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"The way you write science fiction is: you sit down at your writing machine and you open your mind to the first thought that comes through."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Reality Tape | ||
| The medium upon which the life experience of an electric ant - a robotic person - is presented. |
| "...The punched tape roll above your heart mechanism is not a programming turret but is in fact a reality-supply construct. All sense stimuli received by your central neurological system emanate from that unit and tampering with it would be risky if not terminal..."
If I cut the tape, he realized, my world will disappear. |
| Technovelgy from The Electric Ant,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Mercury Press in 1969 Additional resources -
|
Compare to Life Chamber from The Chamber of Life (1929) by G. Peyton Wertenbaker, the feelies from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932), virtual reality from The Theatre and Its Double (1938) by Antonin Artaud, the permanent hookup from Spectator Sport (1950) by John MacDonald, the Saga technology from Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars (1956), dead-show from Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (1974) by James Tiptree, Jr. and stimsim from William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984).
Compare also to video glasses from Islands in the Net (1988) by Bruce Sterling, Tru-Vu Lenses from Earth (1990) by David Brin, data goggles from Snow Crash (1992) by Neal Stephenson,eyecaps from Starfish (1999) by Peter Watts, overlay specs from Halting State (2007) by Charles Stross and HUD glasses from Daemon (2009) by Daniel Suarez.
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'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
