direct path from Europe to North America. Telautograph A device to transfer handwriting through a (picture phone). Basically a fax machine, except handwriting transfers as the person writes. Tele-Motor Coasters Telephot This is basically a picture phone. It also includes a universal translator, where language translation can be opted using a dial control. Teleradiograph Tele-Theater This is like a television, but with differences. It is really a series of that almost seamlessly combine to make up one large picture. Live events like an opera or a play can be seen from one's home with this device. Communications can be made in both directions while the device is broadcasting. It is not mentioned if it can be used to show previously recorded entertainment. Vacation City A domed city suspended 20,000 feet in the air using a device that nullifies gravity. No mechanical devices are permitted in such cities because they are strictly used as an escape from a mechanized world. Influence and critical reception Even though Ralph 124C 41+ has been described as pioneering many of the tropes and ideas found in later science fiction works, it has largely been neglected due to what critics often describe as poor artistic quality. Brian Aldiss has called the story a "tawdry illiterate tale" and a "sorry concoction", while Lester del Rey called it "simply dreadful". Martin Gardner referred to the book as "surely the worst SF novel ever written". Groff Conklin more generously described it as "thoroughly delightful ... [with] the genuine charm of a sound, workmanlike antique." Reviewing the 1950 Frederick Fell edition in The New York Times, Rex Lardner wrote that while the "fine" novel "contain[ed] a good deal of sound prophecy, ... it has a narrative style as quaint as the retarder on a Hupmobile." Everett F. Bleiler similarly noted that "The literary treatment is on a very low level, but Ralph 124C41+ is renowned for its many highly imaginative technical projections." While most critics have little positive to say about the story's writing, Gary Westfahl, one of the book's few public defenders, considered it "essential text for all studies of science fiction", and The Economist called it "arguably the first major work of American science fiction". According to Westfahl, "the novel merits attention because of the ways Gernsback uneasily blended several generic models – melodrama, the travel tale, Utopia, even touches of Gothic and Satire – in an effort