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"But the problem with reincarnation is that it's hard to imagine what the storage medium for past lives would be. Not to mention the input-output device. I hesitate to rule it out completely, but I'd need pretty definite proof."
- Arthur C. Clarke
 |
| Cushion Fence | ||
| Gentle force field |
Just a little push back. Unless you insisted.
| Now it was nine thousand square miles of paradise. It suggested a fantastic image to me; a shattered rainbow of odd-shaped fields of poppies glowing red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. The channels had been roofed over with tile. The lake bed was scattered with wickiups, the traditional Indian hut, once made of mud and branches, but these were built of marble, granite, limestone, terracotta, travertine. Flagged roads wandered everywhere in no particular pattern, and all around the lake bed was a gentle cushion fence that pushed you back if you came too close. If you persisted in coming closer it stiff-armed you with a piston jolt. |
| Technovelgy from The Computer Connection,
by Alfred Bester. Published by Berkeley Publishing in 1974 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the barrier force field from Coventry (1940) by Robert Heinlein.
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'Power could be compressed thus into an inch-square cube of what looked like blue-white ice'
'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
