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"I went back to science fiction to try a few experiments …and my first experiment was a disaster…"
- Alfred Bester
 |
| Skycycle | ||
| A flying Harley; motorcycle of the skies. |
If you are flying over the desert on a distant planet looking for Grogs in the terrain below, you couldn't ask for a more convenient vehicle than a skycycle.
| We flew on skycycles over a red desert, under the soft red sun of Down... I hadn't been flying a skycycle long. I'm a flatlander. I had spent most of my life in the cities of Earth, where any flying vehicle is illegal unless fully automated.
...I was beginning to feel more comfortable with the [skycycle] under me, this platform with a saddle and an over-sized lift motor and an air pump and a forcefield generator to stop the wind... I dug in my saddlebags, hoping to find a flask. |
| Technovelgy from Handicap,
by Larry Niven. Published by Galaxy Science Fiction in 1967 Additional resources -
|
Niven fans will probably also think of the flycycle from his 1970 novel Ringworld.
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| The 'Last Mile' In China Crowded With Delivery Robots |
| Musk Idea Of Cars Talking To Each Other Predicted 70 Years Ago |
| Waymo And Tesla 'Autonomous Cabs' Are Piloted By Remote Drivers |
| Maybe It's Too Soon To Require Autonomous Mode |
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'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
'Briquet’s head seemed to think that to find and attach a new body to her head was as easy as to fit and sew a new dress.'
'...copy was turned out in a charming and entirely feminine handwriting.'
'It was almost unheard of for slunch to spread that fast...'
'He then started hand movements of definite pattern...'
'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain...'
