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
"I just can't be politic. I never learned how to do that and I don't like doing that. I think it's false."
- Harlan Ellison
 |
| Swimming Tubes | ||
| Used to connect buildings for use by amphibious species. |
Frank Herbert loved the sea, having written books about it before his Dune series established him as a science fiction writer. Designs for undersea dwellings usually included air-filled tubes connecting different buildings; the use of a water-filled tube connecting land dwellings of amphibians is a great inversion of the idea.
| Gowachin never strayed far from water. The Graluz - that central pool and sanctuary for females, the place where the Gowachin raised those tads which survived the ravenous weeding by the male parent - the Graluz always remained a central fixation for the Gowachin. There was always the water, contained water, the nervous slapping of wavelets against walls. The sound conveyed no fixed rhythms, but it was a profound clue to the Gowachin: contained, yet always different. For all short distances, swimming tubes connected Gowachin facilities. They traversed long distances by jumpdoor or in hissing jetcars which moved on magnetic cushions. And the odors! What memories they brought back to him. Graluz musk, the bitter pressing of exotic seeds, permeated every breath. And the caraeli, tiny, froglike pets, invaded your sleep at every dawning with their exquisite belling arias. |
| Technovelgy from The Dosadi Experiment,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Berkley Putnam in 1977 Additional resources -
|
As always, the invention serves to emphasize the alien nature of the Gowachin, a frog-like people that are just one of the interesting alien races in this novel. All Gowachin keep a graluz, a pond for fertile females and offspring. Herbert spends a lot of time in the novel exploring the idea of what a sentient frog might be like; would males feel guilt when (as in nature) eating the slowest and least fit offspring? The Gowachin prided themselves on staying true to their animal nature and heritage while achieving a high level of civilization.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 1 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Dosadi Experiment
More Ideas
and Technology by Frank Herbert
Tech news articles related to The Dosadi Experiment
Tech news articles related to works by Frank Herbert
Swimming Tubes-related
news articles:
- Labyrinth Aquarium Has Swimming Tubes
| Amazon Will Send You Heinlein's Knockdown Cabin |
| Elegant Bivouac Shelter Produces Water And Electricity |
| AI-THu Shapeshifting Transformer Home |
| With Mycotecture, We'll Just Grow The Space Habitats We Need |
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
'...each of them is a neural mapping of the mind of a Tibetan monk who actually lived.'
'...there's a narrow belt where the climate is moderate.'
'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain, through the mediation of the electronic brain in the leg.'
'... every veephone on the continent would display, over and over, two propositions.'
'Completely silent, accurate up to about twenty meters. No recoil...'
'He wore spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.'
