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The Practice Effect
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Practice Effect is a novel by David Brin, written in 1984 (see 1984 in literature).
An earth scientist is sent to another world where instead of objects wearing out as you use them, they improve. For example, swords get sharper when wielded often, baskets get less holes the more things they carry, broaches get shinier the more they are worn. This had certain side-effects such as kings getting servants to make poor objects, use them a lot until they are nearly perfect, and then give them to the king. In this universe there are certain similarities with Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's theory of biological evolution. It is eventually discovered that this effect is the result of a biologically engineered creature known as a krenegee beast which creates the field with this effect. The closer one is to the krenegee beasts, the better you can make use of this change in thermodynamics. A robot accompanied by a krenegee beast throughout the book became better at performing the last task given to it by the scientist, and without the aid of this robot and the enhancements which developed, it is unknown whether the scientist would have been quite so successful.
