"With his pocket phone [Flandry] summoned another cab."
-Poul Anderson, "The Warriors from Nowhere" IN Anderson, Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, 2012), pp. 305-337 AT p. 326.
On Diomedes, a few years later:
"Finding a public phone booth, [Flandry] took the opportunity to call Chives..."
-A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, VIII, p. 445.
And another Like Hell moment:
"It was like a scene from some mythic hell..."
-"The Warriors from Nowhere," p. 309.
Among shattered walls and jumping flames, armored men with archaic swords and modern weapons surge, shout, laugh and throw plundered silver, gold or gems at a gnomish being who pushes naked women to them.
Anderson shows us the horrors of war and the vividness of life. This scene combines them.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
One of the surprisingly few signs of "datedness" to be found in the Technic stories is the "uncertain" use of mobile phones. Anderson knew of the concept but did not have them as frequently used and seen as WE know from personal experience.
On more primitive planets and in scenes where the characters meet in person, that did not matter too much. But I regret we don't see mobile phones used as often as the similar "pocket computers" we see in Pournelle/Niven's THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE.
Ad astra! Sean
I’d expect some form of “ear-phone”, a bud in the mastoid or something of that nature, linked to the auditory and visual nerves. They’re working on things like that right now (Musk’s company, particularly).
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Now that is cool beans interesting! And makes even more glad I bought some stock in Tesla!
And one of Anderson's stories even touches on something roughly similar: the artificial telepathy we see in "Progress."
May I even dare to hope cloning of organs and limbs might be practical in our life times?
Ad astra! Sean
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