15-minute ficlet (Powell and Donovan)
Response to Word #174 at 15_minute_fic:
Title: About Machines
Prompt: "machine"
Fandom: Powell and Donovan (Asimov)
Characters: Greg Powell, Mike Donovan
Rating: G
Word count: 137
"Say, Greg," said Donovan, after some minutes of silence, "I've been reading about machines."
Powell looked up from the book of libretti. "You don't say," he replied, deadpan. "Although if you've waited until just now, I'm thinking I should have asked for a different engineer."
"Not like that," said Donovan. "I mean historical stuff. Cultural stuff. You wouldn't understand it. But look, Greg, do you know what a machine really is?"
"O.K., Mike, I'll bite. What is a machine?"
"It's a labor-saving device. It's something invented by humans to make their lives easier!"
"You don't say," said Powell again, and resumed humming the recitative under his breath. "What's your point?"
"My point!" Donovan repeated. "My point is, if that crazed robot ever lets us out of this spaceforsaken library, I'm going back to Earth and build pulleys!"
---
Spaceforsaken. Yeah, I don't know. That doesn't even make sense. But even now I'm having a hard time thinking of any adjectival future swears from Asimov's work. It's mostly interjections: Great Galaxy! Sizzling Saturn! Sands of Mars! And in the Lucky Starr series, Bigman has that great noun cobber, which isn't even necessarily futuristic at all. (Upon looking it up again, I am still mystified. My best guess is that it has something to do with performing unskilled labor, which would jibe with his Martian farm-boy background.)
I'm not sure offhand what an Asimov character would say in place of something like freakin', though. Perhaps they just tend to use adjectives that actually mean something. Jumping Jupiter!
Title: About Machines
Prompt: "machine"
Fandom: Powell and Donovan (Asimov)
Characters: Greg Powell, Mike Donovan
Rating: G
Word count: 137
"Say, Greg," said Donovan, after some minutes of silence, "I've been reading about machines."
Powell looked up from the book of libretti. "You don't say," he replied, deadpan. "Although if you've waited until just now, I'm thinking I should have asked for a different engineer."
"Not like that," said Donovan. "I mean historical stuff. Cultural stuff. You wouldn't understand it. But look, Greg, do you know what a machine really is?"
"O.K., Mike, I'll bite. What is a machine?"
"It's a labor-saving device. It's something invented by humans to make their lives easier!"
"You don't say," said Powell again, and resumed humming the recitative under his breath. "What's your point?"
"My point!" Donovan repeated. "My point is, if that crazed robot ever lets us out of this spaceforsaken library, I'm going back to Earth and build pulleys!"
---
Spaceforsaken. Yeah, I don't know. That doesn't even make sense. But even now I'm having a hard time thinking of any adjectival future swears from Asimov's work. It's mostly interjections: Great Galaxy! Sizzling Saturn! Sands of Mars! And in the Lucky Starr series, Bigman has that great noun cobber, which isn't even necessarily futuristic at all. (Upon looking it up again, I am still mystified. My best guess is that it has something to do with performing unskilled labor, which would jibe with his Martian farm-boy background.)
I'm not sure offhand what an Asimov character would say in place of something like freakin', though. Perhaps they just tend to use adjectives that actually mean something. Jumping Jupiter!