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"I'm a farm boy. It's very interesting; you can detect self-starting characteristics in this society and they are strongest among people who have had some kind of rural upbringing and a very impressionable stage."
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The psychotropic houses of Vermillion Sands were able to mirror the feelings of their owners. They could also change shape as required.
Compare to the memory plastic from Larry Niven's 1969 story Death by Ecstasy.
The house trees of Jack Vance's 1964 novel The Houses of Iszm also tailored themselves to owners, if more slowly. Contrast plastex, which does what you want, to the Bambakias hotel of Bruce Sterling's 1998 novel Distraction, which actually tells you what to do, construction-wise.
I don't know if Ballard knowingly reused the word "plastex" or not. The word was trademarked in the 1930's by a toy company; it is used in reference to a bouncy kind of plastic. Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
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