Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"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
 |
| Robot Spider (Handling Machine) | ||
| Multipurpose device used almost as an extension of the Martian's own bodies. |
| 'The mechanism it certainly was that held my attention first. It was one of those complicated fabrics that have since been called handling-machines, and the study of which has already given such an enormous impetus to terrestrial invention. As it dawned upon me first, it presented a sort of metallic spider with five jointed, agile legs, and with an extraordinary number of jointed levers, bars, and reaching and clutching tentacles about its body. Most of its arms were retracted, but with three long tentacles it was fishing out a number of rods, plates, and bars which lined the covering and apparently strengthened the walls of the cylinder... Its motion was so swift, complex, and perfect that at first I did not see it as a machine, in spite of its metallic glitter. The fighting-machines were co-ordinated and animated to an extraordinary pitch, but nothing to compare with this. People who have never seen these structures, and have only the ill-imagined efforts of artists or the imperfect descriptions of such eye-witnesses as myself to go upon, scarcely realise that living quality...
...At first, I say, the handling-machine did not impress me as a machine, but as a crablike creature with a glittering integument, the controlling Martian whose delicate tentacles actuated its movements seeming to be simply the equivalent of the crab's cerebral portion. But then I perceived the resemblance of its grey-brown, shiny, leathery integument to that of the other sprawling bodies beyond, and the true nature of this dexterous workman dawned upon me. |
| From The War of the Worlds,
by H.G. Wells. Published by Unknown in 1898 Additional resources -
|
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The War of the Worlds
More Ideas
and Technology by H.G. Wells
Tech news articles related to The War of the Worlds
Tech news articles related to works by H.G. Wells
| Robot Surgeons No Better Than Humans |
| K5 Autonomous Data Machine The Future Of Mall Security |
| Aldebaran Robot Talks Like C3PO - Almost |
| WildCat Runs Faster Than You, Untethered |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'... A vast complex electronic organism buried deep in the ground.'
'Copseyes floated overhead... each a sonic stunner... they were there to enforce the law...'
'It was not a large office, but it was quite spy-proof and quite undetectably so.'
When you hear that music, you know you're in for adventure - and predictions of possible technological futures!
'Vergil had trained the lymphocytes in the past six months to interact as much as possible with each other and with their environment...'
'This was really free power... Power carried across millions of miles on Addison's tight-beam principle.'
