Man is a creature whose evolutionary environment has been the open air. His nerves, muscles, and senses have developed across three million years in … - Jack Vance

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Engraved portrait of Jack Vance, facing right

Man is a creature whose evolutionary environment has been the open air. His nerves, muscles, and senses have developed across three million years in contiguity with natural earth, crude stone, live wood, wind, and rain. Now this creature is suddenly--on the geologic scale, instantaneously--shifted to an unnatural environment of metal and glass, plastic and plywood, to which his psychic substrata lack all compatibility. The wonder is not that we have so much mental instability but so little.

English
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About Jack Vance

John Holbrook Vance (August 28, 1916 – May 26, 2013) was an award-winning science fiction and fantasy author, who wrote the four-book Dying Earth series.

Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons, User Hayford Peirce on en.wikipedia (Public domain / CC0)

Also Known As

Pen Names: Ellery Queen Alan Wade Peter Held John van See Jay Kavanse
Birth Name: John Holbrook Vance
Alternative Names: John H. Vance

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