Not to my knowledge, although it’s possible I owe the idea to something I have since forgotten.
I believe it evolved in political arguments I’ve had, from noticing that restricted emigration is one of the cornerstones of tyrannies, however. The railway was added at some point as a means of ensuring even landlocked nations with no immigration-friendly neighbors would have conduits out.
Greg Egan writes the sort of hard SF where the characters are strictly secondary, and at least half the fun of reading them is trying to figure out the local laws of physics before the characters do. His newer works are generally written better, but they’re all good.
I’d recommend starting with Incandescence, thus. His newest story (the Orthogonal trilogy) is noticeably better, but it’s also only two-thirds done.. so read that next.
Not to my knowledge, although it’s possible I owe the idea to something I have since forgotten.
I believe it evolved in political arguments I’ve had, from noticing that restricted emigration is one of the cornerstones of tyrannies, however. The railway was added at some point as a means of ensuring even landlocked nations with no immigration-friendly neighbors would have conduits out.
It reminds me of descriptions in Incandescence, by Greg Egan. Have you read it?
Nope. Should I?
Maybe?
Greg Egan writes the sort of hard SF where the characters are strictly secondary, and at least half the fun of reading them is trying to figure out the local laws of physics before the characters do. His newer works are generally written better, but they’re all good.
I’d recommend starting with Incandescence, thus. His newest story (the Orthogonal trilogy) is noticeably better, but it’s also only two-thirds done.. so read that next.
Lots of his stories are online, including some free short stories.