Does anyone else use "blaster"?

[psikeyhackr]

Apocalypse Troll by David Weber

Woman comes from 500 years in the future with a "blaster". Character in 2007 groans.

Gotta have a blast in the past.

Wayback Machine

OMG! This is from 10 years ago!

Gotta have a blast from the past.

 

[Danny McG]

I've always read a blaster as being a future pistol that either fires a conventional bullet or an explosive bullet.
The other SF hand weapons are ray guns or beamers.

I never bought into the 'swords as well' trope

 

[paranoid marvin]

I've always read a blaster as being a future pistol that either fires a conventional bullet or an explosive bullet.
The other SF hand weapons are ray guns or beamers.

I never bought into the 'swords as well' trope

Do you include lightsabers as swords? Ben refers to blasters as 'clumsy and random', and when we see them in the hands of Stormtroopers we know why he thinks that.

Laser crossbows on the other hand are just plain silly.

 

[Danny McG]

Laser crossbows on the other hand are just plain silly

I remember some Tom Baker Dr Who episode, they were on a world where a noble had just been killed with an electronic crossbow.
A lord says contempously
"Ha! a peasant weapon"

 

[Ursa major]

"Ha! a peasant weapon"

Probably because such a weapon is as cheap as chips.

 

[Parson]

cheap as chips.

That has to be a British English phrase because for us colonials that is a certain tongue twister.

 

[Astrocartician]

According to the Inventions and Ideas from Science Fiction Books and Movies at Technovelgy.com website, the first use of the word Blaster (spelled Blastor) was from When the Green Star Waned by Nictzin Dyalhis published in Weird Tales in 1925.

 

[Ursa major]

That has to be a British English phrase

Cheap as chips is slightly more widespread than that, but I doubt many people born in North America would know it.

Oh, and chips (your "french fries") aren't that cheap these days.

 

[Peppa]

Hmm. The future is outdated. That's funny. It didn't used to be. But seriously, I clearly remember Robbie saying" A simple Blaster" to Morbius in Forbidden Planet (1954). Lucas appears to have had very few original thoughts (see Valérian and Laureline - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ). But like Tarentino he sometimes put them together in a very interesting fashion.

When I talk about old sci-fi books that describe a very outdated future or sentient life on Venera and Mars, I prefer to use the term "vintage sci-fi". I think the word "vintage" still sounds much better than "outdated".

Space opera queen here - yep, I use it. I also use rifles, weapons, plasma bolts etc etc. it depends what feel you want, but if it's space opera nothing beats a good blaster on the hip of a sexy pilot.

As far as I know, space opera is a very free genre, which (like fantasy) allows the author to use almost anything. The author can even write the book with biological guns that shoot giggling leeches that burrow into the enemy's nose (or arse, if the enemy has already turned to flight).

 

[Danny McG]

The author can even write the book with biological guns that shoot giggling leeches that burrow into the enemy's nose (or arse, if the enemy has already turned to flight)

Yeah, I'd buy such a story for definite, this site is full of writers so here's a challenge for you all.

 

[Dave]

Looking at the graph of the mentions of the word "Blaster" over time, it has been around (as a person who uses explosives on something solid) since well before 1800. It doesn't separate out the science fiction usage from others, but there is a rise about 1900 (dynamite?) and a small peak about 1950, followed by a steep rise beginning about 1978, with a slight tail around 2000, before another rise recently. I think this fits the pattern of what everyone is saying, and while Star Wars didn't invent the word or usage, it certainly appears to have popularised it.

 

[Peppa]

Yeah, I'd buy such a story for definite, this site is full of writers so here's a challenge for you all.

Well, I'm certainly not a writer. You can check out my humble attempts at raping classic books by adding zombies here.
And you can see my translation of an ancient Chinese text here. As far as I can tell, it didn't impress anyone.
But I have some pretty good ideas for fantasy and sci-fi books. If there are any writers here, they can contact me for fresh ideas.
So I am going to develop this idea about leeches. These leeches won't just bite people's noses. They could be very small and they could go through the nose right into the brain and then intercept the brain's command over the human body. And then they'll make people do very stupid things. Like translate the Declaration of Independence into Sumerian, or dance ballet on skis, or stick their big toe up their nose.
Basically, you can make up your own mind about what these naughty bloodsuckers will do.