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"What television does is rent us friends and relatives who are quite satisfactory. This is quite something, to rent artificial friends and relatives right inside the house."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Roller  
  Two passenger vehicle designed for off-road use on alien planets.  

It was a fine day; but then, every day was a fine day on Stella IV.

...I took the specimen bag with the peeper in it and stuffed it in the roller's carrying bag.

I got on the roller and Benny jumped on the carrier behind me and sat there showing off, balancing himself - like a kid riding a bicycle with no hands...

Until you've ridden on a roller, you haven't really lived. It's like a roller coaster running on the level. But it is fairly safe and it gets you there. It's just two big rubber doughnuts with an engine and a seat and it could climb a barn if you gave it half a chance. It's too rambunctious for civilized driving, but it is just the ticket for an alien planet.

Technovelgy from Shadow World, by Clifford Simak.
Published by Galaxy Science Fiction in 1957
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