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"It was my preferred entertainment when I was a kid, so when I set out to be a writer, it was perfectly natural that I should write the sort of stories that I used to enjoy reading."
- John Brunner
 |
| 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! |
| Technovelgy 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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'He was in a high-ceilinged windowless cell with walls of glittering white porcelain.'
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors...'
'The robant and the tiny old woman entered the control room slowly...'
'Guy named Otto Octavius winds up with eight limbs... What are the odds?'
'It is as you thought when you constructed the time crystal, my master Vaylan.'
'This was their world, their planet — this swift-traveling, yet seemingly moveless vessel.'
