![]() |
Science Fiction
Dictionary Latest By
"Generally, the human race avoids doing anything radical until forced into it."
|
![]() |
![]() As far as I know, the first use of this interesting term in an sf story.
Here are a couple of additional quotes:
...
All the phenomena of space were real and immediate, to the native asterite, as they had never been to his Earth-born forbears. Even a terraformed planetoid, such as Obania, had no safe hundreds of kilometers of insulating atmosphere, but only a thin gaseous envelope. Meteors falling here were something more than mysterious streaks of distant fire; here they were grim dice of life and death.
An earlier use of this word occurs in the Buck Rogers comic strips from 1929-1931:
![]() (Buck Rogers asterites) In a more jocular vein, fun-loving native Asterites are described in Juke Box Asteroid, a 1944 story by Joseph Farrell:
Burgess watched helplessly as the Venusians marched into his ship. He glowered at the guns held by their captors, and at the happy Asterites, who were leaping happily about the surface of the tiny planet, evidently overjoyed to be back in their natural habitat. The word "asterite" was also used in the 19th century (and possibly earlier) referring to a kind of opal that presented a star-like reflection. Compare to belter from The Warriors (1966) by Larry Niven. Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
resources:
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
|
![]() |
Science Fiction
Timeline
Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
Anthropic's Claude AI Creates Legal Citation From Whole Cloth
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
DARPA Wants 'Large Bio-Mechanical Space Structures'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
|
![]() |
![]() |
Home | Glossary
| Science Fiction Timeline | Category | New | Contact
Us | FAQ | Advertise | ![]() Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™ Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved. |
![]() |