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"I long ago realized that I could reach far more people by writing something, than by walking down the street with a banner."
- John Brunner
 |
| Dirtside | ||
| The surface of a planet. |
Very early use of this phrase.
| Sam stopped a passing engineer's mate. "Hey, shipmate - we're fresh caught. Where's the crew's mess?
"Clockwise about eighty and inboard, this deck." He looked them over. "Fresh caught, eh? Well, you'll find out." "Like that, huh?" "Worse. A madhouse squared. If I wasn't married, I'd 'a' stayed dirtside." |
| From Starman Jones,
by Robert Heinlein. Published by Scribners in 1953 Additional resources -
|
This is a common phrase in science fiction. Here's another example, from Niven and Pournelle's Oath of Fealty:
Compare to Farside from A Fall of Mooniest (1961) by Arthur C. Clarke.
"Sinclair wants to do some outside work while we're dirtside." He took out his pocket computer and wrote quickly with the attached stylus.
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'A worker replaced by a nubot... had to be compensated.'
'... forcing the energy transfer which allowed him to regrow his lost fingers.'
'The car surged and lifted, clearing its top by a negligible margin.'
Science fiction authors are serious about sleep, too.
'I had explained," said Nessus, "that our civilisation was dying in its own waste heat.'
'Just what did I want Flexible Frank to do? - any work a human being does around a house.'
SF writers have thought about this since the 19th century.
