Bug-Sized Spies with 24-hour eyes?

The Associated Press reports that U.S. military engineers are developing little flying robots able to infiltrate enemy zones, spy abroad, and keep an eye on potential baddies. It’s straight out of science fiction and may actually spell the coming end of terrorist threats, privacy and maybe a whole lot more we take for granted. Historian Niall Ferguson predicted something like this in a 2006 Time Magazine piece that looked ahead to the year 2031.

I also remember as a boy reading a passage in Michael Moorcock’s pulpy Elric of Melnibone fantasy series about a special fly. In the first book, Moorcock describes “It buzzed about erratically….It must have come in through the window, thought Elric. He was annoyed by the distraction but still fascinated by it….And then Elric could see the fly’s eyes and recognise something in them….’Arioch?’ And a beautiful youth stood where the fly had hovered.”

Thus makes the entrance of the demon god Arioch and the beginning of Elric’s great power and long tragic fall. Not great literature, but a vision worth pondering.