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"Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today -- but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all."
- Isaac Asimov
 |
| The Sleep | ||
| Use of a special technique to lessen the supplies required for long space voyages. |
| “In order to economize food, drink, oxygen, and other things, a certain number, to be determined, will be by turns kept under the sleep. Thus we can save our supplies and increase our chances of success. But so far we have found the safe extent of the sleep is only ten years at the longest, and there must be at least as long as five years between successive applications of it. One of the tasks to be seriously pursued on shipboard will be the improving and extending of the sleep.
 (The Sleep from 'Tani of Ekkis' by Aladra Septama (Judson Reeves)) |
| Technovelgy from Tani of Ekkis,
by Judson W. Reeves. Published by Amazing Stories Quarterly in 1930 Additional resources -
|
The procedure was performed as follows:
At the end of an hour of apparent lifelessness, the bodies were laid in separate tanks filled with a prepared solution; the specialists left the room, and the air was pumped out so as to form a vacuum. The tanks were along the walls and had small glass panels through which the sleepers could be inspected at intervals, without entering the sleep chamber. The name of each sleeper, with a number, appeared upon the respective tanks where they could be seen through the glass panel.
In exactly ten years they would be awakened, none the worse for their experience, and with the sensation of having only had a refreshing sleep. As a matter of course, the sleepers awoke in the same physical condition as when put to sleep; that is, put to sleep at thirty years, one would still be thirty years of age in physical fact, although forty in point of time elapsing since his birth.
Compare to the Suspended Animation (Frigorific Process) from The Senator's Daughter (1879) by Edward Page Mitchell, cold-sleep from Robert Heinlein's Methuselah's Children (1941), the eternity drug from Far Centaurus (1944) by A.E. van Vogt, stasis from Heinlein's Door Into Summer (1951), the adiabatic pods from The Lady Who Sailed The Soul (1960) by Cordwainer Smith, cold-pack from Dr. Futurity (1960) by Philip K. Dick, bibs from Cantata 140 (1964) by Philip K. Dick,
corpsicle from Pohl's The Age of the Pussyfoot (1965), the hibernaculum from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by Arthur C. Clarke, cryosleep from Flight of Exiles (1972) by Ben Bova and the EverRest Cryotorium from Roger Zelazny's Flare (1992).
Just for fun, contrast with Cosmoline (Warm Sleep) from War Dogs (2014) by Greg Bear.
THE selections made, those chosen went cheerfully to the chamber where specialists would prepare them and put them through the process, which was short and simple. The candidates merely reclined in a room charged with a specially prepared atmosphere and in a few moments were asleep. They were watched with care by the specialists. Gradually respiration and heart beat declined until there was no sign of life.
(Sleep Preparation from 'Tani of Ekkis' by Aladra Septama (Judson Reeves))
(Sleep tanks from 'Tani of Ekkis' by Aladra Septama (Judson Reeves))
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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.'
