Poul Anderson
See first quotes from Poul Anderson
208 Quotations from Poul Anderson
| aerocab n. | 1989 Statesmen in J. Baen New Destinies (#8) 255 He punched for an aerocab, flung on a cape, kissed the woman, rumpled the hair of their youngest child, and went out to the levitor…. Demand was heavy in this weather and he must wait several minutes in the bubble until a cab landed. He got in and gave the address. The pilot told him what the fare would be. |
| aircar n. | 1958 We Have Fed Our Sea in Astounding Science Fiction Aug. 13/1 Down at the landing was a modern shelter for a sailboat, a family submarine, and a battered aircar. |
| Aldebaranian n. 1 | 1953 Enough Rope in Astounding Science Fiction July 20/2 Hurulta stood in thought for a moment. Then, whirling on Goln, he made his voice a roar: ‘All right, scum, how well do you know Umung?’ The Aldebaranian shrieked in utter panic. When he found his voice again, he gasped: ‘Well, most excellent lord. I know it w-w-well—’ |
| Alpha Centaurian adj. | 1988 Iron in L. Niven et al. Man-Kzin Wars (1989) v. 48 The quartermaster was showing her around while Rover moved up the Alpha Centaurian gravity well. |
| alternative history n. | 1998 Blurb in H. Turtledove How Few Remain (unpaginated, before title page), Harry Turtledove has established himself as the grand master of the alternative history form… How Few Remain is perhaps his best so far. |
| alternative reality n. | 1994 Stars are also Fire 97 When reaction to the War Strike doomed mighty Fireball, the end of separatist Luna was in sight, however long a delaying campaign Niolente and her cohorts might wage. Yet, in some hypothetical quantum-mechanical alternative reality— |
| Anglic n. | 1950 Trespass! in Fantastic Stories Quarterly Spring 133/2 I be—are—am trying to talkest archaic Anglic—Englishk—for the benefit of the Dark Age mind. |
| Anglic n. | 1952 Star Plunderer in Planet Stories Sept. 58/2 A barbarian who spoke some Anglic bellowed at us to strip. |
| Anglic n. | 1960 Plague of Masters in Fantastic Dec. 10/2 He regarded Flandry for several seconds before speaking, in archaic and thickly accented Anglic: ‘Welcome to Unan Besar.’ |
| Asimovian adj. 1 | 1984 Discovery of Past in Past Times 197 Of course, many scholars have tried to find patterns in recorded events, a deeper meaning or rhythm. The best known of these may be Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee, but one can name any number of others—as well as colleagues who scoff at all of them. Whether or not such efforts will eventually lead to an Asimovian science of ‘psychohistory’ remains to be seen. |
| asterite n. | 1964 Sunjammer in Analog Apr. 17/1 He was a third-generation asterite, a gaunt, crease-cheeked, prematurely balding man who remembered too well the brother he had lost in the revolution. |
| asterite n. | 1994 Stars Are Also Fire iii. 35 Three men came by together; their walk and posture, black kilts and silver-filigree breastplates, comparatively brusque manner and loud speech, said they were from Mars. Asterites were scarce and less readily identifiable. Terrans numbered perhaps three out of ten. |
| astrogational adj. | 1959 Virgin Planet iii. 23 He had intended to study advanced astrogational theory. |
| avian n. | 1961 Day After Doomsday in Galaxy Magazine Dec. 15/2 He went over and took the avian in his arms. The beaked, crested head rested on the man’s breast and the body shuddered. |
| avian n. | 1962 Day After Doomsday in Galaxy Magazine Feb. 147 He pointed out a cluster of buildings, tall garishly colored cylinders erected in steel and plastic, half a mile off the road. The avians walking between them wore embroidered jackets over their feathers. |
| avian adj. | 1961 Day After Doomsday in Galaxy Magazine Dec. 13/2 Yeh, he thought, they’re for sure prettier than humans, but you have to see them to realize it. About five feet tall, the short avian body was balanced on two stout yellow legs. The arms, thinner and weaker than humans, ended in hands whose three fingers, four-jointed and mutually opposed, were surprisingly dextrous. The head, atop a long thick neck, was large and round, with a hooked beak. A throat pouch produced a whole orchestra of sounds, even labials. But all you could really convey in words was the intense blueness of the feathers, the white plumage of tail and crest. |
| avian adj. | 1965 Trader Team in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Aug. 128/1 The monarch inclined his avian head. |
| avian adj. | 1965 Trader Team in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact July 38/1 Torches guttering in sconces threw an uneasy light—dim and red to Adzel, bright to a native—on sleazy garments, avian faces, unwinking eyes. |
| beamer n. | 1960 Twelvemonth & a Day in Fantastic Universe Jan. 46/1 You could have coupled a thermonuclear power plant to a gravity beamer and a secondary-drive pulse generator, built a hull around the ensemble, and— |
| beamer n. | 1953 Courier of Chaos in Future Science Fiction Mar. 19/2 Ushtu entered the basement of a large tenement, using his magnetic beamer to open doors and lock them after him. |
| Betelgeusean n. 1 | 1959 Message in Secret in Fantastic Dec. 31/2 Can you not, for instance, smuggle a letter out through some Betelgeusean? |
| Betelgeusean n. 1 | 1960 Eve Times Four in Fantastic Apr. 73/1 Not that the Betelgeusean was unprepossessing. |
| Betelgeusean adj. | 1951 Honorable Enemies in Future Science Fiction May 39/1 The network of agents, both Imperial and bribed Betelgeusean—who ultimately were under his command—were finding the going suddenly rugged. |
| Betelgeusean adj. | 1959 Message in Secret in Fantastic Dec. 8/1 Altai meant Golden in the language of the planet’s human colonists; or so the Betelgeusean trader who passed on his knowledge electronically to Flandry had insisted. |
| biotech n. | 1962 Progress in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 111/2 You know how the sciences and technologies hang together. Your Island biotechs breed new species to concentrate particular metals out of sea water, so naturally they need to know a good deal about metallurgies too. |
| biotechnician n. | 1951 Inside Earth in Galaxy Science Fiction Apr. 17/1 The biotechnicians had been very thorough. I was already a little undersized, which meant that my height and build were suitable—I could pass for a big Earthling. And of course my face and hands and so on were all right, the Earthlings being a remarkably humanoid race. But the technicians had had to remodel my ears, blunting the tips and grafting on lobes and cutting the muscles that move them. My crest had to go and a scalp covered with revolting hair was now on the top of my skull. |
| biotechnician n. | 1963 Territory in Analog Science Fact–Science Fiction June 53/1 ‘How long you been here, anyways?’ ‘Myself, about a year, as a biotechnician.’ |
| biotechnician n. | 1970 Tau Zero (1973) 28 She was a Canadian, a bio-technician in the organocycle department. |
| countergravity adj. | 1967 Outpost of Empire in Galaxy Magazine Dec. 69/1 The engines driving that enormous mass were deathly quiet. But where their countergravity fields touched the planet, trees snapped to kindling and the lake roiled white. |
| cycle n. | 1964 Three Worlds to Conquer xii. 86 Lorraine might conceivably get together a few men who were willing to die in an attack on the guards, while Fraser used the diversion to get away. But sounding them out, overcoming their suspicions of her, assembling their gear, would take many cycles. |
| dayside n. | 1957 Life Cycle in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction July 55/2 But damn it, there’s Dayside life, too. Life that never comes into Twilight. |
| dayside n. | 1957 Life Cycle in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction July 65/2 Male and female had to come from the same race, evolving together—they couldn’t have arisen separately, one in the hell of Dayside and one in the endless purgatorial dusk of Twilight. |
| dayside n. | 1993 Harvest of Stars (1994) 1 We will not shelter our awareness on dayside. |
| dimension n. | 1979 Gate of Flying Knives in I. Asimov et al. Mammoth Book of Short Fantasy Novels (1986) 20 Philosophers of a later, more rationalistic era elaborated this into a theory of parallel universes. My own researches—you will understand that my condition has made me especially interested in the theory of dimensions, the subtler aspects of geometry—my own researches have demonstrated the possibility of transference between these different spaces. |
| downtime adv. | 1972 There Will Be Time (1973) 51 He would take certain stamps and coins uptime and sell them to dealers; he would go downtime with a few aluminum vessels, which were worth more than gold. |
| dropshaft n. | 1952 Star Plunderer in Planet Stories Sept. 58 We were herded down the long corridors and by way of wooden ladders (the drop-shafts and elevators weren’t working, it seemed) to the cells. |
| earthlike adj. | 1948 Genius in Astounding Science Fiction Dec. 28/2 There are three control stations, Earth-like planets where ordinary human types were left, and from them we're getting valuable information on the path which terrestrial history actually took. |
| earthling n. | 1950 Star Ship in Planet Stories Oct. 74/1 There’d been Earthling girls; and not a few Khazaki women had been intrigued by the big Terrestrial. |
| earthman n. | 1957 Earthman’s Burden 13 The first Earthmen had been met with eager admiration by the Hoka tribe near whose village they landed. |
| Earthside adj. | 1993 Harvest of Stars (1994) 8 She'd paid little attention, for Earthside she mainly associated with company people on company property. |
| Earthsider n. | 1993 Harvest of Stars (1994) 243 They were athletic and alert, but Earthsiders. |
| Earth-type adj. 1 | 1950 Star Ship in Planet Stories Fall 72/2 Its walls were manned by more fighters than that, and there were the terrible Earth-type guns as well. |
| Earth-type adj. 2 | 1957 Earthman’s Burden 8 We thought we’d look in and check on conditions, as well as resting ourselves on an Earth-type world. |
| elsewhen adv. | 1965 Corridors of Time in Amazing Stories May 55/2 Warden forces are concentrated elsewhen. We maintain only a few agents like myself in this century. |
| elsewhen adv. | 1953 Three Hearts & Three Lions in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Oct. 84 (synopsis of previous part) His world suddenly exploded, and he awoke elsewhere and elsewhen. |
| empathy n. | 1966 Ensign Flandry in Amazing Stories Oct. 39/2 I can be equipped with electromagnetic sensors and transducers, to feel out a hidden circuit. In addition, I have developed an empathy with machines. I can be aware, on a level below consciousness, of what they are about to do, and adjust my behavior accordingly. It is analogous to my former perception, the normal one, of nuances in expression, tone, stance on the part of fellow Merseians whom I knew intimately. |
| empathy n. | 1974 Day of Their Return iii. 26 I could never read your mind; that is impossible unless I have known a person long and well, and then I can merely translate surface thoughts, clearly formulated. I cannot project…Shall we say I have a minor gift of empathy? |
| empathy n. | [1955 Long Way Home June 151/1 In the case of Holat, the development was unique—the animal could not only receive the nervous impulses of others, but could at short range induce them. This was the basis of Holatan emotional empathy.] |
| energy gun n. | 1967 Starfog in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Aug. 26/1 Graydal and Demring must needs use their energy guns at minimum intensity for flashcasters. And even so, they often stumbled. |
| face plate n. | 1954 Big Rain in Astounding Science-Fiction 26/2 He took a curved stone and spat on it and began scouring his faceplate to remove the accumulated scratches in its hard plastic. |
| farside n. | 1958 We Have Fed Our Sea in Astounding Science Fiction Aug. 24/2 ‘You must go to the Moon quite often.’… Maclaren nodded. ‘Mount Ambarzumian Observatory, on Farside.’ |
| faster-than-light adj. | 1948 Genius in Astounding Science Fiction Dec. 25/1 They'll know the principles of the star drive in a few more generations, and invent a faster-than-light engine almost at once! |
| flitter n. | 1993 Harvest of Stars (1994) 40 The view from the roof bore comparison with what he saw from his flitter before he landed… |
| force field n. | 1970 Tau Zero (1973) 85 The reason is, as you've been told, at high speeds we must have the force fields of one system or the other to shield us from interstellar gas. |
| force screen n. | 1960 High Crusade (1982) viii. 48 Soon the Wersgorix landed many ships in a circular formation… to form a cap walled by the eerie faint shimmer of a force screen, picketed by mobile bombards, and roofed by hovering warcraft. |
| galactic n. 1 | 1954 Chapter Ends in Dynamic Science Fiction Jan. 19/1 You couldn’t call them stagnant. Their life was too healthy, their civilization too rich in its own way—folk art, folk music, ceremony, religion, the intimacy of family life which the Galactics had lost—for that term. But to one who flew between the streaming suns, it was a small existence. |
| gee n. 2 | 1951 Tiger by the Tail in Planet Stories Jan. 40/2 He was humanoid to a high degree, perhaps somewhat stockier than Terrestrial average—and come to think of it, the artificial gravity was a little higher than one gee—and with very white skin, long tawny hair and beard, and oblique violet eyes. |
| gee n. 2 | 1970 Tau Zero (1973) 26 Elsewhere, the sole direct proof of motion that those had who lay in their cabins was a return of weight. It was not much, under one tenth gee, but it gave them an ‘up’ and ‘down’ for which their bodies were grateful. |
| genetic engineer n. | 1954 Big Rain in Astounding Science Fiction Oct. 22/2 Meanwhile giant pulverizers were reducing barren stone and sand to fine particles which would be mixed with fertilizers to yield soil; and the genetic engineers were evolving still other strains of life which could provide a balanced ecology; and the water units were under construction. |
| genetic engineering n. | 1955 Long Way Home in Astounding Science Fiction Apr. 27 We've done things which I believe were unknown in your time: gravity control, genetic engineering, making Mars and Venus and the Jovian moons habitable. |
| gravitics n. 2 | 1997 Fleet of Stars (1998) 26 The ship wasn’t big, and her mass tanks were nearly empty, but probably optics were registering her, and maybe, by now, gravitics. |
| gravity drive n. | 1950 Star Ship in Planet Stories Fall 73/2 None of them had ever built a rocketship, had ever seen one in action even. It was centuries obsolete in Galactic civilization. But gravity drives were out of the question. So—they’d had to design the ship from the ground up. |
| gravity well n. | [1957 Life Cycle in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction July 53/2 He was the pilot and engineer, the only other Terrestrial on Mercury. When you dove this far down into the sun’s monstrous gravitational well, you couldn’t take a big crew along. ] |
| gravity well n. | 1963 Industrial Revolution in Analog Science Fact/Science Fiction Sept. 22/1 It’s actually harder to maintain human-type conditions on so big a mass, with a useless atmosphere around you, than on a lump in space like this. And the gravity wells are so deep. |
| gravity well n. | 1955 Snows of Ganymede in Startling Stories Winter 52/1 They were aiming only to get off a small world with negligible air resistance, and not even to leave its gravity well entirely. |
| hell planet n. | 1953 Enough Rope in Astounding Science Fiction July 19/1 A big world, as I recall. Twice our gravity, mostly hydrogen atmosphere—storms of unparalleled violence, volcanic upheavals, a hell planet! |
| holovid n. | 1973 People of Wind in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Feb. vi. 58/2 He groped through the dusty clutter in the room and snapped on the holovid. A recording played, over and over, a man’s voice high-pitched and his face stretched out of shape: ‘—war declared. A courier from Ythri has delivered the news in Gray, that Terra has served notice of war.’ |
| home star n. | 1951 Interloper in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Apr. 5 My home star lies clear across the Galaxy, near the periphery; I will not at present be more specific than that. |
| home star n. | 1965 Trader Team in Analog Science Fiction–Science Fact July 10/1 Westward in a deep purplish sky, the sun stood at eternal late afternoon. It was a K0 dwarf, barely one-tenth as luminous as man’s home star, furnace red. |
| home sun n. | 1967 Starfog in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Aug. 36/2 Your home sun and its planets must be a product of an earlier sweep. |
| home sun n. | 1990 Inconstant Star in L. Niven et al. Man–Kzin Wars III 221 He’s got a half c of delta v left to kill his forward vector, and another half c to boost him to the kzinti home sun. |
| humanoid adj. | 1965 Agent of Terran Empire 1 The chilling realization came that he was not aboard a human ship. Humanoid, yes, from the size and design of things, but no vessel ever built within the borders of the Empire, and no foreign make that he knew of. |
| hyperdrive n. | 1949 Entity in Astounding Science Fiction June 62/1 If they had had the hyperdrive that far back, they would have visited the Sol sector by now. |
| hyperdrive n. | 1971 A Little Knowledge in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Aug. 108/2 After all, with the hyperdrive opening endless wonders to them, spacefarers tended to choose the most obviously glamorous. |
| impeller n. | 1966 Ensign Flandry iv. 27 Truly his gravity impeller wouldn’t lug him much further until the capacitors were recharged. He didn’t plan to use it again. |
| insectoid n. | 1957 Life Cycle in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction July 55/2 Or consider one of the small insectoids I studied. It breeds here in the usual manner, then the female crawls out into the light to lay her eggs. |
| insectoid n. | 1983 Napoleon Crime in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Mar. 49/2 A creature the size of his thumb fluttered clumsily, ever closer to him. Multiple legs brushed his skin again. ‘Damn,’ he mumbled, and once more made futile swatting motions. The insectoid was as persistent as a terrestrial fly. |
| insectoidal adj. | 1957 Life Cycle in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction July 54/2 I studied the biochemistry of Mercurian life. I worked out the life cycle of a few plants and one insectoidal form. |
| ion drive n. | 1970 Tau Zero (1973) 25 The ion drive came to life. No man could have gone behind its thick shielding to watch it and survived. |
| laser rifle n. | 1966 Door to Anywhere in Galaxy Magazine Dec. 23/1 The Iranian reached back into the locker and got a pair of laserifles. |
| light n. 1 | 1960 Eve Times Four in Fantastic Science Fiction Stories Apr. 79/2 But the top secondary speed of this boat is about 500 lights. The ship is going nearly 2,000: we don’t share that any longer, now when we're out of its drive field. |
| light n. 1 | 1990 Burning Sky in Diplomacy Guild (1992) 182 If these were Newtonian point masses, they’d swing by on hyperbolic paths at a distance of about thirty kilometers and a speed of about one-third light. But they aren’t, and it’d be a waste of breath to give you exact figures, when all I’m sure of is that the event horizons will intersect. |
| light-month n. | 1960 Burning Bridge in Astounding Science Fiction Jan. 111/2 In the course of that period, we covered not quite one-and-a-half light-months. |
| light-week n. | 1960 Burning Bridge in Astounding Science Fiction Jan. 100/1 Nevertheless that pencil must scrawl broadly over the sky, and for a long time, merely hoping to write on its target. For when distances are measured in light-weeks, the smallest errors grow monstrous. |
| light-year n. | 1960 High Crusade (1982) v. 32 This empire filled a rough sphere in space, about two thousand light-years across. |
| Luna n. | 1970 Tau Zero (1973) 19 He entered kindergarten two years before the first maser messages from it reached Farside Station on Luna. |
| Luna n. | 1993 Harvest of Stars (1994) 238 It left the ship in the vicinity of Earth, the ship probably being bound for Luna. |
| Lunarian n. | 1993 Harvest of Stars (1994) 6 Right now the very Lunarians were in her mind more akin to her than these fellow citizens. |
| Lunarian adj. | 1993 Harvest of Stars (1994) 372 Watched from afar through the opticals of a Lunarian monitor, they showed only by the corposant glimmers astern how they hurtled under drive. |
| Lunarite n. | 1957 Brake in Astounding Science Fiction Aug. 30/2 The Lunarite alone had the piloting skill to pull off the crazy stunt which was their final hope. |
| megayear n. | 1963 Territory in Analog Science Fact-Science Fiction June 64/2 Now humans, the experts tell me, got started way back when, as ground apes that turned carnivore when the forests shrank up in Africa for lots of megayears. |
| micro book n. | 1950 Gypsy in Astounding Science-Fiction Jan. 70/1 Einar…was nine years old and getting interested in the microbooks we had from the Traveler—and so, ultimately, from Earth. |
| midspace n. | 1998 Starfarers li. 474 A ship is not a planet. She can’t hold a full ecology. She doesn’t have plate tectonics, or any broad margin of tolerance. Wastes accumulate, toxins, unusables. Adrift in mid[-]space, with no proper means of flushout and replenishment—if a crew did live through the shock, I wouldn’t give them more than twenty years. |
| moonquake n. | 1955 Snows of Ganymede in Startling Stories Winter 50/2 Some of the lead blocks in front of the reactor had slipped, perhaps in one of the frequent moonquakes caused by the tidal pull of Jupiter. |
| nanomachine n. | 1993 Harvest of Stars (1994) 424 At the fringes, robots trundled with their loads from a dome wherein humus was being synthesized, to work it into the rock that nanomachines had reduced to mineral grains. |
| nanotech adj. | 1993 Harvest of Stars (1994) 442 We can’t continue sending our robots and our nanotech molecules scurrying around to find out whatever’s going wrong and repair the damage. |
| needle v. | 1957 Brake in Astounding Science Fiction Aug. 10/2 Quickly, now, go to my cabin. I shall be behind, If necessary I will needle you and drag you there. |
| needle gun n. | 1965 Trader Team in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact July 44/1 Transceiver and taper in one hand, a ladylike needle gun at her waist, were all she needed. |
| New Wave n. | 1990 Beer Mutterings in Thrust Winter 16/1 To the best of my knowledge, it was first said by Robert Heinlein, whose contributions to science fiction were rather more significant than those of the New Wave. |
| non-human n. | 1952 Star Plunderer in Planet Stories Sept. 58/1 I groaned at that thought and tried desperately to assure myself that Kathryn’s technical knowledge would keep her in the possession of a nonhuman. |
| nonhumanoid n. | 1956 The Live Coward in Astounding Science Fiction June 119/2 In spite of his claims to ambassadorial rank, Alak found himself ranking low—his only retinue was one ugly nonhumanoid. |
| nonhumanoid adj. | 1951 Inside Earth in Galaxy Science Fiction Apr. 19/1 Then there were other races, blue-skinned Vegans, furry Proximans, completely non-humanoid Sirians and Antarians. |
| nova v. | 1954 Lord of Thousand Suns in D. A. Wollheim Tales of Outer Space 84 And from study of the reports I even thought I knew about what and where it would be: one of the weapons that had novaed suns, a million years ago. |
| out-planet adj. | 1961 Plague of Masters in Fantastic Jan. 83/1 Nias Warouw leaned against the farther wall, smoking an out[-]planet cigaret and smiling. |
| outworlder n. | 1952 Star Plunderer in Planet Stories Sept. 56/2 I don’t fancy life as the slave of a barbarian outworlder…though humans with technical training are much in demand and usually fairly well treated. |
| outworlder n. | 1990 Inconstant Star in L. Niven et al. Man-Kzin Wars III (1992) . 174 Commercial and cultural as well as political center, it was bound to draw an undue share of outworlders and their influence. |
| planetary engineer n. | 1955 Snows of Ganymede in Startling Stories Winter 52/1 A Planetary Engineer had training for his profession such as had never been seen before. |
| planet-bound adj. | 1951 Tiger by Tale in Planet Stories Jan. 40/2 That wasn’t too surprising, since the Terrestrial Empire and the half-dozen other civilized states in the known Galaxy ruled over several thousands of intelligent races and had some contact with nobody knew how many thousands more. Many of the others were, of course, still planet-bound, but quite a few tribes along the Imperial borders had mastered a lot of human technology without changing their fundamental outlook on things. |
| planetfall n. | 1970 Tau Zero (1973) 17 Housings for the two boats that would make the planet-falls for which she herself was not designed. |
| planetless adj. | 1962 Day After Doomsday in Galaxy Feb. 134/2 We sha-Terra don’t threaten anybody. We're alone, planetless. |
| planetographer n. | 1961 Day After Doomsday in Galaxy Magazine Dec. 10/2 Kunz the astronomer and Easterling the planetographer were still hunched over their instruments, as if they would find some misfunction that would give the lie to what they could see with unaided eyes. |
| planetography n. | 1955 Long Way Home in Astounding Science Fiction Apr. 39/1 Spent a hundred years external time knocking around, till I got a chance to make a comeback. Planetography’s a sort of hobby with me, which is the only reason I come to your parties, Valti, you kettle-bellied old fraud. Tell me, captain, did you ever touch at Procyon? |
| planetside adv. | 1978 Avatar (1981) 270 ‘No, you went planetside.’ ‘Precisely because I am an expendable.’ |
| pressor beam n. | 1956 Margin of Profit in Astounding Science Fiction Sept. 58/1 A pressor beam lashed out, an invisible hammerblow of repulsion, five times the strength of the enemy tractor. |
| prime directive n. | 1956 Live Coward in Astounding Science Fiction June 111/1 All of a sudden the Prime Directive was repealed… ‘Under no circumstances whatever may the Patrol or any unit thereof kill any intelligent being.’ |
| pseudo-grav n. | 1960 Eve Times Four in Fantastic Science Fiction Stories Apr. 86/2 Presently a thin keening sounded through the walls. It became a roar, and Teresina felt waves of frictional heat. Pseudograv could not smooth out all the jerking and buffeting which rocked the boat. |
| pseudogravitational adj. | 1956 Margin of Profit in Astounding Science Fiction Sept. 51/1 But the hyperdrive vibrations can be detected a light-year away if you have sensitive instruments—pseudogravitational pulses of infinite velocity. |
| pseudogravity n. | 1960 Eve Times Four in Fantastic Science Fiction Stories Apr. 78/1 Steadiness came again. Pseudogravity made a floor. |
| psionics n. | 1960 Martyr in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Mar. 6/2 Our independent research has taught us just enough about psionics to show we can’t imagine its potentialities. |
| ramscoop n. | 1989 Boat of Million Years (1990) 500 When it was safely away, robots went outside. Flitting around the hull, they deployed the latticework of ramscoop and fire chamber. By this time, low boost under torch drive had built up a considerable speed. |
| ray v. | 1990 Inconstant Star in L. Niven et al. Man–Kzin Wars III 292 He can try raying us…. He must have an industrial laser. |
| ray projector n. | 1978 Avatar 15 She knew what the watchcraft looked like: a tapered gray cylinder so as to be capable of planetfall, missile launcher and ray projector recessed into the sleekness—wholly foreign to the huge, equipment-bristling, fragile sphere which was Emissary. |
| ringwall n. | 1993 Harvest of Stars (1994) 139 The train climbed Tycho’s ringwall, swooped down again, whizzed across the crater floor, and plunged underground near Skyview Tower. |
| robo- prefix | 1949 Double-Dyed Villains in Astounding Science Fiction Sept. 27/1 Even if that population were completely uniform, the sheer complexity of administrative detail is inconceivable—why, if all government services from legislators to postmen added up to only one percent of the total, and no government has ever been that efficient, that would be some ten to the thirteenth individual beings in government! Robocomputers help some, but not much. |
| robotically adv. 1 | 1971 Byworlder in Fantastic Science Fiction & Fantasy Stories June ii. 15/2 Besides, he’s robotically correct.… He’s simply not cheerful company. Under that stiff surface he’s too tense. |
| rocketeer n. | 1962 Third Stage in Amazing Stories Feb. 20/2 Swanberg was a big, good-looking, outdoors type; and not just any slob rocketeer, but a co-inventor of the rad screen. |
| rocket-ship n. | 1950 Star Ship in Planet Stories Fall 73/2 None of them had ever built a rocketship, had ever seen one in action even. It was centuries obsolete in Galactic civilization. But gravity drives were out of the question. |
| sailship n. | 1964 Sunjammer in Analog Apr. 19/2 The messages which drew a herdship off her path had always been automatic: beeps from a sailship whose interior sensors had registered trouble. |
| sapient adj. | 2000 Genesis 161 Besides fellow humans he worked closely with sapient machines, and some of them got to be friends too, of an eerie kind. |
| saucerian n. | 1968 Peek! I See You! in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Feb. 111/2 The ship had to be from outer space: real outer space, the unimaginable abysses that held the stars. He’d followed the progress of flybys and landings within the Solar System. Hence he knew that, while the saucerians might be little and emerald-colored, they were not from any neighborhood planet. He also knew enough aerodynamics to be sure no terrestrial organization was experimenting with stuff that advanced. |
| sentience n. 1 | 1954 Brain Wave xx. 120 Corinth’s memory went back over what he had seen, the mountains and oceans and forests of whole worlds, the life which blossomed in splendor or struggled only to live, and the sentience which had arisen to take blind nature in hand. |
| sentience n. 2 | 1973 Lodestar in John W. Cambell Memorial Anthology 16 Already it had shrunk in his vision to a ball, swirled blue and white: a body as big and fair as Earth ever was, four or five billion years in the making, uncounted swarms of unknown life-forms, sentiences and civilizations, histories and mysteries, become a marble in a game…or a set of entries in a set of data banks, for profit or loss, in a few cities a hundred or more light-years remote. |
| shield n. | 1962 Shield in Fantastic Stories of Imagination June 62/2 Momentum carried him a fractional inch into it. Then his kinetic energy had been absorbed, taken up by the field itself and shunted to the power pack. As for the noise, none could penetrate the shield. |
| shield n. | 1962 Shield in Fantastic Stories of Imagination June 63/2 The shield unit dragged at his shoulders; ten pounds added up like fury when you were exhausted. |
| Singularity n. | 1990 Inconstant Star in L. Niven et al. Man-Kzin Wars III (1992) . 241 Burnt out, a giant star collapses into a form so dense, infinite dense at the core singularity, that light itself can no longer escape its grip. |
| slideway n. | 1968 Satan's World in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact May 30/2 The slideways were too slow for her. She bounded along them. |
| slugthrower n. | 1978 Avatar (1981) 89 Each had a holstered sidearm: slugthrower, not stunner. |
| slugthrower n. | 1962 Progress in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Jan. 119/1 Alisabeta crouched in the starboard slugthrower turret. |
| slugthrower n. | 1954 Ghetto in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction May 108 A hunting marcat screamed in the night. She shivered…. ‘Local carnivore, Freelady. Don’t let it worry you.’ He slapped his slug[-]thrower, obscurely pleased at a chance to show—what? Manliness? |
| soft science fiction n. | 1998 Ideas for Science Fiction in Writer Sept. 24/2 In my opinion, two streams run through science fiction. The first traces back to Jules Verne. It is ‘the idea as hero’. His tales are mainly concerned with the concept—a submarine, a journey to the center of the planet, and so on. The second derives from H.G. Wells. His own ideas were brilliant, but he didn’t care how implausible they might be, an invisible man or a time machine or whatever. He concentrated on the characters, their emotions and interactions. Today, we usually speak of these two streams as ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ science fiction. |
| solar n. | 1955 Long Way Home in Astounding Science Fiction July xviii. 131/1 ‘I’m offering a reward for the information. A hundred solars.’ Their eyes widened. Langley saw avarice on some of the faces, and flipped his cloak back in a casual way to reveal his gun. Its possession was a serious offense, but nobody seemed inclined to cry out for the police. |
| Solarian n. 2 | 1952 Captive of Centaurianess in Planet Stories Mar. 23/1 I thought you vere too, but it seems like you Solarians are more backvard than I supposed. |
| Solarian n. 2 | 1955 Long Way Home in Astounding Science Fiction July 146/1 The Solarians are going to be on us in a minute. I like them even less than you, so let’s settle our own differences later, shall we? |
| Sol III n. | 1949 Double-Dyed Villains in Astounding Science Fiction Sept. 8/1 Wing Alak of Sol III…you are under arrest for conspiracy against the state. |
| sol-type adj. | 1950 Star Ship in Planet Stories Oct. 74/1 We’d been a few weeks out of Avandar—it was an obscure outpost then, though I imagine it’s grown since—when we detected this Sol-type sun. Seeing that there was an Earth-like planet, we decided to investigate. And since we were all tired of being cooped in the ship, and telescopes showed that any natives which might exist would be too primitive to endanger us, we all went down in the lifeboat. |
| sophont n. | 1966 Trouble Twisters 58 Likewise with the psychology of intelligent species. Most sophonts indeed possess basic instincts which diverge more or less from man’s. With those of radically alien motivations we have little contact. |
| sophont n. | 1968 Satan’s World in Analog Science Fiction/Fact May 28/2 From Lunograd, the Hotel Universe challenges a galaxy: ‘No oxygen-breathing sophont exists for whom we cannot provide suitable accommodation.’ |
| space armor n. | 1952 Garden in Void in Galaxy Science Fiction May 134/1 The space armor was awkward and bulky, a model which had been obsolete long before Hardesty left Earth, and its metal was patched and battered. There was no air-tank. A thick-leafed vine coiled around the square old-fashioned helmet, across the shoulders and down the back, like ivy on an ancient university building. |
| space armor n. | 1961 Hiding Place in Analog Science Fact & Fiction Mar. 125/2 But at the end of the grace period, when Torrance was issuing space armor, Yamamure reported something new. |
| space-armored adj. | 1957 Light in Galaxy Mar. 113/2 I looked back once and saw a space-armored shape black across the stars. |
| space-armored adj. | 1967 Starfog in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Aug. 31/2 ‘What?’ Silvery against rock, the two space-armored figures turned to stare at him. He could not see their expressions behind the faceplates, but he could imagine how astonishment flickered above awe. |
| spaceboat n. | 1952 Captive of Centaurianess in Planet Stories Mar. 24/1 At a mere fraction of the velocity of light—Ray thought of the consequences of hitting a planet when going faster than light, and wished he hadn’t—the spaceboat moved around Alpha A. |
| spaceboat n. | 1970 Circus of Hells (1979) xviii. 141 A corvette would not go into such a tempest. Nothing except a weathership had any business in one; others could flit above or around readily enough. But a small spaceboat with a first-class pilot—a pilot who had begun his career in aircraft and aerial combat—could live in the fury. And detectors, straining from outside, would lose her. |
| space-borne adj. | 1960 High Crusade (1982) xiii. 77 Even though his information about us, our powers, and our possible spaceborne reinforcements was scanty, I think Huruga should have ordered the heavy wagons onward. |
| space-borne adj. | 1999 Operation Luna xlviii. 305 Val had blurted an account of herself after she was spaceborne. |
| space colony n. | 1949 Time Heals in Astounding Science Fiction Oct. 72/1 Well—dere are exceptions, ewen today. If dey cannot be adjusted, or will not be—since noting is legally compulsory—dey must eider be sent to space colonies or struggle trough an unhappy life on Eart, witout friends or marriage, witout ewen a group. But numbers deys gruw less all de time. |
| spacefarer n. | 1971 A Little Knowledge in Analog Science Fiction Aug. 108/2 After all, with the hyperdrive opening endless wonders to them, spacefarers tended to choose the most obviously glamorous. |
| spacefaring n. | 1956 Margin of Profit in Astounding Sept. 55/1 One good thing about spacefaring, you could set the artificial gravity low and feel almost young again. |
| spacefaring n. | 1990 Inconstant Star in L. Niven et al. Man-Kzin Wars III (1992) . 181 Planetsiders seldom had any notion of the complications in spacefaring. |
| spacehand n. | 1961 Hiding Place in Analog Science Fact & Fiction Mar. 139/2 A spacehand, a stocky slant-eyed nomad from Altai uncoiled a lariat. |
| spacehand n. | 1990 Inconstant Star in L. Niven et al. Man-Kzin Wars III (1992) . 287 Maybe, not being a spacehand, she won’t obey my order and stay at the boat. |
| space-suited adj. | 1970 Tau Zero (1973) 140 The squat, unhuman forms of spacesuited men, the long curve of the hull, were seen as gleams, disconnected and fugitive. |
| spaceward adj. | 1970 Tau Zero (1973) 23 Hands eagerly turned cranks on the spaceward side of the boat, sliding back the plates that covered the glasyl viewports. |
| spacewoman n. | 1970 Tau Zero (1973) 8 Her civilian garments were more stylish than was common on a spacewoman. |
| star drive n. | 1948 Genius in Astounding Science Fiction Dec. 25/1 They’ll know the principles of the star drive in a few more generations, and invent a faster-than-light engine almost at once! |
| star drive n. | 1970 Tau Zero (1973) 34 Low acceleration on ion thrust had built up a modest outward speed, measurable in tens of kilometers per second. It sufficed to start the star-drive engine. |
| starfarer n. | 1974 Fire Time 140 Well, they died, they died, the poor all-powerful star-farers. |
| starfarer n. | 2000 Genesis iv. 43 When it reached its goal it transmitted its discoveries and experiences back to the central intelligence and to any humans who cared. Many did, often because the starfarer was not altogether alien. A robot aboard carried the spirit of Christian Brannock. |
| starfaring adj. | 1960 High Crusade (1982) xiii. 78 Their skirmishes with rival starfaring nations were mostly aerial. |
| stunner n. | 1970 Tau Zero (1973) 70 I’ll issue them weapons, stunner type only. |
| stunner n. | 1978 Avatar (1981) 89 Each had a holstered sidearm: slugthrower, not stunner. |
| Sturgeon’s Law n. | 1990 Beer Mutterings in Thrust Winter 16/2 Be it simply agreed that most of what appears to popular taste ranges from bad to abysmal. Sturgeon’s Revelation, you know: Ninety percent of everything is crud. (This is usually quoted as Sturgeon’s Law, but that, according to the man himself, reads ‘Nothing is every [sic] absolutely so’.) |
| sublight adj. | 1956 Margin of Profit in Astounding Science Fiction Sept. 51/2 The shells have to be hypered themselves, of course, or they would revert to sublight velocity and be left behind as soon as they emerged from the drive field. |
| sublight adj. | 1988 Iron in L. Niven et al. Man-Kzin Wars (1989) . 47 The kzinti hurled a sublight fleet out of Alpha Centauri at variable intervals, but years apart, since one way or another they always lost heavily in the sanguinary campaigns that followed. |
| sublight adv. | 1966 Sun Invisible in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Apr. 134/1 They’d also go sublight, and home on the neutrino emission of his power plant. |
| suit up v. | 1966 Door To Anywhere in Galaxy Magazine Dec. 37/1 Technicians waited at the locker to help him suit up, for they must be armored against vacuum and worse. |
| superluminal adj. | 1990 Inconstant Star in L. Niven et al. Man-Kzin Wars III (1992) . 204 A warcraft of the Raptor class, lately modified to accommodate a superluminal drive, it moved faster than most, agilely responsive to he thrust of its gravity polarizers. |
| supernova n. | 1966 Sun Invisible in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Apr. 130/1 Giant stars burn hydrogen so fast their existence is measured in millions of years. Millions, you hear, not billions. Beta Centauri can hardly be ten million years old. More than half its stable lifetime is past. It’ll go supernova and become a white dwarf. Life’d have no chance to evolve before the planets were destroyed. |
| system-wide adj. | 1949 Double-Dyed Villains in Astounding Science Fiction Sept. 8/2 You want to win the coming system-wide election. |
| Tau Cetan n. | 1960 Eve Times Four in Time & Stars (1975) 160 Not that the Tau Cetian was unprepossessing. He had a certain elfin quality, big dome of a head and small torso poised on four spidery legs, two slender arms waving in time with his fronded ears, hairless pale-gold skin, the face quasi-human but with great green eyes, the clothing a filmy shimmer of veils. His size, below one meter, added to the charm. However, he talked. |
| telekineticist n. | 1979 Science Fiction & Science, pt. Three in J. Baen Destinies Apr.–June 314 In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s…it seemed that every second item in the magazines was a piece of hackwork about a telepath or a telekineticist who went to Las Vegas and won a fortune. |
| Terra n. | 1960 High Crusade (1982) v. 31 Belike, I thought, when Scripture mentioned the four corners of the world, it did not mean our planet Terra at all, but referred to a cubical universe. |
| Terrestrial n. | 1950 Star Ship in Planet Stories Oct. 74/1 There’d been Earthling girls; and not a few Khazaki women had been intrigued by the big Terrestrial. |
| Terrestrial n. | 1957 Life Cycle in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction July 53/2 He was the pilot and engineer, the only other Terrestrial on Mercury. When you dove this far down into the sun’s monstrous gravitational well, you couldn’t take a big crew along. |
| three-D n. | 1958 Innocent At Large in Galaxy Science Fiction July 135/1 ‘That is a sexy type of furniture, all right’, agreed Doran. He lowered himself into another chair, cocked his feet on the 3-D and waved a cigarette. |
| three-D n. | 1962 Shield in Fantastic Stories of Imagination June 63/2 On his back he carried a lumpy metal cylinder; the harness included a plastic panel across his chest, with switches, knobs, and three meters. Like some science fiction hero on the 3D. |
| time hopper n. 1 | 1955 Time Patrol in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction May 21/1
Everard swung onto the time hopper, set the controls for 464 |
| time patrol n. | 1955 in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction May 3 (title) Time Patrol. |
| torch n. | 1989 Boat of Million Years (1990) 500 When it was safely away, robots went outside. Flitting around the hull, they deployed the latticework of ramscoop and fire chamber. By this time, low boost under torch drive had built up a considerable speed. |
| torch drive n. | 1989 Boat of Million Years 388 By this time, low boost under the torch drive had built up a considerable speed. |
| tractor n. | 1956 Margin of Profit in Astounding Science Fiction Sept. 58/1 A pressor beam lashed out, an invisible hammerblow of repulsion, five times the strength of the enemy tractor. |
| tri-D n. | 1962 Shield in Fantastic Stories of Imagination June 63/2 On his back he carried a lumpy metal cylinder; the harness included a plastic panel across his chest, with switches, knobs, and three meters. Like some science fiction hero on the 3D. |
| tri-v n. | 1964 To Build a World in Galaxy Magazine June 62/2 The TriV programs are dull. |
| tri-v n. | 1965 Marque and Reprisal in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Feb. 6/2 I said the strip show was coming on the 3V in a minute and that’s what the customers wanted, not any of his foreign stuff. |
| ultradrive n. | 1951 Tiger by Tail in Planet Stories Jan. 38/1 He grew aware of the thrum and quiver which meant he was aboard a spaceship running on ultra[-]drive. |
| unhuman n. | 1960 High Crusade (1982) ii. 19 We were both cushioned against the frightful vision of our poor folk being harried by unhumans, destroyed or enslaved, because neither of us really believed it. |
| unsuit v. | 1971 Byworlder in Fantastic Science Fiction & Fantasy Stories June iv. 30/1 He had unsuited and now hung close beside her, lightly holding a handgrip. |
| uptime adj. | 1972 There Will Be Time (1973) 155 To the greatest extent possible, the earliest traveler recruits were trained into a cadre of recruiters, who wasted no energy in being uptime overlords. |
| uptime adv. | 1984 Discovery of Past in Past Times 186 Science fiction, of course, generally turns uptime, toward the future. |
| uptime adv. | 1972 There Will Be Time (1973) 51 He would take certain stamps and coins uptime and sell them to dealers. |
| Vegan n. 1 | 1951 Inside Earth in Galaxy Science Fiction Apr. 19/1 A cosmopolitan throng filled the walkways… There were other races, blue-skinned Vegans, furry Proximans, completely non-humanoid Sirians and Antarians. |
| viewscreen n. | 1963 Three-Cornered Wheel in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Oct. 60/2 He groaned out of his bunk and fumbled his way to the nearest viewscreen. What he saw brought him bolt awake. |
| viewscreen n. | 1970 Tau Zero (1973) 34 In one of the garden rooms stood a viewscreen tuned to Outside. |
| viewscreen n. | 1993 Harvest of Stars (1994) 10 A large viewscreen gave an outlook from the topmost spire. |
| visiphone n. | 1971 Byworlder in Fantastic Science Fiction & Fantasy Stories June vi. 42/1 She had expected to savor her triumph. And the congratulations, from personnel at Armstrong Base, by visiphone from Dad and Mother and the whole family, from the President and her colleagues around the globe, certainly they warmed her to the marrow. |
| worldlet n. | 1993 Harvest of Stars (1994) 56 The worldlet was little more than a darkness, faintly a-sheen where a crest jutted out of shadow, a piece torn from the sky that otherwise encompassed her. |
| xenobiology n. | 1957 Call Me Joe in Astounding Science Fiction 19/2 They stood in an outer office of the xenobiology section. |
| xenological adj. | 1969 Rebel Worlds (1972) 86 I gather Cave Discoverer’s an explorer and adventurer. Heesh first met humans by seekin’ out a xenological camp 200 kilometers from home. |