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"Does it open a new horizon for my thinking? Does it lead me to think new kinds of thoughts, that I would not otherwise perhaps have thought at all? These qualities are what [make] science fiction ...unique."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Paralyzing Eye | ||
| False eye contains mechanism for causing brief paralysis. |
Oh, who wouldn't want one of these?
| Mendez S.D. de Witt had several different artificial eyes, none of which was quite what it seemed.he occupied a section of a laboratory desk in the Bureau of Standards building, and, with a soldering iron and tweezers, deftly assembled the mechanism for yet another spurious optic. This one was to be a paralyzing ray machine. The mechanism would be installed in the Lucite shell at another time, de Witt didn't want the other Bureau of standards technicians to learn about his eyes. |
| Technovelgy from The Best-Laid Scheme,
by L. Sprague de Camp. Published by Astounding Science-Fiction in 1941 Additional resources -
|
Here's how it worked:
The idea of a paralysis beam or device was quite popular. Compare to the paralysis bomb from Robert Heinlein's 1941 novel Methuselah's Children, the paralyzing cone from The Atomic Conquerors by Edmond Hamilton (1927) and the para-beam From The Mechanical Monarch, by E.C. Tubb (1958).
Hedges got the pin out of his bomb just as de Witt remembered his paralyzing eye. He blinked his real eye, and sighted the phony on the back of Hedges' neck. The bomb fell to the asphalt.
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'If you're one of those rarities who haven't attended a rocket-polo "carnage", let me tell you it's a colorful affair.'
'They filed clumsily into the battleroom, like children in a swimming pool for the first time, clinging to the handholds along the side.'
'a walking balloon proceeded with long strides of its aluminum legs...'
'There was nowhere on the planet where science and technology could not provide one with a comfortable home...'
'Most men updated their PIP on New Year's Day...'
'...a misshapen, many-tentacled thing about twice the size of a man.'
