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"Science and science fiction, how do you even distinguish the two?"
- Jerry Pournelle
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| City of Glass | ||
| An entire city made of unique structural glass and ceramic. |
In the story, the young of an intelligent species must be born in the sunlight on their jungle planet.
| “Your city—I saw very tall buildings. Of what do you build them?”
“In your tongue, glass,” Tanub said. “The engineers of the Delphinus said it was impossible. As you saw, they are wrong.” Stetson’s voice came hissing on the carrier wave: “A glass-blowing culture! That’d explain a lot of things.” A glowing of many lights grew visible through the giant tree trunks. It brightened as the sled crept through the jungle’s edge and emerged in cleared land looking across about two kilometers of open space at the city. Orne stared upward in awe. The Gienahn city fluted and spiraled into the moonlit sky, taller than the tallest trees. It appeared a fragile lacery of bridges, glowing columns and winking dots of light. The bridges wove back and forth from column to column until the entire visible network seemed one gigantic dew-glittering web. “All that with glass,” Orne murmured. |
| Technovelgy from The Godmakers,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Berkley Medallion in 1972 Additional resources -
|
Compare to tower of glass from Tower of Glass (1970) by Robert Silverberg, metalloglass from Buck Rogers, 2430 AD (1929) by Nowlan and Calkins and plani-glass from Crystalized Thought (1937) by Nat Schachner.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Godmakers
More Ideas
and Technology by Frank Herbert
Tech news articles related to The Godmakers
Tech news articles related to works by Frank Herbert
City of Glass-related
news articles:
- 3D Printed Glass Uses Stereolithography Techniques
| '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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'Space-sickness is one of the most unpleasant sensations that a human being can experience. Not all are subject to it...'
'...I saw a nice black heavy-looking cloud sailing by just now, and I can get the electrical machine out in five minutes to draw it down.'
'From a distance it could resolve the cosmic rays reflected from various substances.'
'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
'He had travelled the space-lanes of the solar system for the greater part of his life...'
'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
