Shrove Tuesday (Observed), a collaboration amongst many Internet humorists dear to my heart which had somehow escaped my notice until I stumbled upon it in a Wikipedia article about something else entirely, has a wonderful parody of an awful lot of SF….
After a short wait, they were ushered onto the plane with the other passengers. The plane was an enormous steel cylinder at least a hundred meters long, with sleek backswept wings on which four jet engines were mounted. They glanced into the front cabin and saw the two pilots, consulting a bank of equipment needed the fly the plane. Roger was glad that he did not need to fly the plane himself; it was a difficult profession which required years of training.
The surprisingly large passenger area was equipped with soft benches, and windows through which they could look down at the countryside as they flew 11 km high at more than 800 km/h. There were nozzles for the pressurized air which kept the atmosphere in the cabin warm and comfortable despite the coldness of the stratosphere.
“I’m a little nervous,” Ann said, before the plane took off.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” he assured her. “These flights are entirely routine. You’re safer than you are in our ground transport cars!”
(There’s also a good one on why the classic SF future was called off:)
Post-Apocalypse patchwork clothing looks bitchen, but takes forever to sew
Classic SF scientists: handsome, dedicated. Real scientists: pasty, creepy
Once computers brought us porn, we were done
:::cackle:::