[geeks] books for fun?

[dave at cca.org]

rstaab at panix.com writes:

>> >Anybody who hasn't read everything ever written by Douglas Adams should
>> >have their Geek Club card confiscated and shredded.
>>
>> Anyone who thinks the "improbability drive" idea was not plagiarism
>> should have their geek club card revoked. :-)
>>
>Who was the first to play with this concept in literature?

Stanislaw Lem, "The Dragons of Probability", from "The Cyberiad", 1967.

Here's a sample:

	At the first bend he crouched behind a boulder, pulled out
	his improbability automatic, took aim and actuated the
	possibiliballistic destabilizers. The gunstock trembled
	in his hands, the red-hot barrel steamed; the dragon was
	surrounded with a halo like a moon predicting bad weather -
	but didn't disappear! Once again Klapaucius unleashed the
	utmost improbability at the beast; the intensity of
	nonverisimilarity was so great, that a moth that happened
	to be flying by began to tap out The Second Jungle Book
	in morse code with its little wings, and here and there 
	among the crags and cliffs danced the shadows of witches,
	hags and harpies, while the sound of hoofbeats announced that
	somewhere in the vicinity there were centaurs gamboling,
	summoned into being by the awesome force of the improbability
	projector.

------ David Fischer ------- dave at cca.org ------- http://www.cca.org ------
----- Being poked in the eye with a sharp stick makes baby jesus cry! -----