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"Every scientist worth his salt that I know of has read science fiction."
- Greg Bear
 |
| Slamhound | ||
| An automated assassination device with a keen sense of smell. |
The canine analogy is useful in several ways in the narrative: it subtly emphasizes the keen sensitivity to odors possessed by the device, and it seems quite natural chasing a car...
| THEY sent A SLAMHOUND on Turner's trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the color of his hair. It caught up with him on a street called Chandni Chauk and came scrambling for his rented BMW through a forest of bare brown legs
and pedicab tires. Its core was a kilogram of recrystallized
hexogene and flaked TNT. He didn't see it coming. The last he saw of India was the pink stucco facade of a place called the Khush-Oil Hotel. Because he had a good agent, he had a good contract. Because he had a good contract, he was in Singapore an hour after the explosion. Most of him, anyway. The Dutch surgeon liked to joke about that, how an unspecified percentage of Turner hadn't made it out of Palam International on that first flight and had to spend the night there in a shed, in a support vat. |
| From Count Zero,
by William Gibson. Published by Arbor House in 1986 Additional resources -
|
The slamhound reminds one of the mechanical hound of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.
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and Technology from Count Zero
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Tech news articles related to Count Zero
Tech news articles related to works by William Gibson
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news articles:
- DARPA's 'BigDog' Robot Now In Puppy Stage
- Autonomous Robot Weapons For Terrorists?
- When Slamhounds Attack
| Thermal Laser Weapon Evolves From PHaSR |
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| Multimode Directed Energy Armament System |
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Gerry was dubious. She had seen abortive attempts at paralysis rays before.
Let your fingers - uh - your robot do the walking. And hopping.
