Main plot is the same as in "Printcrime", but a bit too long (I started getting bored near end): material printers - kind of (3D) anything physical copying machines, given a computer file describing its looks - are common. And patent owners are threatened - if you could somehow get the file describing your computer, & just print it to get a brand new computer! But the patent owners have a strong lobby with the governments - so consumers are generally denied access & artificial barriers are erected to access.
Note the idea is not completely far fetched. RP machines found in many modern engineering labs can produce the equivalent of a soft mold given a design description as a computer file. Well - in practice, it doesn't always work as simply as it should, but that is just a matter of software interfaces.
But both these stories assume the printer will get out an assembly too, not just component parts that current RP machines do! Virtually every product you see around comprises of multiple smaller components tied together. At least I haven't heard of anything even approaching automatic assembly from a computer file - but given time, I suppose it might be done. After all, Eric Frank Russell & Maurice Hugi's "Mechanical Mice" has a device that can collect needed material from environment & build robots with a strong survival instinct!
In fact, in both stories, printer can print itself - so you basically move towards a post-scarcity economy.
Sterling's variant has two versions of such printers - a lowly consumer version that is not common but available, & does essentially what normal RP machines do. E.g., a child can buy a card, put it in a machine, & out comes the toy. Second version has access far more severely restricted - not only does it produce unbreakable stuff, it can recycle this stuff too!
Full text of this story is available for download.
Story summary.
Borislav is a smart businessman, & owner of a small kiosk in some neighborhood. Very good at spotting consumer trends, & has a knack of having happy customers. He also owns a "fabrikator" - a device that can take the description of a product's
looks in the form of a card, & produce the
thing described. The material used to build the thing is a kind of wax - not very durable. But this lack of a durability is a feature, not a bug!
See - the customers are kids, & would rather have a new toy every few days! Or young girls who don't mind replacing the hairpin with a newer design every few days!
It's a reasonably well run business, when a government bureaucrat with authority to blow public money buys out everything in the kiosk - for some foolish research program.
A few days later, Borislav is back in business. With a better material copying machine - it makes stuff that is utterly unbreakable, but only in a single boring color. In addition to toy customers, he now get people who want to build knives, kitchenware, farming tools, ...
And the machine recycles stuff - so you can bring back what you don't like, for a refund on material!
He gets famous. But there is a catch. He had brought this machine from underground market. It cannot be legally had. You get some fun with that.
Ultimately, he strikes a deal with a politician - government will set up a commission to study the machine! Business goes on as usual, only legally in the name of testing. Only, his old customers no longer can access the machine - sounded like the fate of Reardon Metal in Ayn Rand's "Atlus Shrugged".
Borislav has also made copies of machine, to be used to make more copies, & hidden them in jungles. Eventually, he will lead a revolution to make these machines legal. You get standard gorilla warfare. Eventually, the world changes & such printers are legal.
Collected in.
- Gardner Dozois (Ed)'s "The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection" (2008).
Fact sheet.
"Kiosk", short story, review
First published: F&SF, Jan 2007.
Rating: B
Passed first round of nominations for
Nebula Awards 2007 in novella category.
All
stories by Bruce Sterling.
