Literature
- In the 1955 novel Earthlight by Arthur C. Clarke, an electromagnetically propelled piece of molten metal is fired from a fortress at an advanced warship, astounding a nearby observer who sees a beam of light (on the airless Moon) stabbing the warship and destroying it. Later it was shown that molten metal cannot be accelerated by a magnetic field as metal loses its magnetic properties in a molten state, and Clarke admitted his error gracefully.
- In Harry Harrison's book The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge gauss rifles are the standard armament of Cliaand soldiers.
- The first mass driver known in print was called the "electric gun", a method of launching vehicles into outer space from the Earth's surface, in the 1897 science fiction novel A Trip to Venus by John Munro, published by Jarrold & Sons, London. Munro describes multiple coils fired in timed sequence by solenoids to achieve acceleration without excessive G-forces that would be harmful to the passengers. He also describes combinations of propulsion methods used in tandem, including electric gun launch of a vehicle with onboard rockets, compressed gas jets and even retrofired bullets as a means to increase velocity and change direction. He also discusses the use of aerobraking and parachutes for landing on a planet.
- In The Big U by Neal Stephenson, a character builds a mass driver as part of an academic project.
- In Robert A. Heinlein's classic novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, rebelling lunar colonists use a kilometers-long mass driver system that delivers grain to Earth to instead deliver metal-clad rocks as an orbital bombardment system.
- In the Star Wars and Halo franchises, many vehicles and starships use mass driver cannons, because they fire ballistic projectiles that cannot be dispersed by shields.
- In the novel The Two Faces of Tomorrow by James P. Hogan, a Maskelyne mass driver based in the Sea of Tranquility is used by the TITAN supercomputer to easily destroy a lunar ridge to clear land for the construction of a second mass driver site.
- In the novel Warrior's Blood by Richard S. McEnroe, an ancient alien mining colony is awakened from stasis and uses a mining transport mass driver as a weapon of mass destruction against the Earth.
- In the novel Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds, the crew of the Rockhopper use mass drivers to send comets back to earth for processing into water and other resources.
- In the novel Thunderstrike! by Michael McCollum, a mass driver is used by a lunar city.
- In the novel series Buck Rogers, the protagonist uses railguns on the planet Luna.
- In Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds, various factions use railguns, ranging from small ship-to-ship devices to thousand-kilometre installations, which fire explosive foam-phase hydrogen and other munitions.
- In Count Zero by William Gibson, the characters speculate that a huge explosion was triggered by a railgun, and they describe the railgun's inherent instability: "You can rig a railgun to blow itself to plasma when it discharges."
- In Crest of the Stars and Banner of the Stars by Hiroyuki Morioka, railguns are called irgymh in the Abh Empire, and used as the main armament of the warship Laburec.
- In the Black Cat anime/manga series, the protagonist Train Heartnet is capable of shooting his revolver as a railgun, powered by electricity generated by nanobots in his bloodstream.
- In the StarFist series, railguns are used by the alien Skinks against human soldiers.
- In the Succession series by Scott Westerfeld, railguns are fired from the orbiting Lynx to kill the Rix commandos.
- In Old Man's War by John Scalzi, the CDF ships are equipped with railguns and various other weapons.
- In the Legacy of the Aldenata series of books by John Ringo, the alien Posleen are equipped with man-portable rail guns in 1-mm and 3-mm versions, in contrast to the gravity guns supplied to the human soldiers.
- In the novel and anime/manga series Toaru Majutsu no Index and its spin-off Toaru Kagaku no Railgun, Mikoto Misaka can manipulate electricity with her hands to fire arcade tokens as projectiles, similar to a rail gun.
- In Neal Asher's Polity stories, railguns are among the weapons used by Earth Central Security. In the short story, "Alien Archaeology", the main character mentions that ships hiding with chameleonware near ECS warships might find themselves the victims of a mishap involving a railgun test fire.
Read more about this topic: List Of Electromagnetic Projectile Devices In Fiction
Famous quotes containing the word literature:
“As a man has no right to kill one of his children if it is diseased or insane, so a man who has made the gradual and conscious expression of his personality in literature the aim of his life, has no right to suppress himself any carefully considered work which seemed good enough when it was written. Suppression, if it is deserved, will come rapidly enough from the same causes that suppress the unworthy members of a man’s family.”
—J.M. (John Millington)
“Nothing could be more inappropriate to American literature than its English source since the Americans are not British in sensibility.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Literature must become Party literature.... Down with unpartisan litterateurs! Down with the superman of literature! Literature must become a part of the general cause of the proletariat.”
—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)