Comments on: Hackery hackery, still wars and hackery. Nothing else holds fashion.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 09:27:46 +0000

I was thinking of Doctor Who and the Flatulent Invasion, though I have no basis for thinking that dirty pink hippos are more flatulent than others, let alone that their bulging skins conceal anthropophagic aliens. Maybe Michael Crichton could take some time off from his important scientific research to clarify all this.

By: John Holbo

John Holbo — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 05:03:26 +0000

Like the John Cougar Mellencamp song “Dirty Pink Hippos, for you and me.”

By: Anthony

Anthony — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 04:29:53 +0000

There’s a Doctor Who episode with dirty pink eco-hippos? Why wasn’t I informed?

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 03:27:39 +0000

Oddly enough, I read it the same way. I thought it was some sort of allusion to Doctor Who.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 03:15:19 +0000

a shadowy contingent of dirty pinko hippies
I read that as ‘dirty pink hippos’, which I think would be even better.

By: ajl

ajl — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 21:01:08 +0000

I like The Gaia Mandate… but try this one on for size:

The Aquarius Protocol

Rogue climatologist Jack Hardwick is vacationing in the French Riviera after losing all his NSA funding for attempting to publish the definitive evidence that global warming is a sham. He stumbles upon a secret UN facility, conveniently located adjacent to a public beach, where a giant glacier-generating machine and a giant CO2-emitting hairdryer are being tested side-by-side.

After torturing a weasely French guard for information, he learns that both machines are part of a giant climate-control conspiracy that disseminates secret plans to environmental groups, leftist professors, and liberal media operatives by means of a secret code embedded in those painfully unfunny comic strips that every newspaper mysteriously runs despite the fact that no one reads them.

Unfortunately, our hero is spotted and narrowly escapes by flagging down and carjacking an Audi twin turbo sports car driven by busty French cryptographer Lola LeBlanc. The two are pursued through the winding, hilly streets of Nice and the French countryside by a fleet of black helicopters and unmarked Peugeots. Eventually, they escape and hole up together in an Alpine resort where they decipher the code and have gratuitous sex.

It turns out that the climate is being secretly manipulated by a shadowy contingent of dirty pinko hippies in high places around the world, who are using climate change as an excuse to seize power, impose efficient socialized health insurance on everyone around the world, steal their guns, and force them to use public transportation and water-saving toilets. Their secret shadowy leader is revealed to be an aging Hollywood liberal starlet named Jeanne Fondue. The horror! Our hero and heroine infiltrate the evil hippie East Bay compound, blow everyone away in slow motion, burn the Berkeley campus to the ground, and screw each other’s brains out. Roll credits.

By: seen

seen — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 18:31:32 +0000

I think Dave Barry pointed out some time ago that a Ludlum title always takes the form “The [proper name][document-type]”, e.g. the Bourne Manifesto, The Prendergrass Rental Agreement, the Smithson 30-day Money-Back Guarantee, etc.

So I think Pangloss Palimpsest is the one that best fits the criteria.

By: T. Paine

T. Paine — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 18:29:12 +0000

Hasn’t Michael Crichton, leading science adviser to POTUS, already written this one?

You beat me to pointing out that this screenplay pitch has already been written.

By: Carlos

Carlos — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 17:33:55 +0000

And the subculture that permitted it.

By: Scott Martens

Scott Martens — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 16:12:36 +0000

Modesto Kid (#15), actually I had something Da Vinci code-esque in mind: With his dying breath, the elder Schicklgruber writes out a message in his own that only Dirk and Daisy together can decipher, before expiring.

It’s true that Fallen Angles has been there. though. IIRC, Pournelle and Niven auctioned off cameos in the book at some SF convention before publishing it. That should tell you something of its literary value.

By: lemuel pitkin

lemuel pitkin — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 15:30:31 +0000

Co-authored by Larry Niven, wasn’t it Derek? Which is too bad, since I’m sure I’m not the only CT reader who devoured Niven’s stuff growing up.

By: derek

derek — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 14:48:05 +0000

I think Jerry Pournelle actually got something like this published already: Fallen Angels, in which Goldwater-voting science fiction fans are on the run from an evil government made up half of lesbians and half of evangelicals (yes, you read that right) whose fossil fuel restrictions brought on the Ice Age, but strangely not their political doom. In fact they’re more powerful than ever.

You were speaking of hackery…

By: Scott Spiegelberg

Scott Spiegelberg — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 14:32:59 +0000

Kieran’s title is best, but I think Scott’s pitch is the winner.

By: KCinDC

KCinDC — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 14:08:03 +0000

Oakley-wearing, Voltaire-reading, Mozart-listening

You forgot “latte-sipping”.

By: Delicious Pundit

Delicious Pundit — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 13:51:07 +0000

The Devil's Drizzle The Weather Servants The Five-Day Forecast