star lane n.

= space lane n.

  • 1939 A. J. Burks Follow the Bouncing Ball in Astounding Science-Fiction Mar. 49/1 page image Arthur J. Burks bibliography

    [He] was down in the engine room at the very bottom of the egg-shaped mighty ship—or rather it had once been mighty, before the real speedy monsters of the star lanes had been built.

  • 1943 ‘J. MacCreigh’ Conspiracy on Callisto in Planet Stories Winter 46/2 page image Frederik Pohl bibliography

    They were fighting ships, small, speedy ones, in Callisto for refueling before returnng to the League’s ceaseless patrol of the System’s starlanes.

  • 1949 The Ether Vibrates in Startling Stories Jan. 10/2 page image

    Cantrell has been removed from his job as chief space-explorer because of his insistence, thanks to a booby-trapped pyramid of strange design he found on Calypso during one of his previous space-flights, that some intelligent species, hostile to all other space-travelers and their worlds, has long been roving the star lanes.

  • 1950 M. Lesser All Heroes Are Hated! in Amazing Stories Nov. 18/1 page image Milton Lesser bibliography

    And earth had lived on the luxury trade of the star-lanes.

  • 1953 G. O. Smith Troubled Star in Startling Stories Feb. 23/2 page image George O. Smith bibliography

    The three-day variables are used for course markers; the longer variables are used to denote gas fields, nebular dust, and the like, and the still-longer beacons are used to denote places where various well-travelled starlanes meet, cross or merge.

  • 1953 A. Norton Star Rangers 280 page image Andre Norton bibliography

    Shall we rise again to be the lords of space and the rangers of the star lanes?

  • 1964 ‘˜C. Smith’™ Planet Buyer 113 Cordwainer Smith bibliography

    Suggest to all the really rum worlds we know that a good impersonator could put his hands on the McBan money. Make the suggestion so that they would not know that we had originated it. The starlanes will be full of Rod McBans, complete with phony Norstrilian accents, for the next couple hundred years.

  • 1980 W. Wightman Metamind in Amazing Stories Aug. 86/2 page image Wayne Wightman bibliography

    They entered another star lane, this one far denser than the first one. He could only watch and say nothing. Never had he seen such splendor on any scale.

  • 1987 D. Brin Uplift War 590 David Brin bibliography

    The dolphins seem to have miraculously escaped a trap set for them by a dozen of the most fanatic patron lines—an astonishing feat by itself—and now the Streaker seems to be loose on the starlanes.

  • 2015 S. Baxter Endurance 218 page image Stephen Baxter bibliography

    It had moved several times since its formation, embedded hyperdrive engines lifting the whole shebang across light years, always moving further from the Earth, off along the star lanes of the spiral arm.


Research requirements

antedating 1939

Earliest cite

Arthur Burks, in Astounding Science Fiction

Research History
Mike Christie submitted a cite from a 1955 reprint of Andre Norton's 1953 "The Last Planet"; Jesse Sheidlower verified it in the first edition.
Jeff Prucher submitted a cite from a 1994 reprint of Cordwainer Smith's "Norstrilia".
Fred Galvin submitted a September 1949 cite from an editorial response to a letter in Startling Stories.
Fred Galvin submitted a cite from a Jack Vance's 1974 "Assault on a City".
Fred Galvin submitted a 1953 cite from George O. Smith's "Troubled Star".
Fred Galvin submitted a 1950 cite from Milton Lesser's "All Heroes Are Hated!".
Fred Galvin submitted a 1951 cite from Lester del Rey's "'The Years Draw Nigh'".
Fred Galvin submitted a cite from an editorial column "The Ether Vibrates" in the January 1949 Startling Stories.
Fred Galvin submitted a cite from an editorial blurb in Astounding July 1943 (for the story "Gleeps" by P. Schuyler Miller.)
Jesse Sheidlower submitted a 1943 cite from Frederick Pohl (writing as "James MacCreigh") in Planet Stories.
Jesse Sheidlower submitted a 1939 cite from Arthur J. Burks in Astounding.

Last modified 2022-02-20 15:44:18
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.