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"This category [science fiction] excludes rocket ships that make U-turns, serpent men of Neptune that lust after human maidens, and stories by authors who flunked their Boy Scout merit badge tests in descriptive astronomy."
- Robert Heinlein
 |
| Spring-Rifle | ||
| Projectile weapon designed to be resistant to countermeasures. |
| Weapon for weapon, any thug in the back alley of a large city had more, and more modern firepower; but the trick with modern warfare was not to outgun the enemy, but carry weapons he could not gimmick. Chemical and radiation armament was too easily put out of action from a distance. Therefore, the spring-rifle with its five thousand-sliver magazine and its tiny, compact, non-metallic mechanism which could put a sliver in a man-sized target at a thousand meters time after time with unvarying accuracy." |
| From Dorsai!,
by Gordon R. Dickson. Published by Ace Books in 1960 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the needle pipe from Ray Cummings' 1928 novel Beyond the Stars, the
needle gun from Malcom Jameson's 1941 story Slacker's Paradise, the
maula pistol from Frank Herbert's Dune, the
needle rifle from David Gerrold's 1983 novel A Matter for Men, and the
ice dart from Bart Kosko's 1987 novel Nanotime.
Thanks to Gatomon41 for contributing this item.
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