Even if you haven't taken part so far, you can STILL WIN! Every week, I draw a name at random from those who have commented and that person wins valuable prizes, like free books. And the points available for the remaining 83 or so questions will easily let you catch up. So read the post below, and if you feel like entering, click the link to go to The Best Of Everything's official post and comment. And check back every day for a new question!
The Best Of Everything 100-day 100-question Star Wars Blogathon, Question 18
Grumpy Bulldog -- who in his real life as an author has a new website to celebrate his upcoming book series "Tales Of The Scarlet Knight," got yesterday's question right, and is in a solid second place, while Rusty got the 10 points for Being Caller Number 2.
On to today's question and topic of discussion, which is: Fake Holidays in Science Fiction.
Over on his blog today, Michael Offutt mentioned that IQ84 has a complete short story in it -- a story that plays into the novel's plot itself, and he mentioned that Grumpy did a similar thing in his book "Where You Belong." A while back, on this blog, I did a post on what I called, for lack of knowing anything better to call it, "The Best Fictional Plot Point," in which I talked about movies and TV shows and books that had created something out of whole cloth to revolve the plot of the story around -- things like the equation in The Infinities or Jerry's move in Seinfeld. And even earlier before that, I'd done a whole post on The Best Fake Musical In A Real Movie, and now today I'm thinking about all those things authors make up to further the made-up story they're telling -- everything from fake songs like in Norman Spinrad's old book Little Heroes to full on fake short stories like John Irving did in The World According to Garp (and Dilloway, and Murakami did in their stories.)
So far as I know, nobody has yet written an entire fake novel within a novel -- but I'm sure that's not very far off.
And also, that's off the track. What I'm specifically thinking about today are the holidays that populate sci-fi (and fantasy) books and movies and TV shows, and I've been wracking my brain trying to think of what holidays those might be, because I am 100% certain that in the course of reading my many sci-fi and fantasy books over the years, I've read about holidays that only exist on strange worlds or in service of strange gods, but I cannot think of a single one except Festivus, and that doesn't count.
So, I resorted to Googling, and here's a few I came up with:
Assumption of St. Antwelm. Because King Antwelm assumed everybody wanted to be happy, enjoy themselves, and have the best possible time together, on his death he willed his entire personal fortune to financing an annual festival for this purpose. Events of this holiday include a feast, dancing, and fatuous games such as Hunt the Wocket. (Celebrated on Saquo-Pilia Hensha, the ultimate headquarters of the publisher of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy)
The Five Extra Days in the Númenórean Calendar: days added to the Middle Earth calendar to set it straight, celebrated as holidays.
Colonial Day, an annual holiday that celebrates the official signing of the Articles of Colonization that occured 52 years prior to the final Cylon Attack in the Battlestar universe that I loved so much before it ripped off Hitchhiker in a finale that made no sense.
Anyway, that's what I came up with. I'm sure there's more, so here's the challenge: If, in your comment, you can name real... or "real" bona fide holidays in a sci-fi or fantasy book, TV series or movie -- holidays that DO NOT exist in our world, you'll get 10 extra points... per holiday.
And, here's today's question, worth 46 points:
What holiday was celebrated via the pod race in which Anakin Skywalker won his freedom?
Also, commenter number 5 gets the 10 bonus points today, but remember: while you can comment multiple times, you can't get the bonus points if you're commenter 4 and 5.
REMEMBER: If you're reading this on any blog EXCEPT "The Best Of Everything," you need to go to The Best Of Everything to comment and enter... which you can do by clicking this link.
If you'd like to know the official rules, click here. To see the official standings and all the ways you can earn points, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment