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"[Science fiction] is the one literary medium left in which we have a free hand. We can do any damn thing we please."
- Alfred Bester
 |
| Electrono-Mirror | ||
| Focuses the sun's rays on a planetary surface for terraforming purposes. |
| Uranus boasted its tiny colonies; Neptune was now being studied for a colonization project. And far Pluto was under constant electrono-mirror bombardment that its icy surface might some day be cleared. |
| From The Day We Celebrate,
by Nelson S. Bond. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1941 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the synchrophased power beams from Murray Leinster's The Propagandist (1947), the spot light of heat from Niven/Pournelle/Flynn's Fallen Angels (1991) and Clifford Simak's solar energy beam from Masquerade (1941).
For those keeping track, this story was in the January, 1941 issue of Astounding, while Theodore Sturgeon's orbiting mirror was in the February issue, in a clever short story called Completely Automatic.
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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.
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'...lifted themselves to skimming flight upon whirling helicopters."
'Twenty rocket tugs towed it from its Earth hangar out into space.'
I don't need it to go fast, it just needs to amble along.
'The program raced up the screen one scan line at a time, subtly smoothing, deleting and coloring.'
'... a sound tape to supply the noise'
'The spotter descends, and we think it searches the vicinity, looking for the victim's face...'
