Alan Dean Foster
See first quotes from Alan Dean Foster
51 Quotations from Alan Dean Foster
| alien adj. | 1991 Cat.a.lyst xiii. 189 Soldiers descended from the ancient Incas, all of them armed to the teeth with weapons derived from an alien technology. |
| alien life form n. | 1972 Tar-Aiym Krang 122 While engaged in exploration and colonization, he had encountered many other alien life-forms. |
| autodoc n. | 1979 Alien v. 106 We have to get him into the infirmary where the autodoc can work on him. |
| avian n. | 1977 End of Matter 21 Seated securely on the damp, slick stone, he found he could easily see over the heads of even the tall avians in the crowd, which consisted mostly of local humans sprinkled with a few warmly bundled thranx and a smattering of other alien types. |
| beam v. | 2013 Into Darkness xi. 186 You can beam her back aboard without any problem. |
| bug-eyed monster n. | 1989 Quozl xiii. 159 Turns-theme-Over is no bug-eyed monster. |
| cityship n. | 1979 Black Hole vi. 93 The elevator had carried Holland, Pizer and Vincent below the level of the cross-ship air-car corridor that had brought them to the command tower. Now they were in the depths of the vast city-ship, traveling on foot down a much narrower passageway. |
| credit n. | 1972 Tar-Aiym Krang 23 I can’t set value on my answers, only on your question. Whatever you deem it worth, sir. If I give no answer I will refund your credits. |
| cryosleep n. | 1979 Alien i. 13 For one thing, they were dripping wet from the preservative cryosleep fluid that had filled and surrounded their bodies. |
| deep space n. | 2015 Force Awakens 166 Visual recognition ignited a small but very important internal sequence that concluded with the GA-97 sending out a compressed signal that was bounced around, coded, decoded, encrypted, and flashed out into deep space. |
| deep-space adj. | 2015 Force Awakens 132 A battered and infuriated Bala-Tik took time out from bemoaning the loss of his men and equipment to activate a deep-space contact via the freighter’s still-functional communications system. |
| extraterrestrial n. | 1991 Cat.a.lyst ix. 133 One o' his theories claimed that these here Nazca lines were made by the locals to help extraterrestrials' spaceships land here. |
| galaxy-wide adj. | 1973 Bloodhype 176 Otherwise we would now be in a position to pursue our natural destiny of galaxy-wide domination at a more natural pace. |
| gas giant n. | 1995 Life Form . 1 The outermost was a gas giant, a lonely but colorful banded sentinel the size of Neptune. |
| insectoid n. | 1972 Tar-Aiym Krang (1983) 12 From a counter of her variegated display booth, Mother Mastiff was pleading amiably with a pair of small, jeweled thranx touristas. Her technique was admirable and competent. It ought to be, he reflected. She'd had plenty of time in which to perfect it. He was only mildly surprised at the insectoid’s presence. Where humans go, thranx also, and vicey-versy, don’t you know? |
| insectoid adj. | 1972 Tar-Aiym Krang 122 The thranx were as alien as any race man had yet encountered. A hundred-percent insectoid, hard-shelled, open circulatory system, compound eyes, rigid, inflexible joints…and eight limbs. And they were egg-layers. As a news commentator of the time put it, ‘they were completely and delightfully weird.’ |
| jump v. | 2015 Force Awakens iv. 55 That needed to change, Poe knew, or they would never get the chance to jump to lightspeed. |
| laser cannon n. | 1972 Tar-Aiym Krang 45 Out of the corner of an eye he could see a screen, delicately painted, ruffling in the slight breeze of the chamber’s ventilators. Beyond which no doubt the muzzle of a laser-cannon or other inhospitable device was already trained on them. |
| laser pistol n. | 1972 Tar-Aiym Krang xv. 177 Compact and efficient, the laser pistol could cook a man at five hundred meters or a steak at one. It could weld most metals, or burn its way through any form of conventional plastic barrier. |
| laser rifle n. | 1972 Tar-Aiym Krang xix. 216 I have a fully operational six millimeter laser rifle here, and plenty of charges, but I don’t see anything worth fighting over. |
| lifeboat n. | 1973 Bloodhype 232 Do you think the shuttles and lifeboats will operate, Moorea? |
| matter transmitter n. | 1991 Cat.a.lyst ix. 133 Now somebody’s gonna have to explain away that matter transmitter. Or are you going to tell me it was a Kodak moment that brought us all the way across the Andes. |
| needle-beam n. | 1995 Mid-Flinx 33 Both men drew compact needlers. ‘They're set to stun, and I don’t think she’s faster than a needle beam.’ |
| needler n. | 1995 Mid-Flinx 33 Both men drew compact needlers. ‘They're set to stun, and I don’t think she’s faster than a needle beam.’ |
| needle-ray n. | 1973 Bloodhype 52 The minute the monster had breached the first door and flowed for them, one biologist shot his companion and then turned the little needle-ray on himself. |
| non-human n. | 1977 End of Matter 70 Not that it mattered anyway. The Qwarm clan had often accepted assignments from nonhumans. |
| null-g n. | 1977 End of Matter 210 The hold was little more than a vast open sphere within which all kinds of cargo could be stored at null g. |
| organlegging n. | 2006 Sagramanda 137 If there were not bounty hunters of company security personnel or independent investigators, what did they want with him? Thoughts of organlegging returned. |
| outworld adj. | 1977 End of the Matter 12 Something moved and partially emerged from cape folds. It was leathery, thin, and brightly colored. Without actually recognizing the object, the outworld tourist nonetheless had an immediate impression of serpentine lethality. |
| outworlder n. | 1972 Tar-Aiym Krang 31 When the police discovered that the three corpses were outworlders, a search pattern would be put into effect with small delay. Murder was not conducive to increased tourism. |
| outworlder n. | 1972 Tar-Aiym Krang 5 That worthy, a husky blond middle-aged human, had just finished selling a pair of durfarq -skin coats to two outlandishly clad outworlders…for three times what they were worth. |
| planet-buster n. | 1974 Dark Star (1978) 11 But they couldn’t chance letting one of those planet-busters back into Old Sol’s backyard. |
| pressor n. | 1973 Bloodhype 48 The two shuttles slowed and maneuvered from side to side; a little lower and they were positioned directly over the shaft. A lift pressor at the bottom of the shaft gently locked in and the two shuttles released their hold. A tricky operation. The idea was that the two shuttles would release their hold at the same moment the main pressor took over. Unless timing and power were precisely matched, a catastrophic misalignment of forces could occur. |
| sapient adj. | 1999 Phylogenesis (2000) 263 The poet’s eyes rose to fix the surviving biped in their multilenticular stare. ‘I don’t mean that. I mean that two sapient beings are dead.’ |
| scout ship n. | 1975 Mudd’s Passion in Star Trek: Log Three vii. 120 The shuttlecraft hangar was filled with the normal complement of offship Starfleet vehicles. There was a small, superfast scout ship, a heavily armored landing vehicle for worlds with surfaces even more inhospitable than the one rumored to, be revolving beneath them, and a hovercraft for those planets with totally antagonistic surfaces, or even none at all. |
| shuttlecraft n. | 1975 Midworld (1976) 208 It’s true our shuttlecraft can’t fly again. But its internal systems check out operational, including communications. |
| space-going adj. | 1973 Bloodhype 2 The Vom now tried to attract the ships of another species, but space-going races were scarce in this section of the galaxy. |
| space yacht n. | 1973 Bloodhype 109 I'm not picky, myself. I wish only a very small space yacht—KK drive equipped, of course—with a platinum head. |
| spacing n. 1 | 1973 Bloodhype 79 If you've ever a mind to learn spacing, my ship, the Umbra, is listed in all the registries. |
| suit n. | 1972 Tar-Aiym Krang 105 They passed several vessels in parking orbit around the planet, including one of the great fueling stations for the shuttles. Some of the giant craft were in the process of loading or unloading, and men in suits floated about them sparkling like diamond dust. |
| tractor beam n. | 1977 End of Matter 210 Gradually Flinx activated the posigravity tractor beams, used for manipulating large cargo. |
| tribble n. | 2013 Into Darkness xvii. 298 The tribble. The only one on board. It was, impossibly, alive. It ought not to be. But it most certainly was, which suggested that... which meant that... His eyes widened. |
| UFO n. | 1991 Cat.a.lyst xii. 180 An invasion! Real UFOs! |
| ultrawave n. | 1973 Bloodhype 29 That, coupled with what he would make off the Largess expedition, ought to provide enough to refinish the entire screen. Plus getting an ultrawave booster for Ben, the Umbra’s comm operator. |
| vape v. | 1983 Man who Used Universe v. 65 You can’t just send over a couple of bullywots to vape him. |
| vessel n. | 1972 Tar-Aiym Krang 175 The powerful little ship was a complete space-going vessel, albeit a far more streamlined and less spacious one than the Gloryhole. It was powered by rockets of advanced design and, for atmospheric, sub-orbital flight, by ramjets. Being intended for simple ground-to-space, space-to-ground flights, it had limited cruising range. |
| vibroknife n. | 1973 Bloodhype 14 It appears to be a Secun vibraknife, battery powered. Very efficient. It will cut many metals, most plastics, but not ceramic alloy and a few other things. |
| xenobiological adj. | 1973 Bloodhype 173 And I might suggest a more regulated intake of oxygen. Your present rate of consumption intrigues me only as a xenobiological curiosity. Save it for those it may affect. |
| xenobiology n. | 1995 Life Form 36 As soon as he reached the port he knew that the heretofore grand discoveries of lichen and fungi on Tycho V and Burke had been instantly relegated to the realm of footnotes in the young world of xenobiology. |
| xenological adj. | 1997 Howling Stones 24 What was someone like Seaforth doing running a xenological contact station in the wilds of a frontier world, even as comparatively benign a frontier world as Senisran? |
| xenologist n. | 1989 Quozl iii. 31 The xenologist would have to be female, since the idea of taking an unbalanced crew was unthinkable. |