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"I am first of all not a science fiction writer … I write, I suppose, what the Latin Americans call magic realism."
- Harlan Ellison
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| Metallic Spider (Handling Machine) | ||
| Multipurpose device used almost as an extension of the Martian's own bodies. |
| 'The mechanism it certainly was that held my attention first. It was one of those complicated fabrics that have since been called handling-machines, and the study of which has already given such an enormous impetus to terrestrial invention. As it dawned upon me first, it presented a sort of metallic spider with five jointed, agile legs, and with an extraordinary number of jointed levers, bars, and reaching and clutching tentacles about its body. Most of its arms were retracted, but with three long tentacles it was fishing out a number of rods, plates, and bars which lined the covering and apparently strengthened the walls of the cylinder... Its motion was so swift, complex, and perfect that at first I did not see it as a machine, in spite of its metallic glitter. The fighting-machines were co-ordinated and animated to an extraordinary pitch, but nothing to compare with this. People who have never seen these structures, and have only the ill-imagined efforts of artists or the imperfect descriptions of such eye-witnesses as myself to go upon, scarcely realise that living quality...
...At first, I say, the handling-machine did not impress me as a machine, but as a crablike creature with a glittering integument, the controlling Martian whose delicate tentacles actuated its movements seeming to be simply the equivalent of the crab's cerebral portion. But then I perceived the resemblance of its grey-brown, shiny, leathery integument to that of the other sprawling bodies beyond, and the true nature of this dexterous workman dawned upon me. |
| Technovelgy from The War of the Worlds,
by H.G. Wells. Published by Harper and Bros. in 1898 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the scarab robot from The Scarab (1936) by Raymond Z. Gallun, the spider robot from The Mystery of Element 117 (1949) by Milton K. Smith, the mechanical hound from Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury, the metal insects from The Invincible (1954) by Stanislaw Lem, the Sheem spider robot from The Witches of Karres (1966) by James Schmitz, the spider tripod from Rendezvous With Rama (1972) by Arthur C. Clarke, the spider cable device from The Web Between the Worlds (1979) by Charles Sheffield, the spider robotic insects from Runaway (1985) by Michael Crichton and the recon spiders from Minority Report (Movie) (2002) by Steven Spielberg.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The War of the Worlds
More Ideas
and Technology by H.G. Wells
Tech news articles related to The War of the Worlds
Tech news articles related to works by H.G. Wells
Metallic Spider (Handling Machine)-related
news articles:
- Crabster CR200 Robot Prowls The Deep
- Crabster Robot Deployed At Korea's Sewol Ferry Disaster
- PoseiDrone Tentacled Undersea Robot Like HG Wells'
- Sophie, Your Virtual Assistant
- Tentacle Robot Gripper Recalls War Of The Worlds
| Artificial Skin For Robots Is Coming Right Along |
| Robot Guard Dog On Duty |
| Wearable Artificial Fabric Muscles |
| Dancing Robots Taught Dance Moves |
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'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
'Briquet’s head seemed to think that to find and attach a new body to her head was as easy as to fit and sew a new dress.'
'...copy was turned out in a charming and entirely feminine handwriting.'
'It was almost unheard of for slunch to spread that fast...'
'He then started hand movements of definite pattern...'
'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain...'
