Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

Home | Dictionary | Timeline | New

Seabreacher, H.G. Winter's 1932 Torpoon

You know, science fiction fans, I sometimes wonder. I read an old science fiction (or even scientifiction) story, and I ask myself "Is it worth it to include this off-the-wall idea?"

Such was my concern when I read about the torpoon, a somewhat ungainly portmanteau of "torpedo" and "harpoon" from H.G. Winter's 1932 short story Seed of the Arctic Ice:

The inner catapult door closed behind Kenneth Torrance, and he slid into his torpoon. Twelve feet long, and resembling in miniature a dirigible, was this weapon that made practical an underwater whaling craft. The tapered stern bore long directional rudders, which curved round the squat high-speed propeller; its smooth flanks of burnished steel were marked only by the lines of the entrance port, which the torpooner now drew tight and locked...

Ken lay full-length in the padded body compartment, his feet resting on the controlling bars of the directional planes, hands on the torpoon's engine levers. A harness was buckled all around him, to keep him in place. His gray eyes, level and sober, peered through the vision-plate at the outer catapult door.

Suddenly a spot of red light glowed in it; the door quivered, swung out. A black tide swirled into the chamber. There came the hiss of released air-pressure, and the slim undersea steed rocketed out into the exterior gloom, her light-beams flashing on and propeller settling into a blur of speed as she was flung.

Ken turned on her full twenty-four knots, zoomed above the dark bulk of the slower mother ship, whose light-beams flashed across him for a second, and then straightened out in a long, slight-angled dive after the great black bodies ahead.

(The torpoon)

See more at the Seabreacher website.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 3/25/2019)

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Engineering ")

Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.' - Don Wilcox, 1939.

Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.' - Fritz Leiber, 1958.

Vipera Electric Skis From Frigid Dynamics
'JOAN strapped on her power-skis...' - Ursula K. Le Guin, 1964.

Pivotal Blackfly Electric Aircraft Lifts And Hovers
'That explains how it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair...' - RH Roman, 1929.

	Web TechNovelgy.com

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'

Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'

Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'

Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'

Anthropic's Claude AI Creates Legal Citation From Whole Cloth
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'

Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said.

'They Erased My Memory' Says Ariana Grande
'...using a neutralizing electronic impulse.'

Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space
'...the Hole is something like a vortex or a whirlpool?'

Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'

DARPA Wants 'Large Bio-Mechanical Space Structures'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'

Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'

Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'

Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On
'Better late than never.'

Have AI Researchers Given Up On 'Bio-Babies'?
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'

Bunker Busters and Bore-Pellets
'The first revelation of the new Soviet bore-pellets.'

'Spikeless' Brand Swizzle Stick Detects Spiked Drinks
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories