John Brunner

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John Brunner
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29 Quotations from John Brunner

alternate future n. 1967 J. Brunner Quicksand ii. 7 He felt poised in this instant of time, as an impossibly slow spinning top might poise before falling. He could almost sense the rotation of the earth, carrying him past the successive doorways leading to his alternate futures. It was within his power to move forward into whichever he wished, to go on putting up with things as they were or to make a clean break and any of half a dozen fresh starts, or to set in train events leading to a break being forced on him. He could picture with painful clarity the likely form that each of those futures would take. Only the act of choosing between them was beyond his present ability.
alternative history n. 1992 J. Brunner Kipling's Science Fiction (1994) 137 This time it’s the turn of that hardy science fiction standby, the alternative history story, built around the question ‘What if events had worked out otherwise?’ But RK stood it on its head. This is the tale of how a history different from ours was stopped from happening.
Anglic n. 1953 ‘J. Loxmith’ Thou Good & Faithful in Astounding Science-Fiction Mar. 40/2 He held it there a couple of minutes, and then flay me if he didn’t start to talk Anglic!
antigrav n. 1993 J. Brunner Muddle Earth 161 How exactly did acrobats and tumblers using antigrav for extra bounce correspond to ‘the crowned heads of India and Indonesia (simulated)’?
cityship n. 1958 J. Brunner Threshold of Eternity in New Worlds Jan. 85 A city-ship from Lyrae 129 enters Magwareet’s section of space apparently out of control.
credit n. 1965 J. Brunner Galactic Consumer Reports No. 1: Inexpensive Time Machines in Galaxy Magazine Dec. 61/2 VALUE FOR CREDITS[:] Apart from the episode of the invading Mongols, the WORLDLINE WANDERER—the most expensive machine tested—performed well and met the various Standards applied. All the others, even though less costly, displayed faults which we regard as potentially dangerous. We therefore name as our Best Buy: WORLDLINE WANDERER at Cr. 9,768.10 (recommended Earthside retail price).
cryostasis n. 1993 J. Brunner Muddle Earth 11—12 The bulky man stumped toward the three in black, leering. ‘I told you: he faked his death and cryostasis!’
Earthsider n. 1966 J. Brunner Long Way to Earth in Worlds of If Mar. 26/2 This was a firm big enough and inarguably profitable enough to tolerate such minor budget items as repatriation of an Earthsider.
elsewhen n. 1974 J. Brunner Times Without Number (1981) 69 Father Ramón seemed to come back to the present from a private voyage into the elsewhen.
energy gun n. 1965 J. Brunner Altar On Asconel in Worlds of If Apr. 10/1 It was small wonder that Ulwyn had been agitated; across his back Vix wore an energy gun which would probably have been capable of razing the gatehouse with a single bolt.
faster-than-light adj. 1967 J. Brunner Born Under Mars xiii. 96 Every suggestion that sprang to my mind was open to the charge that it wasn’t a new concept but an elaboration of an old one, except the faster-than-light drive. And we'd dealt with that.
galactography n. 1993 J. Brunner Muddle Earth 214 The knowledge pill was good on galactography.
gravity plate n. 1968 J. Brunner Product of the Masses in Worlds of If Apr. 99/2 She spun on her heel and marched away. The sound of her heels could be heard fading as she stamped along the gravity plates linking the floor of the umbilical tunnel.
holocam n. 1968 J. Brunner Stand on Zanzibar (1971) 33 Strung about with Japanind Holocams with…LazeeLaser monochrome lamps.
impervium n. 1971 J. Brunner Dramaturges of Yan in Fantastic Dec. 56/1 It was proofed by a coating of impervium against the risk of meteorites striking.
mutant n. 1965 J. Brunner Altar at Asconel in Worlds of If 32/1 We have a girl here who can apparently read minds—a mutant, obviously.
non-terrestrial adj. 1960 J. Brunner Atlantic Abomination x. 59 You may have heard by now that the biologists assign a nonterrestrial origin to the creature you brought up from Atlantica.
outworld n. 1966 J. Brunner Long Way to Earth in World of If Science Fiction Mar. 10/2 Prior to this, some of the less scrupulous companies had forcibly colonized outworlds by methods even less polite than the Dictatrix’s: luring workers into their net with temptingly high salaries, then abandoning them light-years from any place where they could spend their earnings.
rimworld n. 1965 J. Brunner Altar on Asconel iii. 20 The Empire never embraced the whole of the galaxy, though people generally assume it did. It could be a Rim world, some distance from the hub.
rocketport n. 1965 J. Brunner Long Result (1970) xii. 89 None the less it was with a sensation of great satisfaction that I went to collect my baggage and proceed to the rocketport. After last night, naturally, I was extremely tired; long before the steady pull of the rocket’s acceleration sank me into my couch, I was dozing.
space probe n. 1972 J. Brunner Wrong End of Time in Amazing Stories Jan. 28/1 Out beyond Pluto the Russian space-probe was met by aliens.
star drive n. 1963 J. Brunner Astronauts Must Not Land ii. 11 Even to me—and I've spent my working life making science and technology comprehensible to the man in the street—it was a hell of a job putting the thinking behind that stardrive into everyday language.
starfarer n. 1991 J. Brunner Maze of Stars i. 9 Then, when owners and baggage had been reunited, the crew would descend at a more leisurely pace and make way for locally recruited staff, cleaners always, sometimes bodgers—as starfarers contemptuously termed Trevithra’s finest craftspeople—to take care of minor repairs.
terraform v. 1993 J. Brunner Muddle Earth 114 You’d have enough energy not just to terraform the nearly habitable planet, but make it over completely.
three vee n. 1975 J. Brunner Shockwave Rider 174 These days, you simply did not go call on somebody without advance warning. It wasn’t worth it. For one thing, people were spending less time in their homes, statistics said, than ever before in history—despite the arrival of the world in full color and mock solidity thanks to three-vee in the corner of the living room. And for another, perhaps more important, calling without notice was liable to get you webbed in a net of unbreakable plastic, possibly even gassed, at any home above the poverty level. So you used the veephone first.
time traveller n. 1974 J. Brunner Times Without Number (1981) 10 It wasn’t only the embarrassing experience of being shown off around the hall by her—as it were, a real live time-traveller, exclamation point, in the same tone of voice as one would say, ‘A real live tiger’.
worm n. 1975 J. Brunner Shockwave Rider (1977) 25 Fluckner had resorted to one of the oldest tricks in the store and turned loose in the continental net a self-perpetuating tapeworm, probably headed by a denunciation group ‘borrowed’ from a major corporation, which would shunt itself from one nexus to another every time his credit-code was punched into a keyboard. It could take days to kill a worm like that, and sometimes weeks.
worm n. 1975 J. Brunner Shockwave Rider (1977) 258 This is indeed the father and mother of a tapeworm. It’s of a type known as parthenogenetic. If you’re acquainted with contemporary data-processing jargon, you'll have noticed how much use it makes of terminology derived from the study of living animals. And with reason. Not for nothing is a tapeworm called a tapeworm. It can be made to breed. Most can only do so if they are fertilized; that’s to say, if they're interfered with from outside. For example, the worm that prevents the Fedcomps from monitoring calls to Hearing Aid, and the similar but larger one that was released at Weychopee—Electric Skillet—to shut down the net in the event of enemy occupation: those are designed to lay dormant until tampered with. That’s true of all phage-type worms.
xenobiology n. 1966 J. Brunner Product of the Masses in Worlds of If Apr. 101/1 I’m not sufficiently grounded in xenobiology to know if the basic assumption is sound.