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"One could imagine a very ascetic sort of life ... where the body is ignored. This is something I've played with in my books, where people hate to be reminded sometimes that they have bodies, they find it very slow and tedious."
- William Gibson
 |
| Lift Chair | ||
| A single occupant lifted by great birds. |
The basic idea was used about three hundred years earlier.
| ...Xanten constrained six Birds to a lift chair, directed them first on a wide sweep around the castle, then south to Far Valley.
The Birds aired their usual complaints, then bounded down the deck in great ungainly hops which threatened to throw Xanten immediately to the pavement. At last gaining the air, they flew up in a spiral, Castle Hagedorn became an intricate miniature far below...
 (The Lift Chair from 'The Last Castle' by Jack Vance) Xanten indicated where he wished to alight; the Birds... set Xanten down so roughly that had he not been alert the shock would have pitched him head over heels. |
| Technovelgy from The Last Castle,
by Jack Vance. Published by Del Rey in 1967 Additional resources -
|
One of the very first novels that could reasonably be called science fiction, the 1638 work The Man in the Moone by Francis Godwin, featured a trip into space courtesy of Gansas, great birds that lifted a small craft upwards.
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Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
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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?'
