[Bent Arrowni]

I was wondering about the great concepts on the futuristic weapons in sci fi, I know at least two that I really loved and I wanted to know if you could provide another.

On several Asimov books there is the neuronic whip, a weapon that causes incredible pain against its target. Larry Niven presents the opposite side of the same coin bringing in the tasp, a weapon that causes a stimulation of pleasure in the brain, even capable of making the target addict to its effects.

Do you have any others?

[Ropie]

There's an interesting one right at the end of Look to Windward by Iain M Banks but I don't have the book to hand for details just now...

[manephelien]

There's a doozie at the end of Clarke and Baxter's The Trigger. However, I can't describe it because it'd spoil the book for anyone who hasn't read it.

[Expendable]

In Bujold's Vor series she has stunners and neural disruptors - a direct hit with a neural distruptor kills, frying your synapses. A partial hit can leave permanment brain or nerve damage.

[manephelien]

Anne McCaffrey also has neuronic whips in her Catteni (Freedom) sequence of books, as well as a particularly sinister machine which can be used both to increase someone's intelligence and to mind-read them so deeply that they lose their sense of identity, at least temporarily.

[Ash]

SPOILERS

If I remember correctly the weapon at the end of Look to Windward was a sentient nano disassembler cloud and yes it was pretty cool.

Banks is right up there with descriptions of very nasty weaponry, he doesn’t give too many specifics, which could date the items, but he leaves you with an impression of serious power with things like Grid fire and effectors. I suppose the ship from Excession is my favourite, the one that had on the quiet manufactured 80,000 Rapid Offensive Units, now that’s going to rain on anyone’s parade.

Hmm I could think up lots more, with Mr Asher and Mr Hamilton springing to mind.

[Ropie]

If I remember correctly the weapon at the end of Look to Windward was a sentient nano disassembler cloud and yes it was pretty cool.
That's the fellow! He also has tiny, sentient 'knife missiles' in some of his Culture books, a bit like the floating mini-missile that seeks out Paul what's-his-face in Dune.

Stanislaw Lem's Cyberiad has a short story about a specially designed weapon I'm sure. Again, I'd have to check though..

Now Barrington Bayley comes to mind too. There's a short story I remember ArthurFrayn gave a link to where someone had made a weapon to kill God. Also, Bayley wrote a novel called The Zen Gun, though whether or not this is about a special kind of gun I'm not sure - Arthur is the Bayley authority and may know..

[Bent Arrowni]

I'm still surprised that so many little weapons (so far) deal with the possibilities of time manipulation, escape velocity or many other physic phenomena that one should consider when writing sci-fi. Of course, the unnamed mysterious weapon at the end of a book does not help the cause much, could you at least put it under spoiler tag or invisible text?

[Ropie]

Nothing to see here.

[Expendable]

Well, there was one book called The Peace War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peace_War) by Vernor Vinge where a group calling themselves "The Peace Authority" uses a 'gun' called a Bobbler to create inpenetrable spherical forcefields around weapons, people and even cities, where it's assumed that anyone trapped inside will eventually run out of air in the darkness. They use this to take control of the world, encasing governments inside giant mirrorred bubbles. Except {spoiler alert}... they're actually created statis bubbles - and they eventually start to pop.