Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"Everything starts as somebody's daydream. And, when you're daydreaming, it is science fiction. It's when you start work out how you put it together, true science fiction becomes real science."
- Larry Niven
 |
| Cog Life | ||
| Life in the bureaucracy. |
| And there was, Lars Powderdry reflected, nothing quite so disorienting as knowing that not only are you indispensable but that simultaneously you can be replaced. It was the sort of paradox that no one enjoyed, except of course UN-W Natsec, the governing Board of Wes-bloc, who had contrived to keep a replacement always visible in the wings.
He thought. And they’ve probably got another one waiting right now. They like me, he thought. They’ve been good to me and I to them; the system functions. But ultimate authorities, in charge of the lives of billions of pursaps, don’t take risks. They do not cross against the DON’T WALK signs of cog life. |
| Technovelgy from The Zap Gun (Project Plowshare),
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Galaxy Publishing in 1965 Additional resources -
|
PKD continues:
The English archaic definition had always seemed almost supernaturally apt to him. Cog. Using one’s finger as a sort of cog to guide or hold the dice; i.e. to cozen, wheedle; to cheat...
Lars said, “I do not object to a monopoly of knowledge by one small class. It doesn’t upset me, that there are a few cogs and a lot of pursaps. Every society is really run by an elite.”
But then Miss Bedouin didn’t know what went on. She was sublimely pursap [pure and saps]. As if the era before the Fall had been re-established for roughly four billion citizens of Wes-bloc and Peep-East. The burden, which had once been everyone's rested now on the cogs alone. The cognoscenti had relieved their race of a curse ... if “cog” really derived from that and not, as he suspected, from an English rather than Italian word.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Zap Gun (Project Plowshare)
More Ideas
and Technology by Philip K. Dick
Tech news articles related to The Zap Gun (Project Plowshare)
Tech news articles related to works by Philip K. Dick
| Switzerland May Cap Population At Ten Million |
| California Governor Candidate Calls For Voting By Phone |
| Chinese Hospital Tries Vonnegut's 'Harrison Bergeron' Cosplay |
| A Remarkable Coincidence |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
