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"The planet's immune system is doing everything it can. The planet's immune system is doing everything it can."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
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| Cloud Sculpting | ||
| Using gliders and chemical showers to shape clouds artistically. |
A retired pilot finds his way to Vermillion Sands, and meets a kite-maker. Add a beautiful but mysterious woman to the mix, and you've got a great story.
| The tree gliders, brilliant painted toys, revolved like lazing birds above Coral D, waiting for the first clouds to pass overhead. Van Eyck moved away to take a cloud. He sailed around its white pillow, spraying the sides with iodide crystals and cutting away the flock-like tissue. The streaming shards fell toward us like crumbling ice-drifts. As the drops of condensing spray fell on my face I could see Van Eyck shaping an immense horse's head. He sailed up and down the long forehead and chiseled out the eyes and ears.
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| Technovelgy from The Cloud Sculptors of Coral D,
by J.G. Ballard. Published by Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1967 Additional resources -
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I don't know if anyone has ever tried cloud sculpting. Cloud seeding (the attempt to produce or alter precipitation and weather by sprinkling materials into clouds) was done just after World War II.
Thanks to John for letting me know about the great cover art for this story; I read it in the 'Vermillion Sands' collection.
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'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
'... nothing was perfected until M. Pantalon announced the completion of his automatic valet.'
'...its streets were of remarkable width, with few or no buildings so high as mosques, churches, State-offices, or palaces in Tellurian cities.'
'...it was all composed of tiny, identical cubes, carefully laid to form a tilelike surface.'
