Latest By
Category:


Armor
Artificial Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work

"I wrote many novels which … contained the element of the projected collective unconscious, which made them simply incomprehensible to anyone who read them, because they required the reader to accept my premise that each of us lives in a unique world."
- Philip K. Dick

Organlegging  
  Technology needed to deal in illicitly obtained body parts.  

As far as I know, Niven was the first writer to really work with a topic that is just starting to become a problem, thanks to drugs that make transplantation viable.

What happens when the need for "spare parts" exceeds the supply - the organs that are produced by chance events, like car crashes? You could start with the criminals, like an organlegger who had stolen another person's life to make his body into spare parts. First, you cool the body to the point where preservation of delicate body structures is possible -

The doctor was a line of machines with a conveyor belt running through them. When the organlegger's body temperature reached a certain point, the belt started.

The first machine made a series of incisions in his chest. Skillfully and mechanically, the doctor performed a cardiectomy.

The organlegger was officially dead.

His heart went into storage immediately. His skin followed, most of it in one piece, all of it still living. The doctor took him apart with exquisite care, like disassembling a flexible, fragile, tremendously complex jigsaw puzzle. The brain was flashburned and the ashes saved for urn burial; but all the rest of the body, in slabs and small blobs and parchment-thin layers and lengths of tubing, went into storage in the hospital's organ banks. Any one of these units could be packed in a travel case at a moment's notice and flown to anywhere in the world in not much more than an hour. If the odds broke right, if the right people came down with the right diseases at the right time, the organlegger might save more lives than he had taken.

Which was the whole point.

From The Jigsaw Man, by Larry Niven.
Published by Not Available in 1967
Additional resources -

The term is a corruption of the word "bootlegger." This story is in several collections of Niven's works - highly recommended.

Comment/Join this discussion ( 3 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |

Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Jigsaw Man
  More Ideas and Technology by Larry Niven
  Tech news articles related to The Jigsaw Man
  Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven

Organlegging-related news articles:
  - Real Organleggers: Human Organ Trafficking
  - RFID Tags Proposed To Halt Blackmarket Cadaver Trade
  - Donation After Cardiac Death (Wait, I needed that!)

Articles related to Biology
Neurochip A Living Brain On A Silicon Chip
Ocean Bacteria Bond Avatar-Style With Electrical Symbiosis
Laser-Based Mosquito Killer Demonstrated
Slime Mold Network Engineering

Want to Contribute an Item? It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add it here.

<Previous
Next>

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

 

 

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

More News

Inflatable Lofts For NASA 'Campers' On Moon And Mars
'We were in the expansion bubble when it happened.'

Artificial Kidney Prototype To Be Implantable
'George Walt's corporate existence proved the workability of wholly mechanical organs.'

Exmobaby Biosensor Pajamas For Baby
Hush little baby, don't say a word.

Apple Live Streaming Fail
'Industry-leading' my foot.

Re Google: William Gibson, Read More SF
Especially the old stuff.

Nike's Air Kicks Back To The Future Power Laces
Marty McFly, your shoes are almost ready.

EggTorte Mini Micromouse
'Something small, metallic, glittering had shot through one of the rat holes.'

Yale Aerial Manipulator Flying Robotic Hand
Did you say helicopter hands.

RG3 Robotic Greens Mower Is Sensor-Equipped
Suddenly the mower stopped and clicked excitedly.

More SF in the News

More Beyond Technovelgy

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.