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"the [science fiction] writer should be able to convince the reader (and himself) that the wonders he is describing really can come true...and that gets tricky when you take a good, hard look at the world around you."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Telebook | ||
| A book made available in text on a television screen. |
| They turned the pages, which were yellow and crinkly... and then, when they turned back to the page before, it had the same words on it...
"Gee," said Tommy. "What a waste. When you're through with the book, you just throw it away, I guess. Our television screen must have had a million books on it and its good for plenty more. I wouldn't throw it away. "Same with mine," said Margie. She was eleven and hadn't seen as many telebooks as Tommy had. |
| Technovelgy from The Fun They Had,
by Isaac Asimov. Published by Children's Magazine in 1951 Additional resources -
|
This is not quite the same as an electronic book; but it does pretty effectively predict the existence of services like the Gutenberg project, which has many thousands of books onscreen in text form.
Take a look at the description of tanks from Murray Leinster's 1946 short story A Logic Named Joe. It specifically mentions the idea of a central repository that can find requested information and then display it on a screen (a "logic or vision-receiver) at your own home.
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Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
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'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
