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"The first thing that's wrong with being a science-fiction writer today is that the present has caught up with the future and surpassed it."
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![]() As far as I know, this is the first use of this phrase.
If you find yourself present at a murder on a space ship, you might well be brought before the captain - a space veteran who has spent many hours gazing out the glassite windows of his ship, exposed to the ravening electromagnetic radiations of the spaceways. As in Edmond Hamilton's 1936 story Murder in the Void:
There is another illustrative use in Static, a short story by Kent Casey in May, 1938 Astounding:
(For those who don't know, a "shavetail" is a newly minted second lieutenant, deriving for the word for a newly broken-in pack mule.)
Edmond Hamilton used a variant on this idea in his 1940 story Revolt on the Tenth World:
When they entered the lighted cabin of the craft, which was crowded with piled sacks and metal cases, a wiry old Earthman got up, stretching and yawning. His sparse hair was pure white, his face bronzed and seamed like leather by long exposure in space to unsoftened radiation.
By the time Robert Heinlein uses it in his 1941 novel Methuselah's Children it has lost its hyphen - see space tanned.
On the other hand, maybe Venusians tan more easily than Earthmen... Comment/Join this discussion ( 1 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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Science Fiction
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