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"I started writing in the 1930's when I was eighteen years old. And deep inside me I'm still eighteen and it's still 1938."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Wall in the Air | ||
| An invisible barrier that protects an entire island or city. |
As far as I know, this is the earliest example of this idea in science fiction.
| They only could tell us that they had been taught from the Sun Island, a far-off land of the sea. Sometimes, they said, the tide was low and we could walk on dry rocks to the isle. Sometimes there was a “wall in the air.” Then no one could get there...
“That is the Sun Island. The angel-man lives there.”
Before the bird people slept he ordered the construction of a small, strong stone house, with two great cellars stored with fuel, food and oil. This was built as near the island as possible. The glow of brightness made continual day around it, but warmth hardly penetrated the impassable wall in the air... “This day only the wall in the air is removed. The bird people are asleep. I can take you there quickly!” |
| Technovelgy from Rondah, or Thirty-Three Years in a Star,
by Florence Carpenter Dieudonné. Published by Not Known in 1887 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the lanson screen from The Lanson Screen (1936) by Leo Zagat, the spindizzy from Cities in Flight (1957) by James Blish, the langston field from The Mote in God's Eye (1974) by Larry Niven (w/J. Pournelle) and the bobble from The Peace War (1984) by Vernor Vinge.
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More Ideas
and Technology from Rondah, or Thirty-Three Years in a Star
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and Technology by Florence Carpenter Dieudonné
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Tech news articles related to works by Florence Carpenter Dieudonné
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'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain...'
'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'I ... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching for a habitable planet.'
'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
