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"[Science fiction] is the one literary medium left in which we have a free hand. We can do any damn thing we please."
- Alfred Bester
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| Projectile-Based Electric Fence | ||
| A temporary fence created by projectiles dropped from a ship, then linked together electrically. |
I can't think of an earlier use of this idea.
| The craft hovered some two hundred feet above us. Cruising slowly in a circle, it suddenly dropped four objects well outside our improvised stronghold. The projectiles were shaped like torpedoes. The explosions which were expected never came. The projectiles stood straight up from the ground, their front ends imbedded deeply. It was all a strange procedure. Cragley was nonplussed.
“They probably contain explosives,” ventured Quentin, answering the question he knew stood out in the captain’s mind. “I'm not so sure of that,” said Cragley.
 (From Electric projectiles from 'Spacewrecked on Venus' by Neil R. Jones) “Look!” cried Quentin. He pointed to three of the four projectiles which were visible from where we lay. They were glowing strangely with intense light. A jagged beam of electricity leaped out from the airship. Instantly iridescent shafts of light spread from the nearest projectile to the ones on either side of it. The shafts made a flashing display, crooked, forked and darting. “Lightning bolts!” exclaimed Cragley. “We’re surrounded by a fence of them!” “Penned in — like rats in a trap! |
| Technovelgy from Spacewrecked on Venus,
by Neil R. Jones. Published by Wonder Stories Quarterly in 1932 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the electrified fence from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) by Mark Twain, the Electric Protection-Wires from A Journey In Other Worlds (1894) by John Jacob Astor IV and zoo fences from The Dosadi Experiment (1977) by Frank Herbert.
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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...'
