Science Fiction Trivia

[Cody]

This sounds familiar - so familiar, it'll annoy me 'til I see the answer.

[Malacandra]

Mathematically, we're talking about doing something an infinite number of times without the result itself going to infinity. (The author is writing about what he knows here.)

[ffutures]

Larry Niven, I think Convergent Series but I could be wrong.

[Malacandra]

No, you're exactly right. The narrator wishes for the demon to stop time, and then repaints the summoning pentagram on the demon's belly - so that when time restarts, the demon is trapped trying to reform himself in a too-small pentagram that shrinks just as fast as he does.

*hands over ziplocced kipper*

[ffutures]

Talking of kippers and food that made the Empire great:

"...the British Empire stands on the brink of an invasion by highly intelligent hats from the future!"

Name the book and author...

[Cody]

<resorts to google> Starcross by Philip Reeve?

[spud42]

thats what i got too... but i just highlighted the question and chrome searched google...lol

[ffutures]

<resorts to google> Starcross by Philip Reeve?

Exactamundo - the kipper is yours.

[Cody]

<opens ancient book of code, utters magic words, transmutes potassium into chlorine> The kipper is now a clipper!



In whose autobiography, set in a fully-colonised and exploited Solar System, is the Great Red Spot a parallel of present-day Mexico?

[Malacandra]

In whose autobiography, set in a fully-colonised and exploited Solar System, is the Great Red Spot a parallel of present-day Mexico?

Hope Hubris. It's the Biography of a Space Tyrant series, Piers Anthony. Perhaps not the "hardest" science fiction ever to hit the shelves...

[Cody]

Aye, Hope Hubris it is. And yes, not the hardest of sci-fi - but a good tale, nevertheless. The clipper is yours!

[Malacandra]

Also not hard science fiction, which three-book series began with this note:

"The author would be sorry if any reader supposed he was too stupid to have enjoyed Mr H G Wells's fantasies or too ungrateful to acknowledge his debt to them."

[Smivs]

<Resorts to Google to get the ball rolling again...>
C S Lewis - The Ransom Trilogy.

[ffutures]

Dohhhh! I should have remembered that...

[Malacandra]

I had half a mind to mention that my username was a clue, but given that the entire phrase could be highlighted and Googled and hit practically instantly, it seemed unnecessary.

Owing to an unfortunate kerning accident, it seems that the clipper has transformed itself into a dipper. Off you go!