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"the [science fiction] writer should be able to convince the reader (and himself) that the wonders he is describing really can come true...and that gets tricky when you take a good, hard look at the world around you."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Spy-Eyes | ||
| Tiny robotic surveillance devices fly using propellers. |
| ...he was perhaps unduly annoyed when two tiny spy-eyes flew down from the hills to hover above his caravan on whirring little propellors. He tried to glance up pleasantly while their lenses televised pictures to their base, but he feared that his smile was strained.
The spy-eyes retired after a few minutes. Robert's vehicle, at his voiced order, turned onto a road leading between two forested hills. |
| Technovelgy from Manners of the Age,
by H.B. Fyfe. Published by Galaxy in 1952 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the raytron apparatus from Beyond the Stars (1928) by Ray Cummings, the scarab robot flying insect from The Scarab (1936) by Raymond Z. Gallun, the artificial eye drone from Glimpse (1938) by Manly Wade Wellman, the Ultraminiature Spy-Circuit from The Unknown (1972) by Christopher Anvil, copseyes from Cloak of Anarchy (1972) by Larry Niven, the sky ball from A Day For Damnation (1985) by David Gerrold, the drone floater camera from Runaway (1985) by Michael Crichton, the aerostat monitor from The Diamond Age (1995) by Neal Stephenson, the loiter drone from The Algebraist (2004) by Iain Banks and the bee cam from City of Pearl (2004) by Karen Traviss.
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| Vietnam To Have Full Biometric Transparency |
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'This was their world, their planet — this swift-traveling, yet seemingly moveless vessel.'
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Accompanied by a small selection of similar ideas from science fiction.
'...war-balloons, or, as it would be more correct to call them, navigable aerostats.'
