Author Topic: Author! Author! (Read 360486 times)

JoanK · « **Reply #320 on:** August 06, 2009, 01:23:43 AM »

I have an idea, but have to work out the details.

Mippy · « **Reply #321 on:** August 06, 2009, 07:05:56 AM »

Just another Patrick O'Brien major fan checking in. I didn't know that detail about wanting to be a pilot, however. Didn't P. O'B kind of re-invent himself? So that a lot of facts about his life turned out to be different than the publishers had said? ... not important ...

Well done, JoanK !

Gumtree · « **Reply #322 on:** August 06, 2009, 11:09:58 AM »

Looks like Patrick O'Brian has lots of supporters here - Better luck next time Jude

PatH Your comments on P O'B were well received at this end of the world. I'm not an avid reader for his stuff but have read some and love the Aubrey/Maturin dichotomy. Like you, DH is a fan so I got him in to read your comments - he nodded wisely....

JoanK · « **Reply #323 on:** August 06, 2009, 03:20:58 PM »

OK, this should be easy

Author: I wrote many books. Some of them anticipated later inventions, such as the laptop computer.

Character: I traveled to many places.

Frybabe · « **Reply #324 on:** August 06, 2009, 11:17:58 PM »

Ok, I'll start the ball rolling. I have a few ideas but the only one I can think of right now that I remember both author and book is:

Douglas Adams

Hitchhiker"s Guide to the Universe

PatH · « **Reply #325 on:** August 06, 2009, 11:36:50 PM »

The only thing I can think of is something I can't believe Joan would pick, but here goes.

Author: Arthur C. Clarke

Character: David Bowman in "2001"

PatH · « **Reply #326 on:** August 07, 2009, 12:20:01 AM »

Jude, if you do decide to try Patrick O'Brian, you should read them in order. "Master and Commander" is the first. I started to read "M & C" several times before it clicked with me, but then I was hooked, and worked (or sailed) my way through all 20.

Gumtree · « **Reply #327 on:** August 07, 2009, 12:41:28 PM »

We wouldn't be talking about H.G Wells by any chance would we?

Maybe The First Men on the Moon

JoanK · « **Reply #328 on:** August 07, 2009, 05:41:12 PM »

All good guesses, and all wrong. I'll be back with another clue.

JudeS · « **Reply #329 on:** August 07, 2009, 07:43:47 PM »

I went to the library today and looked for the first book of the O'Brien series but it wasn't available. I took out "The Far Side of the World" which was the only one that looked interesting without reading the first book. If I like it, I will buy Master and Commander.
It seems that a movie with Russel Crowe was made of this one.

As far as this quiz goes I don't read Sci-FI except for Asimov who I really liked and read most of his work.

JoanK · « **Reply #330 on:** August 07, 2009, 07:52:09 PM »

JJUDE: I never said the book was Sci-Fi!! Everyone assumed it, because of the laptop computer. But that wasn't in the book we're talking about here. I'll bet you know this book.

JoanK · « **Reply #331 on:** August 07, 2009, 10:04:00 PM »

Further hint. I'm not as knowledgable as Pat, but I'd guess it would be classified as fantasy, rather than Sci-Fi.

Frybabe · « **Reply #332 on:** August 07, 2009, 10:17:52 PM »

Well, I guess that leaves me out. I don't usually read fantasy. I take it that the book was written before LapTops existed.

Mippy · « **Reply #333 on:** August 08, 2009, 06:55:44 AM »

Good morning! Not a guess ...
just a note: the movie Master and Commander was only a dip into the book by that name ... plot details were taken from every book on the shelf. Not my favorite movie, especially because Aubrey didn't look like the O'Brien character ... too short! But a fun movie
if you see it in a theater with surround sound ... almost got seasick!

PatH · « **Reply #334 on:** August 08, 2009, 12:36:13 PM »

The movie "Master and Commander" was supposedly made from book 10, "The Far Side of the World", which Jude is about to read. As nearly as I can tell, the main thing they took from the book is the route the ships followed, which is pretty much the same. The incidents were taken from all over. But it's a good movie, especially if you like old ships, as they took great care with authenticity. Aubrey's ship is really the Rose, a working replica of an 18th century frigate, built in 1970. The interior of Acheron, the French ship Aubrey is chasing, is really the Constitution, re-generated by computer from extensive shots.

I'd better not get started on the Constitution, but I truly love that ship. She was commissioned in 1798, and is still in active (not very active) service. If you're ever in Boston, don't miss a chance to see her. You can go through her, and if you hang around after the tour, you can buttonhole one of the sailors and chat with him about her.

JudeS · « **Reply #335 on:** August 08, 2009, 01:46:59 PM »

OK. If its not Sci-Fi than it has to do with the real machine that led to the computer which is the Hand Loom. Yes, yes look it up In "Jaquards Web" by James Essinger.
The book which deals with hand looms is "Hard Times" by Dickens.
Could this possibly be the answer?

Wow- you folks really follow the maritime history of P.O'Brian. I sure hope that I find it as interesting as you all do.

JoanK · « **Reply #336 on:** August 08, 2009, 02:00:08 PM »

Jude: clever as always, but not right. The computer is in a different book, not in this one.

I knew about the connection of the handloom to Babbage's (the first) computer from reading about Lady Lovelace, the first computer programmer.

She was the poet Byron's daughter. She loved mathematics, and wanted to study it: of course well-bred ladies didn't DO that, at least not seriouslly. So she apprenticed herself to Babbage, who was a mathematician. She was the first to realize that his computer was useless without a program to run it. So she wrote the first computer program. But never got a chance to "debug" it, since Babbage's computer never actually worked. I got ahold of the program once, and it seemed to me that it did have bugs in it.

JoanK · « **Reply #337 on:** August 08, 2009, 02:05:16 PM »

OK, time for more clues

Author: this book was so successful, I wqrote 13 more in the series, as some of the around 60 booksand hundreds of poems I wrote.

Character: I not only took friends with me, I took my dog as well.

PatH · « **Reply #338 on:** August 08, 2009, 02:07:47 PM »

I'll take another wild guess. Author; C. S. Lewis, Book, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", Character, one of the 4 children (I think their name was Pevensy) let's say the oldest, John or whatever his name is. I haven't read CSL's sci-fi, so don't know if it predicts the laptop.

JoanK · « **Reply #339 on:** August 08, 2009, 02:09:25 PM »

Nope.

PatH · « **Reply #340 on:** August 08, 2009, 02:09:26 PM »

Ooops, your clues came in as I was posting and made nonsense of my post. Back to the drawing board.

Frybabe · « **Reply #341 on:** August 08, 2009, 09:27:53 PM »

Way out on a limb here: How about L. Frank Baum's, The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy had her retinue of friends and her dog, ToTo. He (Baum not the dog) wrote 13 more Oz books.

JoanK · « **Reply #342 on:** August 08, 2009, 09:42:13 PM »

YEAH, HOORAY FOR FRYBABE!!!! That's it. Can't get anything by this group.

I didn't know anything about Baum and had a lot of fun reading about him. He sounds like quite a character.

Funny coincidence: every day, a friend and I work the New York Times crossword puzzle. Today, one of the clues was: title girl in a novel by L. Frank Baum 1906 7 letters. Of course we both put "Dorothy". But then I said "I don't think it's Dorothy" and started spouting all these Baum facts -- "The Wizard" was earlier, in 1906 he ws writing ... blah blah. There was a stunned silence until I explained that I had been reading his biography an hour before.

Sure enough: the answer to THAT puzzle wasn't Dorothy. But the answer to THIS puzzle is.

Frybabe · « **Reply #343 on:** August 08, 2009, 10:31:29 PM »

THUNK!

That's me falling off my chair.

Gumtree · « **Reply #344 on:** August 08, 2009, 11:51:26 PM »

I'll help you up, Frybabe- here take my hand !

Congrats to you Frybabe !

I didn't have a clue.

Mippy · « **Reply #345 on:** August 09, 2009, 11:40:59 AM »

Frybabe ~ Way to THUNK !

Joan ~ do tell about the laptop connection ... cannot begin to figure that clue out.

JudeS · « **Reply #346 on:** August 09, 2009, 02:37:09 PM »

Congrats Frybabe!

Glad you guessed correctly before I went out on another wrong limb. Fun reading about all kinds of authors I never knew anything about. The computer clue completely sent me whirling in the wrong direction.

JoanK · « **Reply #347 on:** August 09, 2009, 02:46:55 PM »

I got the reference to the laptop computer from Bam's Wickipedia biography. It claimed Baum had forseen that invention in a novel called "The Master key". Here is a plot summary:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_Key_(1901_book)

A boy, fooling with electricity, accidently summons the "Demon of Electricity" who grants him three new inventions each for the next three weeks. Everything goes wrong when the boy tries to use the inventions, so eventually, he gives them back, claiming it's no fun to be a century ahead of ones time.

None of the inventions mentioned in the summary is a laptop computer, but it doesn't mention them all.

I remember in the movie "The Wizard of Oz", when Dorothy pulls back the curtain, the Wizard is working at something that looks like the old mainframe computers. I don't remember the book well enough to know if that's in the book, but I'll bet it is.

JoanK · « **Reply #348 on:** August 09, 2009, 03:05:25 PM »

Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court" was written in 1889. Here, a young man is transported back to King Arthur's time, and introduces modern inventions there. Baum's "Master Key" was 1901.

Those of us who wrer in the discussion of "America 1908" remember that an obsession with inventions was in the air. Certainly for Twain, who constantly flirted with bankruptcy, supporting new inventions.

Sorry, JUDES. That was the devil in me. I regretted it later, and did say that it was Fantasy, rather than Science Fiction. I hope I got that right, or PatH won't be speaking to me. (I notice she hasn't posted this morning. She knows that the only time I read fantasy is when she gives me a book as a present, so she was probably going down that list).

PatH · « **Reply #349 on:** August 09, 2009, 04:32:11 PM »

Joan, your clues were perfectly fair. I would definitely call it fantasy.

No, the apparatus isn't in the book "Wizard of Oz" (I just checked). Actually, I think this is a rare case where the movie is much better than the book.

Frybabe · « **Reply #350 on:** August 09, 2009, 05:05:47 PM »

It's the dog that did it, otherwise I would not have thought of the Wiz at all. I saw the movie WAY to often as a child/teen. Did anyone see the sequel/update that came out last year? It was pretty interesting, but don't ask me who played in it or the name of the movie.

Does someone else want to do the honors for the next quiz? I am still in the middle of this bathroom remodel. I am afraid I will not be able to attend to the clues and answer guesses in a reasonable time until that is done.

JudeS · « **Reply #351 on:** August 09, 2009, 08:10:58 PM »

Grandparent duty coming up again. So I won't be able to do the honors. Out of town till the 18th.

Re: The Wizard of Oz. I saw the movie but didn't read the book until I was an adult. It was my husband's all time favorite book. He read everything that Baum wrote (as a child). Since he is an Electrical Engineer and loves everything mechanical there must have been some notion of mechanics there.

Personally the flying monkeys scared me so much that I never attempted the book though I read almost every other book in the childrens' section of our home town library.

My,my what memories this choice has elicited from us.

JoanK · « **Reply #352 on:** August 09, 2009, 08:54:20 PM »

JUDE: I saw the movie, probably when it first came out and I was about 6. The flying monkeys scared me so much, I crawled under the movie seat. Now, I don't know why they were so scary but they were.

Later, I read a lot of the Oz books. And as an adult, I've probably seen that movie ten times.

Mippy · « **Reply #353 on:** August 12, 2009, 11:20:55 AM »

Shall I try one? I waited a few days to let someone else jump or thunk or

Author:
I live in California, but the main characters in my books are not always American.

Character:
I was born in the late 19th century. Love of my calling takes me on extensive journeys.

   This might be not be enough clues to get you started ... more tomorrow!

JoanK · « **Reply #354 on:** August 12, 2009, 02:53:53 PM »

Hmmmm!

PatH · « **Reply #355 on:** August 12, 2009, 03:45:35 PM »

Mippy to the rescue!

It's good to start out hard & gradually get easier.

Gumtree · « **Reply #356 on:** August 13, 2009, 10:47:27 AM »

I'll just wait for the next clues -

Mippy · « **Reply #357 on:** August 13, 2009, 10:50:38 AM »

Here are more clues:

Author: Five of my novels bring history to life.

Character: My explorations led me to astonishing encounters with indigenous people.

JoanK · « **Reply #358 on:** August 13, 2009, 12:58:25 PM »

That knocks me down. I was thinking of the author of "The Kite Runner". Obviously not.

Mippy · « **Reply #359 on:** August 13, 2009, 05:14:47 PM »

nope

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Author Topic: Author! Author! (Read 360486 times)