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"I've got this beautiful panoramic three-dimensional painting of Mars based on Martian photos. It's 30 feet wide. You can pick out every pebble on the Martian landscape. And who'd have dreamed you could do that?"
- Arthur C. Clarke
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| Doughpot | ||
| A mass of white, dough-like protoplasm, ranging in size from a single cell to perhaps twenty tons of mushy filth. |
I don't ordinarily add creatures to the index, but this is an early description of this kind of alien creature.
| It was after the second rain that he met the doughpot, as the creature is called in British and American Venus. In the French strip, it’s the pot à colie, the "paste pot"; in the Dutch — well, the Dutch are not prudish, and they call the horror just what they think it warrants. Actually, the doughpot is a nauseous creature. It’s a mass of white, dough-like protoplasm, ranging in size from a single cell to perhaps twenty tons of mushy filth. It has no fixed form; in fact, it’s merely a mass of de Proust cells — in effect, a disembodied, crawling, hungry cancer. It has no organization and no intelligence, nor even any instinct save hunger. It moves in whatever direction food touches its surfaces; when it touches two edible substances, it quietly divides, with the larger portion invariably attacking the greater supply. It’s invulnerable to bullets; nothing less than the terrific blast of a flame-pistol will kill it, and then only if the blast destroys every individual cell. It travels over the ground absorbing everything, leaving bare black soil where the ubiquitous molds spring up at once — a noisome, nightmarish creature. |
| Technovelgy from Parasite Planet,
by Stanley G. Weinbaum. Published by Astounding Stories in 1935 Additional resources -
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'...Anything was possible in my imaginary environment.'
'Somewhere in space, a chrome and blue automobile raced the green light of Earth.'
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair...'
'We had discovered that metal was relatively impervious to the telepathic effect.'
'Detailed plans for the construction of the Gundstetter-Halone warp drive were flowing.'
'Do not waste your priceless company on the unappreciative folds of a sleep pod...'
'...so we've promised him a generous pension from the royalties.'
'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
