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"If you have a gut response to a story, you are not responding to something new ..you are really responding to a story you were told when you were six or seven…"
- Samuel R. Delany
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| Flashlight Laser | ||
| Small cylindrical device that generates a green beam of variable intensity and focal length; can illuminate or cut. |
At this point in the novel, Louis Wu and his companions are exploring the Ringworld.
| Louis aimed the implement high.
The figurine which was his target jutted from the tower's roof. It was like a modernized, surrealistic gargoyle. Louis' thumb moved, and the gargoyle glowed yellow-white. His index finger shifted, and the beam narrowed to a pencil of green light. The gargoyle sprouted a white-hot navel. |
| Technovelgy from Ringworld,
by Larry Niven. Published by Ballantine in 1970 Additional resources -
|
The flashlight-laser is like the ultimate Maglite flashlight. From simple illumination to cutting tool, the flashlight-laser does it all. Now where is that power setting on my Maglite...
This item is very reminiscent of the pencil heat ray from a 1931 novel by Ray Cummings. See also the cutteray an industrial strength laser-based cutting tool from Dune, by Frank Herbert.
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- Almost Niven's Flashlight Laser
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'If you're one of those rarities who haven't attended a rocket-polo "carnage", let me tell you it's a colorful affair.'
'They filed clumsily into the battleroom, like children in a swimming pool for the first time, clinging to the handholds along the side.'
'a walking balloon proceeded with long strides of its aluminum legs...'
'There was nowhere on the planet where science and technology could not provide one with a comfortable home...'
'Most men updated their PIP on New Year's Day...'
'...a misshapen, many-tentacled thing about twice the size of a man.'
