Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 18:06:08 -0500
From: Steve Smith <sgs at aginc.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Interesting Inventions
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Candy Madigan wrote:
>
> Kindra's got DI practice tomorrow at noon, she needs to find out about
> inventions.  Anybody know any interesting invention type stories?
>
> Candy

DI? Drug Interaction?  Drill Instructor?  Deus Irae?  Former UK
princess?

SF has always had all kinds of inventions.  Remember Frankenstein?
Analog/Astounding has always been the natural habitat of the "invention"
story; see the annual collections.

The collection "Venus Equilateral" by George O. Smith has a nice segue
from pure techno- geek to pure social- impact- of- technology.

Inventions can be things other than physical doodads.  In "Blood Music"
[*] by Greg Bear, it's biological, in "Brave New World"[*] and
"Island"[*], by Aldous Huxley, it's a form of social organization, and
in "World of Null-A", by A. E. van Vogt, it's a form of education.

For a cute parody of the Teenagers Discover Space Drive and Conquer the
Cosmos plot, see "Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers", by Harry
Harrison.  Personally, I think that "Spacehounds of IPC", by E. E. "Doc"
Smith (which Spacehounds was parodying) was funnier.

Or, if you want "real world" inventions, check out biographies of:

Thomas Edison
Nikola Tesla (patron saint of Mad Scientists)
Edwin Land (Polaroid)
Howard Hughes (before he succumbed to Billionaire Brain Damage)
    (See the movie "Rocketeer" for a view of Hughes before he
     went weird.  Interestingly enough, the Big Invention in the
     movie was made not by Hughes, but von Braun.)
the Wright brothers
Alexander Fleming (penicillin)

Most "inventions" are actually combinations of many small inventions.  A
history of television is interesting here; there was no one big
invention but a lot of little "way station" type inventions.  Also mucho
politics.

Factiod -- Will "Murray Leinster" Jenkins, when he wasn't writing SF,
was a professional inventor.

[*] May not be suitable for younger readers.

--
Steve Smith                                           sgs at aginc.net
Agincourt Computing                            http://www.aginc.net
"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense."