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"SF is a controlled way to think and dream about the future."
- Gregory Benford
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| Planetruck | ||
| Huge vehicle for planetary surface transport. |
| AFTER THREE DAYS, twenty hours plus in space, the S.S. Selwyn fluffed to a spectacular landing on Andrigo, coming straight down from the Sun so the Greenies wouldn’t be able to spot her in that tremendous glare. The horribly twisted plants and withered trees of that pitiless desert bent and were demolished as the ship furrowed through the sand. Instantly, all was an orderly confusion, as the amid-ships gangway was let down, and the broad-tired planetruck, with a truck-bed as big as the floor of a large house, was yo-heave-hoed rolling from the ship. Then the astromen went fast at the work of loading her with hogshead after hogshead of indele-acetic acid.
 (Planetruck from 'Slave Ship to Andrigo' by Ross Rocklynne) He rammed in the starter and the planetruck leaped ahead. But Johnny Single was aboard. One terrific leap of fury had taken him into the cab, both arms around Hawk’s neck. In a threshing heap, Hawk and Single tumbled from the leaping truck, fell just free of the grinding wheels. Single drove off without a backward look, the heavily scored treads of the planetruck kicking up clouds of dusty sand. In the shallow gravity the truck rode easily, bound for the oasis where lived the tribe of Greenies. |
| Technovelgy from The Slave Ship to Andrigo,
by Ross Rocklynne. Published by Planet Stories in 1951 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the electrotruck from The Corkscrew of Space (1956) by Poul Anderson, the tractatruck from The Moon is Hell (1950) by John Campbell, the autonomous truck from Autofac (1955) by Philip K. Dick and the automatic truck from Mechnocracy (1932) by Miles J. Breurer.
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'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'
'The men are dead, but their acquired wisdom lives on and I am the beneficiary.'
'Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting.'
'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
