1 post tagged “science fiction”

So here's the thing.  I happened across a new book by my favorite author Larry Niven called 'Fleet of Worlds'.  Anybody who knows anything about known space knows that this is where Pierson's Puppeteers come from.  I won't bore you with too many details since you can follow the link if you are curious but basically they were named puppeteers because they look a bit like a three legged centaur with two big sock puppets instead of the human torso.  Anyway what struck me today after having been reading about these creatures for about 30 years is this:  Why do Puppeteers only have two head?  Everything else about them is essentially trilaterally symmetrical.

The frustrating thing about this is I'd love to hear the author's take on it but he is electronically unavailable.  That's right, he's a world famous science fiction author* who is decidedly not a technical person.  I should know, I fixed his computer for him at a convention once.**   I think in order to get to him I'm going to have to break out the pen and paper.  Well, ok we all know I'll compose the letter on my computer and print it out but I will have to address the envelope (yeah, yeah, via computer.  I hate my handwriting.) and mail it to him via his publishing house.  I must admit that I have almost no hope of actually getting a response though.  Maybe I'll use this thought as some sort of justification for attending a convention that he's part of.

Well, I'll take my dorky butt to bed now.

Cheers

*No, really.  I'm serious.  We geeks are quite earnest about this and we are all over the world.)

** This is a whole other story I'm sure I've bored most of you with at one time or another.