holocam n.

a device that takes holographic images

  • 1968 J. Brunner Stand on Zanzibar (1971) 33 John Brunner

    Strung about with Japanind Holocams with…LazeeLaser monochrome lamps.

  • 1973 ‘J. Tiptree, Jr.’ Girl who was Plugged In in Warm Worlds & Otherwise (1975) 98 James Tiptree, Jr.

    On a yacht in paradise with no more to do than adorn herself and play with toys and attend revels and greet her friends—her, P. Burke, having friends!—and turn the right way for the holocams?

  • 1991 J. Varley Steel Beach (1993) 10 John Varley bibliography

    She had one green, normal eye, and the other one was red, without a pupil. My eyes were the same except the normal one was brown. The red-eyed holocams of the press never sleep.

  • 1991 J. Varley Steel Beach (1993) 148 John Varley

    The holocam is a partly mechanical, partly biologic device about the size of a fingernail clipping that is implanted inside the eye, way over to one side, out of the way of your peripheral vision.

  • 1997 B. Hambly Star Wars: Planet of Twilight (1998) 289 Barbara Hambly

    As far as Luke could tell, there were no holocams or viewers in the stairwell: only a close-crowding monotony of permacrete walls, grimy with the brown tracks of drochs.

  • 1998 J. Meaney To Hold Infinity ii. 27

    Realtime holocams reproduced the crystal sphere in which the girls were dancing, a sphere rising through a clear green sea shot through with bright bacterial streamers.

  • 2002 K. Baker Likely Lad in Asimov’s Science Fiction Sept. 67 page image Kage Baker bibliography

    M. Despres shrugged, hoping his holocam picked up the gesture.

  • 2010 M. Resnick Incarceration of Captain Nebula in Asimov’s Science Fiction Oct.–Nov. 63 page image Mike Resnick bibliography

    I'd have preferred to keep him incarcerated here, and eventually parade him out before the holocams either as a totally defeated prisoner or as drugged ‘convert’.


Research requirements

antedating 1968

Earliest cite

John Brunner, "Stand on Zanzibar"

Research History
Matthew Hoyt submitted a cite for the form "holocam" from a 1989 reprint of James Tiptree's "The Girl Who Was Plugged In"; Mike Christie verified the cite in a 1975 reprint.
Malcolm Farmer submitted a cite for the form "holocam" from a 1971 reprint of John Brunner's "Stand On Zanzibar"; Dave Langford verified the cite in the 1968 first edition.
Katrina Campbell submitted a 1980 cite from Malcolm Edwards and Robert Holdstock's "Tour of the Universe".
Douglas Winston submitted a cite from a 1998 reprint of Barbara Hambly's 1997 "Planet of Twilight".
Mike Christie submitted a 2002 cite from Kage Baker's "The Likely Lad".
Mike Christie submitted a cite from a 1983 reprint of Harry Harrison's 1981 "Planet of No Return".

Last modified 2020-12-16 04:08:47
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.