Marion Zimmer Bradley

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Marion Zimmer Bradley

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71 Quotations from Marion Zimmer Bradley

adult fantasy n. 1980 M. Z. Bradley Darkover Retrospective in Planet Savers/Sword of Aldones (1982) 304 Donald A. Wollheim…has done more to encourage fantasy and science-fantasy in this country during the lean years before ‘adult fantasy’ became respectable.
atomics n. 1 1972 M. Z. Bradley Darkover Landfall (1987) 10 There evidently wasn’t a leak in the atomics after all—that girl from Comm checked out with no radiation burns.
blaster n. 1984 M. Z. Bradley World Wreckers 12 The younger man surrendered the blaster.
BNF n. 1952 M. Z. Bradley Letter in Thrilling Wonder Stories Dec. 131/1 You asked us to cut our letters short, so I'll cut, but before I leave, I'd like to ask why nobody ever writes to me any more. Not just me—all BNFs have that trouble. When I was new to fandom, for every letter printed in a magazine, I would receive twenty or thirty letters from other fans. Now that I've become one of the ‘Old Guard’™ by dint of six years of diligent fanning, nobody ever writes me—nobody except old friends, that is.
bug-eyed monster n. 1969 M. Z. Bradley Brass Dragon (1980) vii. 128 Evidently the many stories of flying saucers had some foundation in fact after all! But I wasn’t going to believe in Bug-Eyed Monsters!
croggled adj. [1980 M. Z. Bradley Darkover Retrospective in Planet Savers/Sword of Aldones (1982) iv. 347 When I finally figured out that she was asking if I was sad at not winning a Nebula, I was becroggled. I finally found my voice and told her that in twenty-five years of reading and writing science fiction, I had heard a hell of a lot of gauche questions, but that really took the cake.]
esp v. 1984 M. Z. Bradley World Wreckers 22 We have no legal proof and there’s no law against esping a machine to win.
esper n. 1984 M. Z. Bradley World Wreckers 22 No machine is proof against an esper. You’ve been winning too damned often.
eyetracks n. 1984 M. Z. Bradley Inheritor 180 I tend to get eyetracks all over the books before I sell them.
fandom n. 1980 M. Z. Bradley Darkover Retrospective in Planet Savers/Sword of Aldones (1982) 309 And I am…completely bemused by the phenomenon called ‘Darkover fandom’. Grateful, certainly. But puzzled.
fantastic n. 2 1948 M. Zimmer East Greenbush Rides Again in Thrilling Wonder Stories June 129/1 (letter) Oh, please—isn’t it about time for another Kuttner full-length fantastic?
fantasy n. 1 1980 M. Z. Bradley Darkover Retrospective in Planet Savers/Sword of Aldones (1982) 304 Donald A. Wollheim…has done more to encourage fantasy and science-fantasy in this country during the lean years before ‘adult fantasy’ became respectable.
fanzine n. 1979 M. Z. Bradley Stormqueen! (1991) p. v And so once, in a fanzine, I said firmly that if I should ever write a fantasy, my protagonist would be a man belonging to the alien world.
faster-than-light adj. 1969 M. Z. Bradley Brass Dragon (1980) iii. 50 If they start from Earth, you can’t turn on any faster-than-light drive inside the orbit of Saturn, or you'll crash the asteroids.
faster than light adv. 1969 M. Z. Bradley Brass Dragon (1980) viii. 149 Very likely their interstellar ships went faster than light.
flying saucer n. 1969 M. Z. Bradley Brass Dragon (1980) v. 85 That made sense, of course. And yet it seemed to leave no alternative except Win’s little green men and their flying saucer.
gadget story n. 1948 M. Zimmer Letter in Startling Stories Sept. 126/1 May I leave you with a plea for more fantasy, more space-and-interplanetary tales, more humor and less ‘gadget’ and ‘surprise twist’ stories.
Galactic n. 2 1954 M. Z. Bradley Centaurus Changeling in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Apr. 90 Out of courtesy to his guests, he was speaking a mangled dialect of Galactic Standard; Beth wished irritably that he would talk Centaurian.
home planet n. 1982 M. Z. Bradley Winds of Darkover 10 Resigning before a contract was up meant losing your holdback pay and your fee passage back to your home planet—which could strand you on a strange world and wipe out a year’s pay.
humanoid n. 1962 M. Z. Bradley Planet Savers in Planet Savers/Sword of Aldones (1982) ii. 18 With the small and delicate humanoids who had been my playfellows, I had gathered the nuts and buds and trapped the small arboreal animals they used for food.
humanoid n. 1969 M. Z. Bradley Brass Dragon (1980) viii. 142 Behind him one of the slab-faced humanoids moved, weapon at the ready.
hyperdrive n. 1969 M. Z. Bradley Brass Dragon (1980) iii. 49 A spaceship traveling at half the speed of light on planetary drive, and three times the speed of light on hyperdrive, expected to call in at three widely separated stars—and I can’t figure out how long they'd be in space each way.
hyperspace n. 1969 M. Z. Bradley Brass Dragon (1980) iii. 51 Then to hit your first star’s fourth planet, you have to come out of drive after seven weeks, two days and twenty-two and a half hours—that’s allowing for your standard time-mass drift inside hyperspace, see?
hyperspeed n. 1956 M. Z. Bradley Death Between the Stars in Fantastic Universe Mar. 72/1 The acceleration of a hyperspeed ship would knock my shipmate into complete prostration.
inhuman adj. 1956 M. Z. Bradley Peace in Wilderness in Fantastic Universe July 77/1 Attributing all crimes of violence to the Pharigs made crime, in the public eye, equivalent to saying inhuman or alien, and destroyed the superficial glamor around crime and violence.
little green man n. 1969 M. Z. Bradley Brass Dragon (1980) iii. 60 So scratch the mysterious eye of the idol of the Great God Foofooroney, complete with sinister Chinamen or lascars or little green men.
mother ship n. 1969 M. Z. Bradley Brass Dragon (1980) vii. 125 In eleven hours we will rendezvous with our mother ship, which is in orbit outside of your moon.
Neptunian n. 2 1948 M. Zimmer Our Favorite Heroin in Planet Stories Summer 126/2 On a high arched door, little coiled letters of fire spelled out the Word in archaic Neptunian, the horrific incantation, HPARGIZIV!
off-planet adv. 1975 M. Z. Bradley Heritage of Hastur iii. 39 The Terran was deported and the Guardsman’s brother was held in the brig until the Terran was off-planet.
off-planet adv. 1983 M. Z. Bradley Thendara House (1991) i. 148 What would you do if I had gone offplanet, as I would have had every right to do?
offworld adv. 1975 M. Z. Bradley Heritage of Hastur iii. 40 The law provides that before you, who are heir to d Domain, undertake any such risky task as going offworld, you must provide an heir to your Domain.
offworld adv. 1983 M. Z. Bradley Thendara House (1991) iii. 44 Only when I was living offworld.
offworlder n. 1982 M. Z. Bradley Winds of Darkover 116 In the Dry towns any stranger walked with his life in his hands. An off-worlder could not have maintained safety for a single day.
offworlder n. 1984 M. Z. Bradley World Wreckers 42 Forgive me, I have lived long among offworlders and I keep my barriers up without realizing it.
other-dimensional adj. 1948 M. Zimmer Ode Ear! in Startling Stories July 127/2 Could be my double in one of those other-dimensional worlds, maybe?????
planet-buster n. 1962 M. Z. Bradley Planet Savers in Planet Savers/Sword of Aldones (1982) iii. 27 A simple heatgun, to the Darkovan ethical code, is as reprehensible as a super-cobalt planetbuster.
planetfall n. 1962 M. Z. Bradley Sword of Aldones i. 5 The Southern Cross had made planetfall on Darkover at midnight.
ray n. 1969 M. Z. Bradley Brass Dragon (1980) iii. 53 Hey, maybe you spent all that time on a flying saucer…and then they used one of their super-hyper rays on you to make you forget.
Rigellian n. 1 1954 M. Z. Bradley Crime Therapist in Future Science Fiction Oct. 93/1 The Rigellian named Rhoum murmured sibilantly, ‘You realize, Mr. Colby, that this operation is illegal?’
sapient n. 1979 M. Z. Bradley & P. E. Zimmer Survivors (1989) 7 There had been a time when Dane thought he would never tire of watching the crowds that thronged these streets, lizard-men, cat-men, bird-men—or, to use the terminology of the Unity, the enormous Galactic civilization, protosaurians, protofelines, protoavians; and others, people of every conceivable species of sapient.
sapient adj. 1979 M. Z. Bradley & P. E. Zimmer Survivors (1989) 7 There were several hundred planets in the Unity—and nearly as many more outside it—bearing sapient life; and over a hundred of them must have been represented in the crowds below.
saucer n. 1969 M. Z. Bradley Brass Dragon (1980) viii. 144 Nothing would have been easier for them than to cut me down when they finished questioning, or simply to cut our saucer adrift, first dismantling the drives, so that we died in space.
science fantasy n. 3 1980 M. Z. Bradley Darkover Retrospective in Planet Savers/Sword of Aldones (1982) 304 Donald A. Wollheim…has done more to encourage fantasy and science-fantasy in this country during the lean years before ‘adult fantasy’ became respectable.
science fictional adj. 1980 M. Z. Bradley Darkover Retrospective in Planet Savers/Sword of Aldones (1982) 310 It never occurred to me to write fantasy until I discovered the science-fictional fantasy style of the novels of Moore and Kuttner.
shapechanger n. 1969 M. Z. Bradley Brass Dragon (1980) viii. 137 ‘What—what are those things?’ ‘Dikri,’ said Karsten. ‘Shape-changers. You have, on your Earth, legends of werewolves. The dragon-shape is their true shape, but they can adjust it to pass as human among men.’
shapechanging n. 1989 M. Z. Bradley Heirs of Hammerfell xx. 285 Shapechanging has given rise to many legends; but I have never done it.
shapechanging adj. 1969 M. Z. Bradley Brass Dragon (1980) viii. 139 There are other shape-changing races, some of them less human in appearance than the dikri.
space-borne adj. 1972 M. Z. Bradley Darkover Landfall vi. 68 Although eventually it may be possible to become spaceborne, with our current personnel and materials, we cannot make repairs at all.
space-borne adj. 1983 M. Z. Bradley Thendara House (1991) iv. 71 One of the Big Ships was there, a ground crew crawling over it, servicing the spaceborne monster which had come here…because Darkover was a convenient way station on the way to somewhere else.
space force n. 1965 M. Z. Bradley Star of Danger (1985) 19 The man who bought this gun from our space-force guard has a collection of rare old weapons.
spacehand n. 1962 M. Z. Bradley Sword of Aldones xvi. 161 She turned up on Samarra about half an hour after I talked to her here. Times, I’m tempted to throw up this job and turn spacehand.
spaceport n. 1969 M. Z. Bradley Brass Dragon (1980) iii. 54 Or I was tied down in a bunk somewhere and outside the spaceport a planet kept getting bigger and bigger and coming at us faster and faster.
spaceport n. 1983 M. Z. Bradley Thendara House (1991) i. 9 She had been born on Darkover, in Caer Donn, where the Terrans had built their first spaceport before shifting to the new Empire Headquarters here in Thendara.
space station n. 1983 M. Z. Bradley Thendara House (1991) i. 275 Seriously, it’s not his fault, Magda, he wanted to command a space station.
space warp n. 1979 M. Z. Bradley Stormqueen! (1991) p. v The main cliché of pulp fiction was the man of today’s world, suddenly taken away or caught up, via Time Gate, spacewarp, or a prolonged period of suspended animation.
Standard n. 1965 M. Z. Bradley Star of Danger (1985) 4 You could get along all right in Standard, of course—everyone around the Spaceport and the Trade City speaks it.
starship n. 1972 M. Z. Bradley Darkover Landfall xi. 106 But he hadn’t been prepared to be cut off from the mainstream of Earth—no starships, no contact or communication with the rest of the Galaxy, perhaps for generations, perhaps forever.
starship n. 1983 M. Z. Bradley Thendara House (1991) i. 15 You know, and I knew before I had been here a tenday, that Russ Montray is no more fit to be Legate…than I am to pilot a starship!
telempath n. 1960 M. Z. Bradley Seven from the Stars in Amazing Science Fiction Stories Mar. 57/2 He met Mathis' inscrutable eyes and wondered if the telempath read his thoughts and if so, why he didn’t say something helpful.
telepath n. 1962 M. Z. Bradley Sword of Aldones viii. 76 Vague unrest crystallized…into one of those flashes of prevision which touch a telepath in moments of stress.
teleport v. 1 1984 M. Z. Bradley World Wreckers 131 What little mining we have on Darkover is done with a matrix circle to locate and teleport the minerals to the surface.
terraformed adj. 1972 M. Z. Bradley Darkover Landfall xi. 106 Secretly it seemed to him that it might be more interesting to colonize a ‘wild’ planet than one extensively terraformed and worked over by Earth Expeditionary.
Terran n. 1 1962 M. Z. Bradley Sword of Aldones i. 7 It was amazing, how many Terrans still thought of Darkover as a feudal or barbarian planet.
Terran n. 1 1984 M. Z. Bradley World Wreckers 15 Shortly after he had assumed the position as chief liaison man between the Terrans and his own people, he had come to live in a house near the edge of the Terran Zone.
Terran adj. 1962 M. Z. Bradley Planet Savers in Planet Savers/Sword of Aldones (1982) i. 8 During the last epidemic, a Terran scientist discovered a blood fraction containing antibodies against the fever.
time binding n. 1955 M. Z. Bradley Climbing Wave in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Feb. 8/2 ‘Have you ever heard of timebinding?’ he asked derisively. ‘When each generation accumulates the knowledge of the one before it, progress is a perfectly cumulative, straightforward thing.’
transgalactic adj. 1984 M. Z. Bradley World Wreckers 8 When she was packed and ready to board her transit on the first leg of the impossibly long transgalactic journey to that small planet out on the rim of nowhere…a fear roused again in her.
visiphone n. 1984 M. Z. Bradley World Wreckers 15 Making an average visiphone call was a process made lengthier by the need for overcoming his revulsion and he made it as brief as he could.
warp v. 1962 M. Z. Bradley Sword of Aldones v. 51 Any attempt to make an exact molecular duplicate of a matrix like the one commanding Sharra—is it ninth level or tenth?—would warp half the planet right out of spacetime.
xeno- prefix 1972 M. Z. Bradley Darkover Landfall ii. 21 The first man…said, ‘Marco Zabal, Xenobotanist’.
xenobiology n. 1972 M. Z. Bradley Darkover Landfall vi. 64 There have been intelligent life-forms reported from three or four other planets; so far they have reported one simian, one feline, and three unclassifiable—xenobiology isn’t my specialty.