Index · 4 messages · 4 voices · 15 May 1998

Digest whorl.v008.n042Whorl

Download this conversation

Alice Turner15 May 1998, 08:37original as archived

Digest whorl.v008.n042

↰ answers Michael Straight · by quotation

1 quoted line

Oh my. "Two-headed **pho*"! I love it! Someone really needs to confront Wolfe with that one.

Huh? Can one of you explain? -out-of-it alga-

Michael Straight15 May 1998, 08:53original as archived

↳ follows Alice Turner · by subject

3 quoted lines · 1–2 deep

On Fri, 15 May 1998, Alice Turner wrote: Oh my. "Two-headed **pho*"! I love it! Someone really needs to confront Wolfe with that one.

Huh? Can one of you explain?

Two-headed Zaphod (Beeblebrox), President of the entire Galaxy (Universe?), but really just figure-heads for the dark and mysterious actual rulers (is Typhon really a pawn of the Undines?). From Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books. And...in a spoiler for HHGTG... Zaphod discovers that someone has messed with his brain to make him do stuff he normally wouldn't and later discovers that someone was himself, rewiring his own brains so he could become President without his real motives being discovered. It's not quite one head betraying the other, but... -Rostrum

Peter Westlake15 May 1998, 11:57original as archived

↳ follows Michael Straight · by subject

5 quoted lines · 1–2 deep

At 08:37 1998-05-15 -0400, Alice Turner wrote:

Oh my. "Two-headed **pho*"! I love it! Someone really needs to confront Wolfe with that one.

Huh? Can one of you explain? -out-of-it alga-

Ty-pho-n or Za-pho-d Beeblebrox. Zaphod's starship "Heart of Gold" in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a ship's computer called Eddy. Of course, Typhon didn't start out in a starship in tBotNS, and I don't know whether tBotNS or HHGG was published first. The Whorl is long after Eddy the computer, of course. -- Spectacled bear. Peter Westlake, Harlequin Ltd, Barrington Hall, Barrington, Cambs CB2 5RG.

Kieran Mullen15 May 1998, 14:03original as archived

↳ follows Peter Westlake · by subject

9 quoted lines

From: Peter Westlake <peter at harlequin.co.uk> Subject: Name of the Whorl Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 12:26:17 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Is there any special reason for the Whorl's name? It doesn't seem like an obvious choice for a hollowed-out asteroid.

I thought there were at least two reasons: (1) The resonance with the word "world". Wolfe likes wordplay. (2) If you are living on the surface of a cylinder and look down it, far away it will look like a whirlpool (I think). Does anyone know what the aspect ratio of the Whorl is? Kieran Mullen

An unofficial mirror of a public mailing list · about & removal requests · download the archive · before the list · original archive at urth.net