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"Tokyo homeless people reiterate the whole nature of living in Tokyo in cardboard boxes, they're only slightly smaller than Tokyo apartments, and they have almost as many consumer goods. It's a nightmare of boxes within boxes."
- William Gibson
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| Prison Planet | ||
| A planet (or planetoid) that serves as a jail for solar system offenders. |
As far as I know, the first use of the phrase "prison planet".
| Gray was charged with having stolen the real coil and substituted a blank for it. He knew better; soon realized that the whole affair was a conspiracy between the terrestrials and their Venusian underlings to defraud the stockholders, but upon Gray alone rested the blame. He was convicted and sentenced to five years on the prison planet, Ganymede. Upon his release he became a tramp, wandering from planet to planet, until at last he became one of the Controllers of Gernser. |
| Technovelgy from The Venus Germ,
by R.F. Starzl (w/F. Pragnell). Published by Wonder Stories in 1932 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the earliest use of the idea Prison Planet (Penal Settlement) from Revolt on Inferno (1931) by Victor Rousseau. See also the asteroid prison from One Against the Legion (1939) by Jack Williamson, the Alcatraz of Space from Reunion on Ganymede (1938) by Clifford Simak, the Moon as prison from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) by Robert Heinlein, zero-time jail from A World Out of Time (1976) by Larry Niven and Brainlock from Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988) by William Gibson.
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