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"A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Spacegram | ||
| Telegrams of the space lanes. |
I don't know of an earlier use of this word.
When the railroads opened the American West, telegraph lines went right along. So, when opening the space lanes...
| In his hand he clutched a small square of blue paper which I instantly recognized as a spacegram...
...he interrupted me, took my trembling hands from his arms and pushed forward the blue square of crinkled paper. I stared at it, swiftly perused it for some explanation to the horror.
DEC 2012 |
| Technovelgy from An Adventure on Eros,
by J. Harvey Haggard. Published by Wonder Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
Take a look at this instance of the word, from Pirates of Space (1931) by B.X. Barry:
Old Simeon glared at her and waved the offending spacegram so violently it ripped in his fingers.
Here's another use, from Off the Beam (1944) by George O. Smith:
"Reading my mail?" asked Channing cheerfully. The average spacegram was about as secret as a postcard, so Channing didn't mind...
Spacegrams were being flashed to Mars, Venus and other planets of the civilized explored universe.
Here's another example from Jurisdiction (1941) by Nat Schachner:
Simeon Kenton, of Kenton Space Enterprises, Unlimited, was in a terrible temper... His mildly whiskered saint's visage was screwed up into unutterable knots. In his tight-clutched fingers was a blue spacegram which he shook violently at his daughter at each choking pause in his peroration...
('Jurisdiction' by Nat Schachner)
A steward found Channing in the salon and handed him a ’gram. Channing smiled, and the steward returned the smile and added : “You’ll fix these ships to talk back one day. Wait until you read that one — you’ll burn from here to Terra !”
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'He was in a high-ceilinged windowless cell with walls of glittering white porcelain.'
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors...'
'The robant and the tiny old woman entered the control room slowly...'
'Guy named Otto Octavius winds up with eight limbs... What are the odds?'
'It is as you thought when you constructed the time crystal, my master Vaylan.'
'This was their world, their planet — this swift-traveling, yet seemingly moveless vessel.'
