Illustration by Chris Foss for Warhammer 40K

DEMON SEED (1973) book cover art by Lou Feck.

Book was written by Dean Koontz, and it concerns the imprisonment and forced impregnation of a woman by an artificially intelligent computer.

I've been aware of the book and the film, but have never experience either one. I definitely am gonna read it now!

Star Quest was Dean R. Koontz's first novel.

Many devices, such as the monorail, have been brought forward in the past to solve the problem of swift, smooth transportation. The latest, utilizing a single track, is reported in recent dispatches from Moscow, in the Soviet Republics (Russia) as in the stage of actual developmental work. The correspondent of the New York Times in that city recently viewed the demonstration track nearby, which was about a mile and a quarter in length. Here a wooden structure had been built, in a form of a groove about three feet wide, to receive the oval balls on which the train runs. The train itself, of five coaches, is streamlined. The experimental model ran around the track, smoothly and without vibration, taking sharp curves without difficulty.

The inventor, a young engineer named Nicholas Yarmochuk, has received authority, after his successful demonstration, to built fifteen miles of track, gauged to receive ball-wheels 80 inches in diameter (This exceeds even the wide gauge of Russian railroads). The track will be laid in reinforced concrete and, because the train accommodates itself to sharper grades and curves than will the ordinary type of railway car with trucks, the cost of construction will be materially less in difficult country.

The inventor declares that the final model, with highly-streamlined, enclosed trains, will have a running speed of 300 kilometers, or 190 miles an hour. For this, probably, motors will not be geared down, but as shown, built into the wheels themselves; thus reducing mechanical difficulties. At such speeds, also, the human element will be the deciding one as to the sharpness of curves; for a sudden turn affects the blood in the brain, and causes dizziness, as in stunting high-speed planes.

By artist Johnny Bruck. Possibly created for or connected to Perry Rhodan.

Starship Troopers (1977) by Naoyuki Kato

Another piece by the great Johnny Bruck

In space, you don't really need gloves.

The Clipper was developed by inventor David Gottlieb. Engineer Gilbert Jepson designed the chassis, while Hordern-Richmond, an aircraft engineering firm, manufactured the body.

It had:

• Three wheels, with one steering wheel in front

• A 346 cc Villiers single-cylinder two-stroke engine

• About 8 horsepower

• A three-speed gearbox

• A claimed top speed of roughly 40 mph

• Claimed fuel economy of 60 to 70 mpg

• A weight of about 672 pounds

The body consisted of fiberglass panels bonded together over a steel chassis.

Fiberglass offered several advantages: It wouldn't rust, less expensive factory tooling than stamped steel, color could be placed directly into the material, so no painting. And it was light enough for a small motorcycle engine to move.

Advertisements rather optimistically described the body as “indestructible.” It may have been Britain’s first production car with a fiberglass body.

The advertised price was about £268 including purchase tax (£9,500 or $12,700 in today's dollars).

The Clipper’s basic idea made sense: use a light, rustproof body, a small engine, simple mechanical parts, and extremely low fuel consumption. But he actual vehicle suffered from poor execution.

The V-belt transmission was unreliable. The fiberglass molds caused repeated production delays and had to be remade.

Hordern-Richmond eventually sought more money for the bodies, but the Clipper’s low selling price left almost no room for higher production costs.

The project was abandoned during 1955.

News robot sharing the news that a robotic John Wilkes Booth has killed a robotic Abraham Lincoln in the year 2971.

I like how the robotic Booth and Lincoln are still wearing clothes from the 1800's and look human, but the news robot looks like well, a robot. lol

The Avro Mobile was an experimental two-wheeled vehicle designed by British aviation pioneer Alliott Verdon Roe, founder of A.V. Roe & Company.

Essentially a cross between a motorcycle and a streamlined car. But it should be noted that it came roughly 22 to 24 years before the Vespa.

It used a 349 cc Barr and Stroud engine, a three-speed Albion gearbox, chain drive, front and rear suspension, hub-centre steering, small 12-inch disc wheels, and drum brakes. Its frame was formed from sheet steel.

It never entered regular production. Its unusual balance, cramped body, limited practicality, and motorcycle-like vulnerability probably made it less useful than either a normal motorcycle or a light car.

I actually love the look of this thing!

Instead of turning bicycle pedals, the rider moved the arms, legs, and torso in a motion similar to rowing a racing shell. A mechanical linkage converted each pull-and-return stroke into rotation at the wheels.

Similar vehicles were demonstrated and raced under names such as Landskiff, land skiff, and rowmobile. American magazines also covered the craze in articles such as “Rowing Through the Streets” in July 1926.

By 1930, rowmobile races were reportedly held at London’s Herne Hill velodrome.

Its main appeal was that the rowing action used the rider’s upper body as well as the legs.

Reality was that the design was mechanically more complicated and less convenient than an ordinary bicycle. It never became common transportation, though modern rowing bicycles and rowing tricycles use the same basic idea.

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When the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles featured a new “coffee robot” in October 1967, the newspapers covering it sounded both excited and terrified.

“Experts contend that, as a group, robots are actually harmless enough,” the October 3, 1967 edition of the Los Angeles Times explained. “And as employes [sic] they are courteous, stable and willing to perform both menial and sophisticated chores without a complaint. Certainly the 3,500 pound ‘portable’ model that was uncaged Monday at the Biltmore behaved itself in an exemplary manner.”

“But there was something vaguely ominous about the dull inner churning of its hydraulic pumps,” the newspaper continued, “the hiss of its pneumatic fingers, the way it shook the floor while cleverly pouring a cup of coffee.”

A new mode of travelling has lately been invented, which the inventors claim to be applicable to any mining country where flumes exist, or which may be used wherever a stream of water of sufficient velocity of current can be enclosed for suitable distance.

The device involves a carriage driven entirely by outside power; and, paradoxical as it may appear, it can travel either in the same direction as the force, or diametrically opposite thereto, while the direction of application of the power remains unchanged.

In short, it is a carriage which travels up stream, impelled by no other force than that of the current.

Original illustration: