Pohl & Kornbluth's "soft-SF" classic The Space Merchants (1952) featured an overpopulated world controlled by advertising agencies; the main source of food was "Grown Meat" - a famous quote describes the indentured labour required to feed it algae skimmed from multistorey ponds.
Skum-skimming wasn't hard to learn. You got up at dawn. You gulped a breakfast sliced not long ago from Chicken Little and washed it down with Coffiest. You put on your coveralls and took the cargo net up to your tier. In blazing noon from sunrise to sunset you walked your acres of shallow tanks crusted with algae. If you walked slowly, every thirty seconds or so you spotted a patch at maturity, bursting with yummy carbohydrates. You skimmed the patch with your skimmer and slung it down the well, where it would be baled, or processed into glucose to feed Chicken Little, who would be sliced and packed to feed people from Baffinland to Little America.
Yum!
See this entry on Chicken Little. The Space Merchants is still available here. The equally entertaining sequel, The Merchant's War appears to be out of print.
I ate a big bowl of hot tamale refried beans last night... along with 7 beers.
Today I'm suffering the worst case of FLOTUS I've had in a looong time. God almighty, there I go again.
Slashdot Mirror
Yum!
See this entry on Chicken Little.
The Space Merchants is still available here. The equally entertaining sequel, The Merchant's War appears to be out of print.
Today I'm suffering the worst case of FLOTUS I've had in a looong time. God almighty, there I go again.
And my cow-orkers are none too pleased either.
Date format "Endian wars" on Slashdot! I've seen it all now.