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"The SF approach: an awareness that things could have been different, that this is one of many possible worlds, that if you came to this world from some other planet, this would be a science fiction world."
- Neal Stephenson
 |
| Voder | ||
| Device that produces speech by purely mechanical means. |
| Bormon, in the narrow confines of his armor, disconnected the mechanical voder used by its deposed owner, for all Martians are voiceless. |
| Technovelgy from Exit From Asteroid 60,
by D.L. James. Published by Planet Stories in 1940 Additional resources -
|
Robert Heinlein uses the word in a slightly different sense in his 1942 story Waldo:
Turning back to Stevens he added, “But if Baldur amuses you, you must see Ariel."
“Ariel?"
Instead of replying, Waldo touched the keyboard of the voder, producing a musical whistling pattern of three notes. There was a rustling near the wall of the room “above” them; a tiny yellow shape shot toward them — a canary. It sailed through the air with wings folded, bullet fashion. A foot or so away from Waldo it spread its wings, cupping the air, beat them a few times with tail down and spread, and came to a dead stop, hovering in the air with folded wings.
There were control panels of several sorts, some of which seemed obvious enough in their purposes — one for lighting which was quite complicated, with little ruby telltales for each circuit, one which was the keyboard of a voder, a multiplex television control panel, a board which seemed to be power relays although its design was unusual...
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'The peculiar quality of this light, which gave it its great preeminence over all other penetrating rays...'
'The overworked leg motor would have to cool down before he could work on it...'
‘Where to, sport?’ the starter at cab relay asked.
This is nothing new for science fiction fans!
'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
