PULSE-GUN

A 'pulse-gun' is a weapon from a fictional world created by Neal Asher in his book, Gridlinked. Asher writes:
"To call a weapon this is comparable to describing the wide range of pre-runcible weapons as 'bullet guns'. The name is inadequate and misleading. There are many kinds of pulse-gun. A laser could well be described as such because it fires rapid pulses of lased light. The pulse in all cases describes the packet, and not the form of the energy itself. Ionized gas or aluminum dust pulses are usually confined to handguns, and electromagnetic pulses--because of size constraints--to larger weapons. Some more esoteric weapons do fire microwave and ultrasound pulses. It is worth remembering that within these parameters there is huge variation in effect, ranging from level of stun to the size of the hole." ''Gridlinked pg 63''