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"Science fiction is really sociological studies of the future, things that the writer believes are going to happen by putting two and two together."
- Ray Bradbury

Perpetual Train  
  A vast machine that lays its own tracks as it moves forward.  

Ahead... was the perpetual train.

Judah had walked its length, skirting the crews. it was a rolling-stock town, an industrial citylet that crawled. At the end of a no-man's-land of empty rails, he saw the work. New Crobuzon reaching so far. The leviathan unfolding of metal, the greatest city in Bas-lag rolling out its new iron tongue, licking at the cities across the plains.

Technovelgy from Iron Council, by China Mieville.
Published by Del Rey in 2004
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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Iron Council
  More Ideas and Technology by China Mieville
  Tech news articles related to Iron Council
  Tech news articles related to works by China Mieville

Perpetual Train-related news articles:
  - Brick Road-Printing Machine

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Science Fiction in the News

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'...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.'

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'The area affected was five hundred kilometres across, and perfectly circular.'

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'Call 'em Winter Mute," said the other, making it two words.'

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'Hasan always pitched a Gauzy - a one-molecule-layer tent, opaque, feather-light, and very tough.'

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'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'

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'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'

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