h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Why is everything just so post modern these days?

You mean post modern ?

Ah, i can beat that. I really did snort coke with Joe Strummer, plus have been snarled at by certain members of The Stranglers. plus know UB40 personally.

But i've never pretended to be a hot 14 year old, or a parent, or a Police Officer or actually an adult i suppose. (no, i didn't meet The Police, not did i shoot the Deputy, however, i did walk out on Eric Clapton)

*also waves at BBC*

zdt

Oo. Virtual camoflague!


Stick insects! Chameleons! Octopussussusses!


The Viceroy butterfly has evolved a remarkable similarity to the beautiful but unsavoury Monarch.
The resemblance is such that predators, typically birds, commonly avoid the allegedly tasty and nourishing Viceroy


The Angler fish, on the other fin, is renowned less for its appearance, and more for its astonishingly evolved dorsal fin spine which mimics a fleshy morsel of food ...

Oh yes deception and mimicry is rife in nature. I've always had a thing about it. It's hugely fascinating.

In the rainforest myself and my collegue were about to get out the boat, and as he was going to step onto the bank, I grabbed him as I spotted a snake. He instinctively slashed it with his machete. Because he said, the pattern on its back was indicative of a deadly poisonous snake. He said you have to turn it over to look at the pattern on its underside to find out if it the trickster or the real thing. He turned it over after making sure it was dead. It was indeed the real McCoy.

>>however, i did walk out on Eric Clapton

Hell...that's fairly run-of-the-mill. Who wouldn't walk out on Eric Clapton?

As for mimicry...I'm a bonobo masquerading as a human.




Ooh! Ooh! Here's another one:

'The Aardvark Is Ready For War' by James Blinn.
It's a GW1 novel, and the premise is that this was the first virtual war, fought as though it were a videogame. It's set on board an aircraft carrier (USS Aardvark) sailing towards the Gulf. The protagonist is the Tactical Operator on a helicopter (ie the guy who works the sonar and radar).

They're on an excercise where they're tracking a US submarine that's configured itself to sound like an old Soviet one - so already we have two layers of unreality. His job is to follow it by dropping sonar buoys. But he loses track. So he carries on pretending, still dropping buoys. But then he has to hand over to another aircraft. 'Shit', he thinks, 'My cover's blown. I'm in trouble now.'

But after he lands...nothing happens. A few days later he sneaks in to look at the exercise records. The handover helicopter continued to pretend to track the pretend submarine before handing over to another...and so on.

Well *I* thought it was

I have that book! Couldn't resist a title like that.

I started reading it, but IIRC it was pretty badly written so I didn't make it past the first few pages. Sounds like you think I should have persisted?

Not really. The idea was good but, as you say, the execution wasn't. But what would I know. I'm a literary elitist.

Then there's PK Dick, of course. 'What Is Reality' is his whole theme:
'Am I really in 1950s suburban America, or is it just an illusion and I'm really a colonist on Mars?'
'Am I really an android that's only been programmed to think it's human?'
'Is this an authenticated Japanese antique or a forgery with forged authentication documents? (and did Japan and Germany really *lose* WWII?)'
'Have the drugs worn off or am I still hallucinating?'
'Am I a cop posing as a drug dealer or a drug dealer pretending to be a cop?'

*likes PKD*

His non-SF also has the same theme.
'Puttering About In A Small Land' is about pretending to be happy in a relationship.
'The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike' involve a Piltdown-like hoax.

Oh good. Lots of acts on Jools who I've not heard of. Plus, unfortunately, Goldfrapp.

My copy of Man in the High Castle is all marked up in red pencil from when I was manic. I was taking all that literally, that the Axis had won the war, etc. It's a cool book though, and I like the use of the I Ching in it.

Precisely! When the I Ching tells them that this is not the real world.

Is there anything more unreal than reality television?

I don't watch much reality television. It bugs me. Would much rather pull out a Netflix.

I've been curious about Dick for a while. I wanted to go for something that wouldn't be prejudiced for me by a film; Man In The High Castle sounds like a good place to start.

Check Out Making History by Stephen Fry if you haven't.

I've been curious about Dick for a while obviously.

As for 'Making History'...

Similarly, 'Mother Night' by Vonnegut. The lead character is a Lord Haw Haw character who was *really* a spy. The questions whether he was what he was or what he seemed to be. And he meets someone who he assumes to be was his long lost wife who turns out to be her sister, masquerading as her.