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"I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander."
- Isaac Asimov
 |
| Gyrotomic | ||
| A small gyrostabilized hovercraft. |
| And all the time the fellows told me that Ianay had taken it upon himself to privately tutor Rosalie in her gyrotomic-flying.
Which hurt more than anything else! |
| From Ra For The Rajah,
by John Victor Peterson. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1938 Additional resources -
|
The gyrotomics could also be used in team sports:
Five small gyrotomics, their wings and fuselages etched in guarded neon-tubes, constitute a team. The ball is a five-foot, positively charged, helium-filled sphere which is thrust back and forth by plus-charged force beams in the 'tomic's noses.
Compare to the flying platform from Locked Worlds (1929) by Edmond Hamilton, the
hoverlimo from Steel Beach (1992) by John Varley, the
landspeeder from Star Wars (1976) by George Lucas and the
hovercraft from Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988) by William Gibson.
(Rocket Polo from Ra For The Rajah)
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'Chain of hotels that specialized in non-human service.'
'But then... not every bulldozer operator works on the Moon.'
'Griff found the white and pink map distracting and switched it off using his tongue mouse.'
'Jimmy Cardigan and Harlowe, staring through the darkside port, had their feet in the foot-loops...'
'But the rising sign, as it had been designed to do, held his eyes. A vast circle of scarlet stars came up into the greenish desert dusk.'
'A lightning pilot possibly could land that tin toy without power and still walk away from it provided he had the skill to play Skip-to-M’Lou in and out of the atmosphere...'
'It was you who betrayed me — you and your robot cat.'
'with its atomic engine as noiseless as a dancing sunbeam...'
