space liner n.
a large and esp. luxurious spaceship for passenger travel
Vehicles
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[1930
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Jim Vanny
bibliography
Liners of Space. [Ibid. 709/2] I mean that this fanatic refuses to set us upon the Earth or any other planet or put us aboard some passing inter-planetary liner.]
Liners of Space in Air Wonder Stories Feb. 704 (title)
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1931
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Clark Ashton Smith
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He pressed my hand briefly and then climbed aboard the space-liner; and he and Altus waved to me through the thick crystal of a sealed port as the huge vessel rose in air for its flight upon the interplanetary void. Sadly, regretting almost that I had not insisted upon accompanying them, I locked myself in the time-vessel and pulled the lever which would begin my own flight across the ages.
Adventure in Futurity in Wonder Stories Apr. 1328/2 -
1931
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Jack Williamson
bibliography
For three days, Captain Grant had kept his great space-liner, with her rich cargo of uranium salts from the mines on the outer satellite of Neptune and her hundreds of passengers, ahead of the questing disintegrator rays of the Black Hawk only by burning his full battery of reaction-motors at their maximum power.
Twelve Hours to Live! in Wonder Stories Aug. 355/1 -
1932
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John W. Campbell, Jr.
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A stream of famous scientists had been coming aboard the space liner Vega all afternoon.
Electronic Siege in Wonder Stories 3 Apr. 1247/1 -
1934
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C. L. Moore
bibliography
Not even the lowest class of Venusian street-walker dared come along the waterfronts of Ednes on the nights when the space-liners were not in.
Black Thirst in Weird Tales Apr. 425/1 -
1939 Story Behind the Story in Thrilling Wonder Stories Feb. 119/2
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If human lives and destinies can be so intertwined in the ordinary walks of life, why not aboard a space liner also? I had to assume, for the purposes of the story, that interplanetary travel was quite established, as common almost as voyaging across the ocean.
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1952
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Raymond A. Palmer
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The giant space liner swung down in a long arc, hung for an instant on columns of flame, then settled slowly into the blast-pit…. It lay there, its voyage over, waiting.
Hell Ship in Worlds of If Mar. 114/1 -
1961
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Raymond F. Jones
bibliography
The Martian Princess is a space liner perfectly capable of going to Mars. There’s no reason why such a huge ship should be used merely as a shuttle.
Memory of Mars in Amazing Stories Dec. 33/1 -
1981 Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 109 (editoral summary of ‘Indigestion’, by Thomas Wylde)
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Thomas Wylde…offers a fast and furious and not entirely serious story about a washroom attendant on a space liner. And you thought the action was on the bridge.
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1990
Allen Steele
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TexSpace SSTO shuttle Lone Star Clipper was a few minutes from initiating the OMS burn which would brake the spaceliner for its primary approach to Clarke County, when the bridge crew received a priority transmission, relayed by TDRS comsats, from Washington D.C.
Clarke County, Space 58 -
1997
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Brian Stableford
bibliography
The final edition of Forecast (Christmas 1959) featured a lead article on spaceliners, a feature on ‘The Odorchestra’…and ‘Jeanne’, which advertised itself as a ‘bizarre romance.’
Creators of Science Fiction 10: Hugo Gernsback in Interzone (#126) Dec. 50/1 -
2012
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Kim Stanley Robinson
bibliography
The spaceliner ETH Mobile was not a hollowed asteroid but rather one of the very large manufactured ships built in lunar orbit in the previous century.
2312 462
Research requirements
antedating 1931
Earliest cite
Clark Ashton Smith, "An Adventure in Futurity"
Research History
Jeff Prucher submitted a 1939 cite from "The Story Behind the Story" Thrilling Wonder.Malcolm Farmer submitted a cite for the form "space-liner" from a reprint of C.L. Moore's "Black Thirst"; Alistair Durie verified it in the original 1934 publication in Weird Tales.
Fred Galvin submitted a 1932 cite from John W. Campbell Jr.'s "The Electronic Siege".
Fred Galvin submitted a 1931 cite from Jack Williamson's "Twelve Hours to Live!"
Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 2012 cite from Kim Stanley Robinson.
Fred Galvin submitted a 1931 cite from Clark Ashton Smith, a few months earlier than the Williamson cite.
Ben Ostrowsky submitted a 1930 cite for the form "liners of space".
Earliest cite in the OED: 1944.
Last modified 2022-04-10 14:55:57
In the compilation of some
entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries
in OED.