Ken MacLeod
13 Quotations from Ken MacLeod
| antigravity n. | 2004 Newton’s Wake i. 20 ‘How much carbon is locked up in this? Carlyle asked. ‘Many millions of tons,’ said the familiar. ‘An entire coal measure, I would say, save that coal measures seem unlikely here.’ ‘Or an entire carbonaceous chondrite? Could they have done that?’ ‘If so it would be a quite profligate use of anti-gravity.’ Shlaim sounded skeptical. ‘Or they could have lowered it from a skyhook, I suppose, but it would seem pointless...’ Carlyle laughed. ‘Since when has that ever ruled out anything they did?’ |
| cold sleep n. | 2000 Cosmonaut Keep (2001) 47 He could have lived with a universe whose interstellar gulfs could be crossed only with generation ships, cold-sleep or ramscoops. |
| generation ship n. | 2000 Cosmonaut Keep (2001) 47 He could have lived with a universe whose interstellar gulfs could be crossed only with generation ships, cold-sleep or ramscoops. |
| gynoid n. | 1996 Stone Canal (2000) 103 You’re currently in possession of one of my machines, a Model D gynoid, and I want it back. Now. |
| jump gate n. | 2000 Cosmonaut Keep (2001) 47 He’d have been absolutely fucking delighted with one that could be traversed with some kind of warp-drive or jumpgates or wormholes or similar fanciful mechanism. |
| posthuman adj. | 1996 Stone Canal (1997) 300 I'm talking, of course, of the templates of the fast folk—posthuman and AI—as they were at the beginning, not the bizzare [sic] entities they became. |
| ramscoop n. | 2000 Cosmonaut Keep (2001) 47 He could have lived with a universe whose interstellar gulfs could be crossed only with generation ships, cold-sleep or ramscoops. |
| Singularity n. | 1996 Stone Canal (1997) 300 We must work towards being able to control, or at least contain, their development. The same goes for any form of artificial intelligence capable of improving itself. We will do it. The day will come when we control the Singularity, as we've learned to control the flame on the hearth, the lightning of the sky, and the nuclear fire of the stars! |
| skiffy n. | 1995 Star Fraction iii. 53 Donovan, you don’t have a problem with money. I'm sure what you've had so far has seemed like a lot. But we want to do more with your book. I've been taken off the skiffy-occult-horror side where your MS arrived on my desk by accident. They want me to start a new list. ‘New Heretics,’ it’s gonna be called, with Secret Life’s paperback launch as its big splash. |
| spacewoman n. | 1998 Cassini Division vii. 122 I first met Boris in 2110, on a military mission to the Sheenisov. We met on the frozen Lena outside Yatkutsk. He was a giant in furs, I a sexy spacewoman in my new smart-matter spacesuit, with its bubble helmet and black sheen. |
| spindizzy n. | 2007 Execution Channel 107 There are rumors about secret work on the Heim drive, HTS, the spindizzy as some call it—after a science fiction story—all over the net. |
| uplift v. | 2003 Engine City 84 —genetically uplifted the ancestors of the saurs, and culturally—at least—uplifted the krakens. |
| warp drive n. | 2000 Cosmonaut Keep (2001) 47 He’d have been absolutely fucking delighted with one that could be traversed with some kind of warp-drive or jumpgates or wormholes or similar fanciful mechanism. |