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"I was perfectly satisfied to write science fiction knowing that it would pay very little, that it would be seen by only a very few people."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Leading Machine | ||
| An exploratory device; it takes the form of an autonomous motorcycle. |
This is a very early description of what amounts to an autonomous self-balancing self-driving motorcycle.
| A half dozen motorcycles were approaching, coming on like the wind. They advanced in a rank, abreast of each other and about a hundred yards apart. In a few seconds they changed from tiny dots on the smooth grass to hurtling, smoking masses, bearing down precipitately upon us.
A panic, wild and terrified, seized upon the gathered committee. Everybody got up and ran...
 (Leading Machine from 'Paradise and Iron' by Miles Breuer) In another moment the machines had whizzed by and turned into disappearing dots in the eastern distance. They were tiny things, not over three feet high, and there certainly were no people on them... "That is only the regular green-patrol of the Hopo field,” he went on. “But we are nervous and jumpy. Look!” He pointed toward the city. Several more dark bulks were slowly approaching. “They come by every third or fourth day. There come the mowers and rollers. Those little things go on ahead to assure a clear track and lay out the course. ‘Leading-machines,’ we have come to call them. They are in common use for all automatic mechanical work." |
| Technovelgy from Paradise and Iron,
by Miles J. Breuer. Published by Amazing Stories Quarterly in 1930 Additional resources -
|
The full page illustration of the leading machines (autonomous self-balancing self-driving motorcycles:
(Autonomous motorcycle pack from 'Paradise and Iron' (1930) by Miles J. Breuer)
The little two-wheeled thing that I was learning to call a "leading-machine," was now ahead of the truck. It was about the size of one of the toy motorcycles that are made for boys to ride around on; but it was accurately and sturdily built; and as I sat and watched it ahead of me, I was struck by the astounding complexity of the thing. Only some of the research apparatus that I had seen in university physics laboratories, could compare with it. It spun on ahead of the truck, keeping a uniform distance in front, like an active little puppy in front of a plodding ox-cart. When I had first heard the word "leading-machine" І had wondered what it meant; but now, I had to admit that "leading" was the right word; that was precisely what this little machine seemed to be doing. And again caught myself in the silly tendency that I had fallen into several times on this island, of attributing personality to machines, as though they had minds of their own.
Compare to the gyrocar from Two Boys in a Gyrocar the story of a New York to Paris motor race (1911) by Kenneth Brown, the Gyro-Hat from An Experiment in Gyro-Hats (1926) by Ellis Parker Butler, the tumblebug from The Roads Must Roll (1940) by Robert Heinlein, the Two-Wheeled Ground Car from First Lensman (1950) by E.E. 'Doc' Smith, the Gyro Two-Wheeled Truck from The Sign of the Tiger (1958) by Alan Nourse (w/Meyer) and the smart bike from Distraction (1998) by Bruce Sterling.
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