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"The SF approach: an awareness that things could have been different, that this is one of many possible worlds, that if you came to this world from some other planet, this would be a science fiction world."
- Neal Stephenson

Crystal Cylinder Ship  
  A transparent space ship in the shape of a cylinder.  

Winifred gasped, and the professor gave a grunt of astonishment. Grant and I could only stare. Could that be a dirigible balloon, that vast thing looming there before us? Something scuttled across the rocks behind me with a metallic scratching. I whirled about and stared. Nothing could be seen in the darkness. Abruptly a brilliant glow burst from the massive thing before us as lights inside it were snapped on, revealing a long, vast, glittering cylinder of transparent crystal.

It lay horizontally in the air, like a vast zeppelin with one end touching our hilltop beside the building. An entrance port in the bow stood open...


(The cylindrical crystal ship)

Everything outside was plainly visible to us through the transparent walls, even the laboratory building forward, and the night sky back of it with its paling stars. Only the inner portion of the cylinder, which extended its full length, was opaque, veiled by smoky-hued crystal.

Technovelgy from The Three Suns of Ev, by Edwin K. Sloat.
Published by Amazing Stories in 1933
Additional resources -

Here's a taste of life inside a transparent ship:

Crimson light that streamed back from the bow of the space ship claimed my attention. I stared and gasped in admiration. Lying far ahead of us in the void was a brilliant, crimson sun that shot its fiery streamers far into space. It was stupendous, overpowering. In what portion of the heavens could there be such a star?

Compare to the transparent spherical ship from The Emperor of the Stars (1931) by Nat Schachner (w. AL Zagat).

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Three Suns of Ev
  More Ideas and Technology by Edwin K. Sloat
  Tech news articles related to The Three Suns of Ev
  Tech news articles related to works by Edwin K. Sloat

Crystal Cylinder Ship-related news articles:
  - Triple Star System Tears Apart Its Planetary Disk

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Project Hyperion - Generation Ship Designers Needed!
Marslink Proposed By SpaceX

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