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"did I had an extremely expensive wife - she would see a new car that she liked and just buy it... under California law I was bound to buy her debts. I think I turned out 16 novels in five years."
- Philip K. Dick
 |
| Flight Stick | ||
| A personal flying vehicle, stripped down to the basics. |
Hanville Svetz was a time traveler, from some seven hundred years into our future, sent back on a peculiar mission. To find a horse.
| The world turned grey. Svetz caught a wall clamp to stop himself from falling...
When his head cleared, he turned to where other equipment was clamped to a wall. The flight stick was a lift-field generator and power source built into five feet of pole, with a control ring at one end, a brush discharge at the other, and a bucket seat and seat belt in the middle. Compact even for Svetz's age, the flight stick was spin-off from the spaceflight industries. But it still weighed thirty pounds with the motor off... He straddled the flight stick and twisted the control knob on the fore end. The stick lifted under him, and he wriggled into place on the bucket seat. He twisted the knob further. He drifted upward like a toy balloon. |
| From The Flight of the Horse,
by Larry Niven. Published by Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1969 Additional resources -
|
For a wind-shield, it had a very cool paraboloid force-field.
Well-read fans will have no trouble recognizing the broomstick speedster, from Robert Heinlein's 1942 classic Waldo.
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'The wings were at full spread-rest, their delicate metal interleavings extended.'
'A record that wouldn't get lost and couldn't be destroyed.'
'LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE.'
'What he got was indeed a kiss. It was disconcerting. No kissing lips were visible.'
'I shall introduce myself. I am R. Daneel Olivaw... I am a robot. Were you not told?'
