James H. Schmitz
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4 First Quotations from James H. Schmitz
| neural adj. | 1951 Space Fear in Astounding Science Fiction Mar. 11/1 The flat, brown, soft-shelled…bodies of the two Bjantas were being drawn in through one of the Viper’s locks and deposited gently in a preservative tank…. Most of the bunched neural extensions that made them a unit with the mechanisms of their detachable space-shells had been sheared off, of course. |
| overmind n. | 1949 Agent of Vega in Astounding Science Fiction July 20/1 The akaba condition was a disconcerting defensive trick which had been played on him on occasion by members of other telepathic races. The facutly [sic] was common to most of them; completely involuntary, and affected the pursuer more or less as if he had been closing in on aglow of mental light and suddenly saw that light vanish without a trace.The Departmental Lab’s theory was that under the stress of a psychic attack which was about to overwhelm the individual telepath, a kind of racial Overmind took over automatically and conducted its member-mind’s escape from the emergency, if that was at all possible, with complete mechanical efficiency before restoring it to awareness of itself. It was only a theory since the Overmind, if it existed, left no slightest traces of its work—except the brief void of one of the very few forms of complete and irreparable amnesia known. For some reason, as mysterious as the rest of it, the Overmind never intervened if the threatened telepath had been physically located by the pursuer. |
| Sirian n. 2 | 1949 Witches of Karres in Astounding Science Fiction Dec. iii. 27/1 The captain stared bewilderedly at the screen. There was a ship in focus there. It was quite obviously the Sirian and, just as obviously, it was following them. [...] A roaring, abusive voice flooded the control room immediately. The one word understandable to the captain was ‘Venture.’ It was repeated frequently, sometimes as if it were a question. ‘Sirian!’ said the captain. ‘Can you understand them?’ he asked Maleen. |
| xeno- prefix | 1962 Novice in Analog Science Fiction June 152/2 ‘You mentioned, Miss Amberdon, that they have been unable to communicate with other human beings. This suggests then that you are a xenotelepath.’ ‘I am?’ Telzey hadn’t heard the term before. ‘If it means that I can tell what the cats are thinking, and they can tell what I’m thinking, I guess that’s the word for it.’ |