Science Fiction Trivia

[DredgerMan]

Oh yeah, Paphos. It's a good clue, no doubt.

But I could only link the clue to the answer after I found the answer! Backwards clueing, I guess???

[Cody]

'Twas on the schooner Hesperus, we sailed the wintry sea!

[spud42]

my trusty online anagram solver gave it to me yesterday... i had a fair idea of the 2 and 3 char words.... but after an hour of twiddling on paper i gave up and went digital.....

i am curious as to which DA story you are alluding to as i havent read this book either... but ..

Venus on the half shell.....

Venus on the Half-Shell is a science fiction novel by Philip José Farmer, writing pseudonymously as "Kilgore Trout", a fictional recurring character in many of the novels of Kurt Vonnegut.

WiKi

[DredgerMan]

This is what I found yesterday after solving it.

Venus on the Half-Shell From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The plot, in which Earth is destroyed by cosmic bureaucrats doing routine maintenance and the sole human survivor goes on a quest to find the "Definitive Answer to the Ultimate Question,"

Sounds familiar?

[Rxke]

Wow, very familiar. Maybe THHGTTG was in turn a cheekish tip of the hat to the whole nod nod wink wink writers using each other's stuff thing. And nobody got the joke.

[spud42]

ok, i have to download that now if i can find it.....
as you said thought DA did it funnier... i mean Vogons...lol

[Cody]

Spud gets it - over to you, sir! <paints wax ball black, writes BOMB on it, lights the fuse, lobs it over>

[spud42]

wets fingers and quickly snubs out fuse.......

should be easy this one.... authour and book

what book was published exactly one year after the author's death

[DredgerMan]

Hmmm, that wouldn't be Isaac Asimov, would it?

I know that he died in the beginning of April 1992 and 'Forward the Foundation' was published in April 1993, but whether it was published exactly one year after his death, I do not know. But it's close.

[Cody]

The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams.

[spud42]

relights the fuse and lobs the fishy coconut smoky bomb thing back at Cody.....

yes folks we have a winner, take it away Cody...............

[Cody]

On the subject of doubtful salmon: what are samlon?

[DredgerMan]

I read about them a week or so ago, when we were looking for what happened at Herot, which lead in search to Heorot which led to Larry Niven, which led to the juvenile forms of Grendels on a planet in Tau Ceti, if I remember correctly.

[Cody]

Samlon are almost, but not quite, entirely unlike salmon. Correct - over to you, sir!

[DredgerMan]

Many thanks, Cody.

Please be warned, the following was forced upon me by 'Ur-who-shall-be-obeyed-at-all-times, so don't blame me!



Question: Who taught an 11-year-old complex mathematics using just "yes" and "no" ?