Saturday 9 July 2022

Time Machines In THE SHIELD OF TIME

Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991).

Buck Rogers motorcycle, p. 27
timecycle, pp. 42, 85, 113, 117, 140, 204, 247, 252, 306, 395, 425
vehicle, pp. 64, 247, 284, 297, 298, 308, 317, 347 (x2)
vehicles, pp. 113, 116
timecycles, pp. 84, 86, 115, 160, 368
hoppers, pp. 113, 116
hopper, pp. 116, 193, 246, 283, 309, 316, 358
machine, p. 284, 307, 318
cycle, pp. 318, 350, 357
cycles, p. 339
chariot, p. 362

On p. 281, a carrier is not a hopper but a cylinder large enough to hold standing men and a chariot with horses. The vehicle on p. 347 is large enough for a crew and a horse. 

In "Time Patrol," Time Patrol, p. 6, a time shuttle is a large metal box and, on p. 43, the Ing-model shuttle is "...a great steel cylinder." In "Gibraltar Falls," "...heavy-duty shuttles..." (p. 116) have moved personnel and hoppers to five and a half million years ago.

I think that is all and it is all that I have time for this morning!

9 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I like that one: the "Buck Rogers motorcycle."

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

'twould be analogous to all the different varieties of road vehicle or airplanes. I should imagine that after antigravity is perfected, -all- vehicles have it, just for convenience.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

That makes sense. I like that idea.

Ad astra! Sean

Jim Baerg said...

In H. Beam Piper's stories, cities built after the development of antigravity have no roads.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Jim!

Piper is another writer whose works I need to read more of.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

If antigravity drives were common and cheap, cities would probably sprawl a lot more -- that's been the result of every single innovation in transport since the 'walking city' enclosed by defensive walls.

In fact, I'd expect them to sprawl so much that it would be hard to point to any one spot and say 'there's the city'.

(I once drove through Los Angeles and out the other side without feeling I'd ever arrived.)

Particularly if the antigravity was combined, as it probably would be, with really effective automatic piloting systems.

You'd just step into your antigravity whatever, say "go to X", and read a book or watch a movie or play a computer game.

So what would matter would be transit times. Anything under 20 minutes is "a short journey" in human terms. And with an autopiloted antigravity craft, that would be quite some distance.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

I thought of fictional "sprawling" cities like Archopolis in Anderson's Terran Empire or the globe spanning city of Trantor in Asimov's FOUNDATION books.

And I like that idea of really quick traveling times, and letting the antigravity machine or self driving car do the work!

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Sean: you can walk and do other things -- I do my upper-body exercises with strap-on weights while I take my morning walk of about an hour, and I usually listen to music -and- work out plot points in my head at the same time.

You can't distract yourself that way driving a car... or at least you'd better not.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling! I do about an hour of exercises every day, and I try to do walks as well, weather permitting, several times a week. I promise not to try exercising while driving my car! (Smiles) Ad astra! Sean