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"The way you write science fiction is: you sit down at your writing machine and you open your mind to the first thought that comes through."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Graffiti-Eating Finish | ||
| A wall covering that maintained itself, eating any graffiti placed on it. |
William Gibson's environments tend to oscillate back and forth between gritty urban realism and (often computer-generated) perfection. Sometimes, real world objects are given the same degree of perfection as computer-generated objects.
| The store on Sunset had a finish that ate graffiti. The gang kids would come and tag it; twenty minutes later these flat, dark, vaguely crab-like patches of dark blue would come gliding out around the corner… They seemed to be embedded, a few millimeters down into the surface, which was a sort of non-glossy gel-coat affair, but able to move around under there. Smart material, he'd heard that called. And they'd glide up to the tag, whatever artfully abstract scrawl had been sprayed there to declare fealty or mark territory or swear revenge… and start eating it. |
| Technovelgy from All Tomorrow's Parties,
by William Gibson. Published by Putnam in 1999 Additional resources -
|
Imagine - a clean convenience store! Actually, of course, this is just the Lucky Dragon global chain protecting its brand image.
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| 'Mooncrete' Lunar Regolith Concrete (LRC) |
| Harvard Metamaterials Change Structure Instantly |
| Nano-Chainmail 2D Mechanically Interlocked Polymer |
| Goldene - A Two-Dimensional Sheet Of Gold One Atom Thick |
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Science Fiction
Timeline
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'...a hemispherical force field enclosing his head.'
'Then he became aware of a gentle pressure pushing him away from the ship.'
'And now they wre busily transforming all their companions, and so on, and so on...'
'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
