this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2024
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In the fifth or sixth book of the Foundation series they follow a map to Earth that mentions a planet with huge rings and a planet circled by a giant moon. Throughout the universe, this combination was so unique you could identify the home of humanity among trillions of planets.
It's a weird book but I'm glad I read it.
Well, Foundation and Earth is the fifth book of the Foundation trilogy... of course it's weird.
Ah, the Douglas Adams approach.
Similar to the five book Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy.
Yeah, but the Foundation trilogy has seven books.
The last two being prequels.
(Also it's connected to the Galactic Empire trilogy, which does have three books, but was published in reverse order, and the Robot series, a four book duology not to be confused with Asimov's other robot books, though it's set in the same universe, and also to The End of Eternity, which is set in a different timeline altogether but is sort of a prequel to the whole shebang.)
Adams had one more short story in the Hitchhiker's universe, but debatable whether it's technically part of the trilogy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Zaphod_Plays_It_Safe
Wasn't there one more book written in the world by a separate author? Or is that this one?
Eoin Colfer’s And Another Thing
That's the one! Thank you very much.
Other than Adams's radio scripts, the only other book mentioned on wiki is a book by Terry Jones (of the Pythons) based on a game that was based on the mention of the "Starship Titanic" from Life, the Universe, and Everything. I'd never heard of it before though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Douglas_Adams%27s_Starship_Titanic%3A_A_Novel&useskin=vector
I remember that. I played the game as a kid and, when I found out it was a book years later, was thrilled! After reading it, I was a bit disappointed, but it was fun.
Someone else in this is referenced what I was remembering:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Another_Thing..._(novel)
Ah that cover looks vaguely familiar, so I must've seen it referenced at some point. I'll check it out.
And the idea of such a big moon was part of why it was largely thought of as an unfounded myth.
And it shows how Asimov had zero conception of how ridiculously huge the galaxy is, though that's just the storylines being a product of their time, probably.
Or he was writing a fiction and knew he could play fast and loose with scientific laws.
Asimov wrote non-fiction books about astronomy; I'm sure he knew as much about it as you do.
Nah, I read the whole series recently and for some details that bothered me looked up the how the science on that progressed. I can't give you exact examples as I don't remember details, but I do know that there's a bunch of very mistaken assumptions that the series is built on that he had no way of knowing back when he started and had to keep going forward (remember, the series was written over several decades starting in the fourties) and also a bunch of errors where he could have known better but just messed up.
Okay. We both agree that you have access to information that some who died in the last century wouldn't have known.
I mean, obviously? That's not what I was saying at all. I think you misinterpreted my original post in a big way.