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"I operate by a code that makes me responsible for what I do, makes me definitely, directly, genuinely responsible. I am precisely the kind of person I made myself out to be."
- Harlan Ellison
 |
| Plastiskin | ||
| Artificial human skin to cover prosthetics. |
As far as I know, the first use of this word.
| Horace looked over the assembly of quiet, subdued robots.
“Fortunately I have taught you all how to make others like you, so that you can perpetuate your race by making more and more robots. You can go on where the human race leaves off, building a civilization that will spread over the universe. 1 Just remember that planets where life exists are death to you. The radiations of living protoplasm, no matter how you try to insulate yourselves from them will destroy the gel in which your brain rests. And no other substance has the same properties as that gel.”
 (Plastiskin from 'Unforeseen' by Roger P. Graham) “But all you planned for us to do for the human race?” Rob protested as Horace skillfully glued the plastiskin back over the braincase of his first robot creation. |
| Technovelgy from Unforeseen,
by Roger P. Graham. Published by Fantastic Adventures in 1949 Additional resources -
|
Another use from We All Died At Breakaway Station by Richard Meredith, published by Amazing Stories in 1969:
Additional resources -
Compare to the surrogate skin from Robert Heinlein's 1951 novel The Puppet Masters and art-derm from Philip K. Dick's 1961 novel Dr. Futurity and the more functional read-out skin from John Varley's 1992 novel Steel Beach.
Also, compare to plastissue from WF Wallace's 1952 story Accidental Flight and plasta-skin from Star Rangers (1953) by Andre Norton. And uniflesh from The Dosadi Experiment (1977) by Frank Herbert.
The steward vanished as quickly
and silently as he had come, and
Bracer remained in the same position, fighting thought, until metallic
knuckles clad in synthetic plastiskin
rapped on the cabin’s hatch.
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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.'
