The story was about a comedian named Dylan on a space colony (might have been a Dyson sphere) named Skinner. The populace of the Sphere had been implanted with some sort of conditioning to ensure a minimum of disruptive behavior. Eventually Dylan showed on TV the nature of this conditioning by telling a tragic story using sentences he had used as punchlines in his routines. Apparently you could also fly in the low gravity of the colony. I know it seems like I remember a good deal of the story, but apparently it's not searchable information. If anybody could help me with this, I would really appreciate it.
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1 Answer
Sounds like it might be "Walden Three" by Michael Swanwick. It was first published in New Dimensions 12 and reprinted in Best Science Fiction of the Year #11. The Google Books page for the latter has tiny tiny snippets matching the names (and a very incomplete table of contents). Here's a review that matches the plot:
The anthology leads off with Michael Swanwick’s ‘Walden Three’, about an L5 colony where all 10,000 inhabitants are required to be outfitted with an implant that guarantees happy behavior. A clown / standup comic / mime tries to rebel.
ISFDB has bibliographic information. And you might recognize the cover or other stories from the first two links.
