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"In 1970 I found little difficulty staying 30 years ahead of the man in the street, and now I find it difficult to stay 18 months ahead of the man on the street."
- Vernor Vinge
 |
| Coffin Rack Capsule Hotel | ||
| A hotel with very (very!) small rooms. |
Looking for an inexpensive place to stay? In the city in Japan? You might want to try a coffin hotel. Lots cheaper than a regular room - maybe because a coffin hotel is a room stripped down to the bare essentials - the parts you use the most.
| The New Rose Hotel is a coffin rack on the ragged fringes of Narita International. Plastic capsules a meter high and three long, stacked like surplus Godzilla teeth in a concrete lot off the main road to the airport. Each capsule has a television mounted flush with the ceiling. I spend whole days watching Japanese game shows and old movies. |
| Technovelgy from The Science Fiction Yearbook (ed. Jerry Pournelle),
by William Gibson. Published by Omni Publications in 1984 Additional resources -
|
Perfect for Gibson's future urban sprawl dramas. The name of the short story is New Rose Hotel. It was made into a movie in 1988.
And, just to clear things up, Gibson did not invent the idea of a coffin hotel. They are real hotels that date from at least the early 1970's. I also remember the original hotel in Walt Disney World in Orlando; each room was a fully constructed "shoebox" that was hoisted into place.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Science Fiction Yearbook (ed. Jerry Pournelle)
More Ideas
and Technology by William Gibson
Tech news articles related to The Science Fiction Yearbook (ed. Jerry Pournelle)
Tech news articles related to works by William Gibson
Coffin Rack Capsule Hotel-related
news articles:
- Tokyo's Nakagin Capsule Tower Tear-Down, Neuromancer's Coffin Hotel Lives Forever
| Amazon Will Send You Heinlein's Knockdown Cabin |
| Elegant Bivouac Shelter Produces Water And Electricity |
| AI-THu Shapeshifting Transformer Home |
| With Mycotecture, We'll Just Grow The Space Habitats We Need |
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"The robot solemnly hit a ball against the wall, picked it up and teed it, hit it again, over and again...'
'There was a wall ahead... It was riddled with holes that were the mouths of tunnels.'
'...support the interior human structure against Jupiter’s pull.'
'Anything larger than a BB shot it picked up and placed in a tray...'
'The German chemists have discovered how to supply the needed elements in compact, undiluted form...'
'Compounds devised by the biochemists for the rapid building of bone...'
'The car faltered as the external command came to brake...'
'It is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized...'
