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"...the space defense initiative drove the USSR bankrupt, and it originated at my house in Tarzana."
- Larry Niven

Flicker Drive  
  A space ship drive that allows instantaneous travel across the galaxy.  

Hoban presents an interesting basis for travel between the stars.

There's a loud hum and a strong smell like burnt-out wiring; the air shimmers in the purple rain under the lights. Clever Daughter and its reflection aren't there any more. Nothing to see. Only the silence cruising like a shark. That's flicker drive.
Technovelgy from Fremder, by Russell Hoban.
Published by Jonathan Cape in 1996
Additional resources -

One of the characters in the novel puts it this way:

"Being is not a steady state but an occulting one: we are all of us a succession of stillness blurring into motion on the wheel of action, and it is in those spaces of black between the pictures that we find the heart of mystery in which we are never allowed to rest."

I found some additional information about this story in this short review of Fremder.

Thanks to the reader who submitted the quote for this item; thanks also to Chris for the correction.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Fremder
  More Ideas and Technology by Russell Hoban
  Tech news articles related to Fremder
  Tech news articles related to works by Russell Hoban

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