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"It is change ... that is the dominant factor in society today... the world as it will be. This means that ... every man must take on a science fictional way of thinking.""
- Isaac Asimov
 |
| Force Pencil | ||
| Device straps to forearm, projects a force beam. |
| From a closet in the wall [the Black Man] took a rather thick, black sheath, that suggested in part a coil, or a network of wires, and bound it to his right forearm. On a cabinet across the room was a shallow brass bowl, with some flowers floating in it. He pointed his right hand at it, experimentally, seeming to feel for some kind of contact. The bowl rocked slightly, rose an inch or two off the table, and suddenly upset, spilling water and flowers. He smiled satisfiedly...
 (Force Pencil from 'Gather Darkness' by Fritz Leiber) The Black Man's right arm, bent at his side, moved a little, feeling for contact. He leaned a little to the left to balance the weight of the force pencil. |
| Technovelgy from Gather, Darkness!,
by Fritz Leiber. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1943 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the pencil heat ray from Ray Cumming's excellent 1931 novel Brigands of the Moon and the force-field penknife from Isaac Asimov's 1951 novel Foundation. The use of technology in religious ceremonies Gather, Darkness is very similar to that used in ceremonial events in the Foundation series.
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'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
