A Dark and Stormy Afternoon: Round 11
Posted by: Keir Graff
(Previously on One Nerd to Live.)
A tied game. One more correct answer and The Winners take home bragging rights. Who will win? Will it be the team identified in Round 1 as “The Winners”? Or was that some kind of annoying postmodern joke?
Category: Science Fiction & Fantasy
In the nighttime heart of Beirut, in one of a row of general-address transfer booths, Louis Wu flicked into reality.
Ian and I, while in no way sf-averse, are no sf sages, either. He suggested Philip K. Dick. I suggested William Gibson. I liked his suggestion better. We were both wrong. (And I may even have read Ringworld in high school.)
Category: Novels, 1950-Present
I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper I throw away at Washington Square Station, vault a turnstile and two flights down the iron stairs, catch an uptown A train … Young, good looking, crew cut, Ivy League, advertising exec type fruit holds the door back for me.
The Losers confabbed. Daniel wondered if the author was William S. Burroughs. Ilene said no, he was pre-1950. Really? said Daniel, surprised. In the end, they guessed Jay McInerney, which does have a weird kind of logic to it. When the correct answer was revealed, along with the year of publication, Ilene laughed and said, “I was thinking of the guy who wrote Tarzan!”
Score: The Winners 7, The Losers 7
Score
A) Ringworld, by Larry Niven, 1970
B) The Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs, 1959
April 2nd, 2009 at 7:46 am
That was easily the most painful incorrect response. I still wake up screaming.
April 2nd, 2009 at 1:58 pm
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