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"As opposed to illiteracy, where you can't read, aliteracy means that you can but you just can't be bothered. They say aliteracy is on the rise these days."
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In the novel, Mark Marakson (engineering nerd) comes into conflict with Pol Detson (of magical heritage). To spy on Pol, Mark creates and uses technology based on nature's hunting birds.
The tracer bird and its support and escort devices fly as a flock:
Mouseglove heard the great doors opening below and made it to an appropriate vantage in time to see the metal birdforms launched like blown leaves into the dark sky, where they rose to swirl beneath stars, then assumed a formation which tightened itself as it wound and unwound, took its course and passed in a direction he deemed to be roughly southeast. This troubled him as he made his way to the surveillance center. He managed the approach once more and heard Mark within, cursing and giving orders. The one glimpse he got of the screens showed nothing of interest.
Here's a picture of the tracer-bird; if you buy a copy of this book, be sure you get the edition with the great illustrations by Esteban Maroto.
He saw the blue-bellied, gray-backed thing upon the sill overhead. It was turned as if watching them. A portion of its front end caught the sunlight and cast it down toward them... The tracer-bird followed their every step, hung upon their words... Mark Marakson was able to control their movements using a wrist bracelet control panel, that also showed surveillance footage on a small screen. Compare to the artificial bird from The Artificial Bird (1929) by Karel Capek, the bird-like robots from Flamingo (1930) by CE Heller, robot bird from Invader on My Back, by Philip E. High, published by Ace Books in 1968 and to the metal birds from Vulcan's Hammer (1960), by Philip K. Dick. Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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