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"One could imagine a very ascetic sort of life ... where the body is ignored. This is something I've played with in my books, where people hate to be reminded sometimes that they have bodies, they find it very slow and tedious."
- William Gibson

Glowstone  
  A mineral that absorbs light by day and emits it by night.  

"...This is the city of High Kavalaan. Some people call it the Firefort."

He could see why at a glance. Built into the shoulder of the mountain, rock beneath it and rock to its back, the Kavalar city was also a fortress - square and thick, massively walled, with narrow slit windows... But the lights of the city itself were not reflected; the walls and streets of Larteyn burned with a dull, glowering fire of their own.

"Glowstone," Gwen told him in answer to his unvoiced question. "It absorbs light during the day and gives it back at night. On High Kavalaan it was used mostly for jewelry, but they quarried it by the ton and shipped it to Warlorn for the Festival."

Technovelgy from Dying of the Light, by George RR Martin.
Published by Baen in 1977
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