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Related to material in Abercrombie Station
by Jack Vance

"THERE have always been colonies — colonies of nudists, artists, vegetarians, non? conformists and plain old rugged individualists. Here at Abercrombie Station, for the first time, we have a colony for fat people. Nor is their chosen isolation intended merely to avoid ridicule. It has a practical advantage. Far from Earth’s burdensome gravity, freed of the chains of their weight, the fat people can skip as lithesome as lambs on the green, while their avoirdupois, instead of sagging grotesquely, balloons in rich, rosy, enticing curves.

Everybody has a different idea of paradise, but if you happen to be dieting — or should be — you’ll have fun with Jack Vance’s idea of a heavyweight heaven."

From the story:

Fat women, like bladder-fish in an aquarium tank. Fat women, round and tender as yellow peaches. Fat women, miraculously easy and agile in the. absence of gravity.

The occasion seemed to be an afternoon musicale. The hall was crowded and heavy with balls of pink flesh draped in blouses and pantaloons of white, pale blue and yellow.

The current Abercrombie fashion seemed designed to accent the round bodies. Flat bands like Sam Browne belts molded the breasts down and out, under the arms. The hair was parted down the middle, skinned smoothly back to a small roll at the nape of the neck. Flesh, bulbs of tender flesh, smooth shiny balloons. Tiny twitching features, dancing fingers and toes, eyes and lips roguishly painted. On Earth any one of these women would have sat immobile, a pile of sagging sweating tissue. At Abercrombie Station — “Adipose Alley,” so-called along the Pipeline — they moved with the ease of dandelion puffs, and their faces and bodies were smooth as butterballs.

Engaging novella describes the orbiting world of Abercrombie Station, a playground for the obese that celebrates adipose extremes. A conventionally beautiful Earth teenager, Jean Parlier, is hired to seduce the owner of the Station.

Science fiction in the News articles describe real-world events that relate to the ideas and inventions in sf novels and movies. Select a news article:

'World's Heaviest Woman' Title Sought
   To balance out the World's Greatest Losers, we find the world's most serious gainers.

Miss Alabama Beauty Contest Offers Different Standards
   '...they moved with the ease of dandelion puffs.' - Jack Vance, 1952.

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