Singularity. I don't really believe the rapture of the nerds stereotype..."
- Charles Stross
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| Ray Gun (Handheld) | ||
| A weapon shaped like a handgun that shoots rays of energy. |
This is probably the first occurrence of the handheld "ray gun" idea; see the Ray gun from The Messiah of the Cylinders (1917) by Victor Rousseau.
| Soon they saw a hand reaching out with a ray gun; then another hand with a different ray gun, from behind the silent engine; a sudden crash of metal, a groan and quiet. |
| Technovelgy from The Black Star Passes,
by John W. Campbell. Published by Amazing Stories in 1930 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the equally useful blaster from When the Green Star Waned (1925) by Nictzin Dyalhis. See also the stationary automatic blaster from Red Planet (1949) by Robert Heinlein, the neutron disruption blaster from The Complete Paratime (1951) by H. Beam Piper and the meteor blasters from First Contact (1945), by Murray Leinster.
Compare also to the heat ray from War of the Worlds (1898) by HG Wells, the death-ray from The World Masters (1903) by George Griffiths, the
short-wave surgical knife from Boomerang (1953) by Eric Frank Russell, the
pencil heat ray from Brigands of the Moon (1930) by Ray Cummings and the
flesh gun from The Computer Connection (1974) by Alfred Bester.
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More Ideas
and Technology from The Black Star Passes
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Tech news articles related to works by John W. Campbell
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'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain...'
'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'I ... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching for a habitable planet.'
'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
