Re: Economic meltdowns in SF

William December Starr wrote:
> In article <47dfeeba$0$11012$d94e5ade@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> "Joseph T Major" <jtmajor@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> said:
>
>> In 1957 Damon Knight wrote a novel called _A for Anything_.  Some
>> never-explained alien power deposits matter duplicators across the
>> world.  Civilization swiftly evaporates; we see a gang boss
>> driving through the streets rounding up people to be slaves.  The
>> story then cuts to about a hundred years after that, when the
>> world is a few bosses atop hordes of duplicated slaves.  (And has
>> some dubious genetics; the great-grandfather of the current boss
>> in the story duplicated his wife.  So he, his son, his grandson,
>> and his great-grandson all had children by essentially the same
>> woman, or duplicates of her.  The latest copy would die after
>> giving birth to one son.  Now they obviously had a male streak
>> going there, but how the generations didn't pick up some lethal
>> recessives along the way is another question entirely.  And then
>> too, I have no idea what would keep a Boss from having a new
>> Bosswife copied after the first one died, but . . .)
>
> Was Knight's HELL'S PAVEMENT also spun off from the same initial
> concept -- matter duplicators quickly mutate the world society into
> something quite different[*1] -- or is fallible organic memory once
> again failing me?

No, that's A for Anything.  Hell's Pavement is the one with the 
artifical consciences.