Nope, not that. It is definitely a manufactured novelty item–possibly a younger character who received it as a gift, but I’m not solid on that detail.
OK, it being a manufactured item one might buy and give as a gift narrows it down. Does the complex ecology include any sapient creatures?
Isn’t that somewhere in something by Delany?
In any case, FWIW, I remember it too.
Charles Sheffield’s “Destroyer of Worlds” is about the creation of biospheres large enough to maintain human life, but it’s possible that smaller ones are used for demonstration purposes in the story and its from 1989 (published in Asimov’s) so it’s the correct period.
Samuel Delaney, Star Pit.
I didn’t on a fast search find the text of the section directly, but it’s quoted part way down the page here – not the first description of an “ecologarium”, but the second, the one preceded by
I won’t quote the whole description in this post; but it’s definitely the one I’m remembering.
Also the one I remembered. I could have read it in the original issue of Asimov’s or in this–I’ve had both.
Hm. The original is from 1967, so that 1994 collection is where I read it. Not sure what the use of the word in Asimov’s is about.
Isn’t the character talking about the same one described in my cite?
And he also refers back to the earlier passage in the same cite.
Maybe. (I’m on my phone, clumsy to dig very deep.) But if so, why is the 1967 story doing in a 1990s issue of Asimov’s?
The word appears to be used in an April 1992 novelette by Gene Van Troyer called “Kayla, Lost.” The use of that same word may be an homage to Delany.
Huh. I seem to have clicked on the wrong link the first time, and it took me to the 1967 story. I take back my previous comment.
I’d also think the use in the later story is an homage to Delany. From the little bit I can see of the 1992 story, I think Delany’s a lot better writer; though it may be unfair to judge by those few lines.
There is a short story on a semi-related theme, where an eccentric scientist goes off to a desert island to do research. Periodically he is contacted by an industrialist who gets his inventions and commercializes them - one is a cure for the common cold.
It turns out the scientist is studying some organism he created who moves and therefore evolves much faster than humans, and gets his inventions from the organisms. The scientist divides them into colonies, and starts crushing the colonies with moving walls, so the organisms invent toughened aluminum. Can’t remember the name of the story or the author, but I don’t think it is Asimov.
Anyone?
Regards,
Shodan
The irony.
I read an old story today that has that theme - “…So They Baked A Cake” by Winston Marks
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51414/51414-h/51414-h.htm
"I stood in the port breathing the warm air redolent with exotic new scents and yawped like an idiot, trying to make sense of the huge banner strung a hundred yards across one whole side of the little village. The banner read:
WELCOME, HANS!
WELCOME ALBERT E.
WE KNEW YOU WERE COMING,
SO—
And near the center of the banner was the largest chocolate cake, or facsimile thereof, in all creation. It must have been ten feet high and twenty feet in diameter."
Just to toss it out there, an interesting use of “lightspeed leapfrogging” was in Alan Steele’s “Coyote” series.
There was a story I ready like 20 years ago, where Earth is attacked by a race of Cyborgs who steal the Earths sun and capture some Humans for some alien zoo and use some age accelerator on some families kids.
Just found it, and you’re right. Thanks! It’s in Chapter 7 of that book. The aliens are the Eneshans.
Story or novel?
This should be an easy one. It was a short story or possibly novel, almost certainly by Heinlein. In the scene I’m remembering the author presciently describes how the US (I think) mail works in the future, where each letter is printed with a human readable address as well as a machine readable bar code. A character sends a letter to a secret address by altering the machine readable code but leaving the human readable address as a kind of decoy. I’m wondering if this story predates any real use of machine readable mail labels.
Good guess; it is Heinlein. A short story, Gulf, which first appeared in Astounding November and December 1949.