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"It's hard to tell stories about critters that are not human. John W. Campbell tried it, in "Twilight," and everybody says it's a wonderful story, and nobody ever reads it twice."
- Jerry Pournelle
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| Needle Pipe | ||
| A device that could project slivers of metal at near light speed. |
| The electronic needle pipe was a foot-long metallic pipe with a diameter the size of a small human finger. It had a large, round metallic base, to be operated with two hands.
It projected a very small stream of electrons, which carried with them a tiny, sharp-pointed fragment of metal, like a needle. But when it struck it solidified. There was a range finder for aiming, and a device for curving the electronic stream, so that the beam could be sent around almost any degree of curvature. |
| Technovelgy from Beyond the Stars,
by Ray Cummings. Published by Ace in 1928 Additional resources -
|
David Gerrold, in his War Against the Chtorr novels of the 1980's, wrote about something very similar to this. It was a gun that sprayed (I think electromagnetically) thousands of stainless steel needles per minute. See AMD Needle Rifle from A Matter for Men (1983) by David Gerrold.
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'What would you do,' Eric asked the robot cabdriver, 'if your wife had turned to stone, your best friend were a toad, and you had lost your job?'
'those suits they wear -- call them 'stillsuits' -- that reclaim the body's own water...'
'Now, except for weight and heat, the same conditions prevail in this chamber as in space.'
'there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net...'
'Now, look, let's start with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics...'
'..the synthetic intellects at the Place of Knowledge had far outstripped the minds of men.'
'But after washing and drying clothes had to be smooth - free from fine lines and wrinkles ...'
