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"The permanent government now is the anchorpeople. They don't get elected, and year after year they're responding emotionally to this or that."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
 |
| Slamhound | ||
| An automated assassination device with a keen sense of smell. |
The canine analogy is useful in several ways in the narrative: it subtly emphasizes the keen sensitivity to odors possessed by the device, and it seems quite natural chasing a car...
| THEY sent A SLAMHOUND on Turner's trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the color of his hair. It caught up with him on a street called Chandni Chauk and came scrambling for his rented BMW through a forest of bare brown legs
and pedicab tires. Its core was a kilogram of recrystallized
hexogene and flaked TNT. He didn't see it coming. The last he saw of India was the pink stucco facade of a place called the Khush-Oil Hotel. Because he had a good agent, he had a good contract. Because he had a good contract, he was in Singapore an hour after the explosion. Most of him, anyway. The Dutch surgeon liked to joke about that, how an unspecified percentage of Turner hadn't made it out of Palam International on that first flight and had to spend the night there in a shed, in a support vat. |
| Technovelgy from Count Zero,
by William Gibson. Published by Arbor House in 1986 Additional resources -
|
The slamhound reminds one of the mechanical hound of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. Compare also the OSMO (Osmic Mobile Observers) from Quantico (2007) by Greg Bear. Also, the sheem spider robot from The Witches of Karres (1966) by James Schmitz.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Count Zero
More Ideas
and Technology by William Gibson
Tech news articles related to Count Zero
Tech news articles related to works by William Gibson
Slamhound-related
news articles:
- DARPA's 'BigDog' Robot Now In Puppy Stage
- Pneupard Feline Pneumatic Quadruped Robot
- Autonomous Robot Weapons For Terrorists?
- When Slamhounds Attack
- Cheetah Robot Will Run Faster Than Humans
- Cheetah Robot Hits Record 18 MPH In Video
- Cheetah Robot Passes 28 MPH (Video)
- Outrunner Robot, Six-Legged Slamhound
- MIT's Robotic Cheetah Runs Free - And Frolics In The Grass
- SpotMini Robot Dog, Autonomous And On Sale In 2019
- EllipticaRunner Robot Is Fast, Amazing, Slightly Worrisome
| Man Builds 200 Foot Basement Firing Range |
| Russians Create Robot Tank Platoons |
| Unmanned Boats Attack At Sea |
| Iron Drone Raider Counter-UAV Operations |
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'...war-balloons, or, as it would be more correct to call them, navigable aerostats.'
'This robot is a creature... It is a manlike being. Therefore, like any other talking, thinking man, he is entitled to a court trial!'
'...small electric motors at the principal joints worked the prosthetic framework by means of steel cables...'
