The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Shokhet

23:00

@Randal'Thor I figured it was probably something like that. (I, too, play the American version of Monopoly)

Rand al'Thor

Marylebone station

Marylebone station (/ˈmɑːrlᵻbən/ MAR-li-bən) is a Central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the Marylebone area of the City of Westminster. On the National Rail network it is also known as London Marylebone and is the southern terminus of the Chiltern Main Line to Birmingham. On the Underground it is on the Bakerloo line between Edgware Road and Baker Street. It is in Transport for London's fare zone 1. The station opened in 1899 as the London terminus of the Great Central Main Line (GCML), the last major railway to open in Britain in over 100 years, linking the...

@Shokhet Also, when you said Bone family, for a moment I got all excited and thought I'd found someone else who knew Jenny Nimmo's Charlie Bone series.

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor Oh, I loved those books! They were great.

I'm never certain if I read all of them, though. I might have missed the last one or two.

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet You do know them!

:-D

Wikipedia says there are 8 in total.

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor Of course!

@Randal'Thor Right. The last two titles look the least familiar, and I recall picking up one of them to check if I've read it, but I don't remember what the result of that test was. (This happened at least twice)

Okay, this one has a different title in the US. (A bunch of them do, but I'm looking at the synopsis of the last two.)

Rand al'Thor

I have no clue how many I read.

I remember one where Olivia turns out to be endowed at the very end.

Shokhet

23:06

Okay, so I've definitely read them all. I know about the Red Knight.

@Randal'Thor WP says that's the fourth book.

Rand al'Thor

And one where there was a new kid who was "magnetic" - little bits of paper stuck to him, and he also managed to brainwash one of the good guys (the one who could summon his spirit ancestors, and whose name began with T?)

Shokhet

There's a lot of nostalgia reading through the WP page, wow. How did I not realize that the Torsson family are stormbringers? Ha.

Rand al'Thor

Torsson - that rings a bell.

God, it's been SO long.

Maybe I should try to rediscover those books.

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor Lysander Sage.

@Randal'Thor I'm also tempted to, now.

Rand al'Thor

Dagbert Endless, that was it!

OK, so I must have read book 6.

Shokhet

23:10

Just seeing the word "endowed" again, in Nimmo's sense of the word...I remember looking at a plaque in school, recording the "endowments" made by various donors. I was slightly confused, but had a lot of fun imagining what that might mean. :)

Rand al'Thor

Oooh, yes, those books were actually pretty fun.

Something about the whole way the endowments thing works is exactly the kind of thing that appeals to me in fantasy.

The fact that it's restricted to this small finite number of people, but not all of them have been discovered ... and that there's supposed to be some balance between the "good" guys and the "bad" guys, as maintained by the "lodestone" cook ...

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor No play on words intended, but there was certainly something magical about the endowments.

Rand al'Thor

I remember hoping that there'd be a big faceoff in the last book between exactly ten endowed kids, corresponding to the original ten children of the Red King.

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor Exactly; it's special, because very few people have powers, and anybody will only have one (maybe two?)

It's not very special being magical in Harry Potter's world, for instance. And anybody can do almost any magic.

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet Do the powers manifest randomly, or is everyone's power related in some way to whichever child of the RK they're descended from?

Shokhet

23:13

@Randal'Thor That's too fine of a detail for me to remember. Maybe WP has something?

Rand al'Thor

I read them piecemeal in various libraries, so I probably didn't get them all, and I definitely didn't read them in order.

I was already familiar with the universe by the time I read the first one, about how Charlie first discovers he's endowed and enrols at Bloor's.

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor I don't remember, actually, if I read them in order. I probably did.

That's how I read Animorphs, actually. I brought home whichever was on the shelf and looked interesting.

Rand al'Thor

I also like the irony (re-remembered now as I read through Wikipedia's characters list) of having characters called Onimous who're really nice and not ominous at all :-)

@Shokhet Same here! Oh, you read Animorphs too? :-D

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor Yes, and so totally out of order it's not even funny :)

I mean, there was a recap of whatever you needed to know in each story, so it worked.

Rand al'Thor

The good thing about doing that with Animorphs is that there's not much of an overarching story.

Babelfish

23:18

0

Q: What is O'Brien's 'double strong' coffee?

In the DS9 episode "Whispers" - O'Brien orders coffee "double strong, double sweet". The double sweet is relatively obvious. What does 'double strong' mean? Is this coffee brewed with 50% less water, or double shots of espresso, other stimulants, etc...?

star-trek-ds9

Rand al'Thor

It's like a sci-fi TV series with a lot of "planet/alien of the week" episodes.

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor It was a TV series.

Animorphs (TV series)

Animorphs (also known under the promotional title AniTV) is a television adaptation made by Protocol Entertainment of the Scholastic book series of the same name by K. A. Applegate. It was made for YTV for Season 1 and Global for season 2 in Canada and Nickelodeon for the United States. The series was broadcast from September 1998 to March 2000 in the United States and Canada, and in May 2013, reruns began airing on Qubo. == Cast == === Main === Shawn Ashmore as Jake Brooke Nevin as Rachel Boris Cabrera as Marco Nadia Nascimento as Cassie Christopher Ralph as Tobias === Recurring === ...

Rand al'Thor

There are some recurring characters, like the Helmacrons or the Chee or the Ellimist and Crayak, but like you say, they give at least a brief introduction at the start of each book.

@Shokhet Yyyyyeah, but it's still first and foremost a book series.

I read up on that TV series at some point and decided not to bother watching it.

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor I never watched it, and wasn't sure which was first.

Rand al'Thor

Aren't the Andalites, like, really creepy in the TV series?

Shokhet

23:19

I've never seen any of it

Rand al'Thor

Neither have I really - just a couple of trailers on Youtube.

Shokhet

Did the Animorphs books in the UK also have the little flippy morphing kids on the bottom page corners?

Rand al'Thor

Yes!

nostalgia

And the PoV characters were in strict rotation.

Shokhet

Those were the best. I remember discovering those, slowly realizing that the picture was not the same on each page. Then flipping the pages, slowly at first....that was pretty cool :)

@Randal'Thor I didn't notice that. Really?

Rand al'Thor

Congruent to 1 mod 5: Jake.
Congruent to 2 mod 5: Rachel.
Congruent to 3 mod 10: Tobias.
Congruent to 8 mod 10: Ax.
Congruent to 4 mod 5: Cassie.
Congruent to 0 mod 5: Marco.

(you can tell I'm a mathematician :-P )

Shokhet

23:22

@Randal'Thor I'm not exactly sure what you meant by that, but I think I got your meaning.

@Randal'Thor (you can tell I'm not :P)

Rand al'Thor

Since nearly all the stories were so disconnected from each other, I used to just pick up whichever one I could find in each library I visited. Except that I had a rule never to touch the last few until I'd read all the others, because presumably they wrap everything up there in a way that would involve major spoilers.

So I never actually finished the series.

I definitely read #45, and I'm pretty sure I never went into the 50s.

Shokhet

I think they went into the 60s....?

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet In other words, it goes: Jake, Rachel, Tobias, Cassie, Marco, Jake, Rachel, Ax, Cassie, Marco, then repeat.

@Shokhet 54 in total, I think.

Plus the Chronicles and Megamorphs and extra stuff.

11

A: Reading order for Animorphs

Animorphs Well, that's easy: they're numbered 1 to 54, after all. Megamorphs The Megamorphs books tie into the main series, so they're also easy to place: The Andalite's Gift takes place between book 7 and book 8 In the Time of Dinosaurs takes place between book 18 and book 19 Elfangor's Sec...

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor There were a lot of spinoff series.

Rand al'Thor

Not that many, unless I've missed some in that answer ^^

Most of the books in the main series were ghostwritten, IIRC.

Shokhet

23:28

Animorphs

Or see Anamorph (disambiguation). Animorphs is a science fantasy series of young adult books written by K. A. Applegate and published by Scholastic. It is told in first person, with all six main characters taking turns narrating the books through their own perspectives. Horror, war, dehumanization, sanity, morality, innocence, leadership, freedom and growing up are the core themes of the series. Published between June 1996 and May 2001, the series consisted of 54 books and includes ten companion books, eight of which fit into the series' continuity (the Animorphs Chronicles and Megamorphs books...

Rand al'Thor

(Tancred, that was his name!)

(harking back to CotRK)

Shokhet

@Shokhet That's odd. That's a link to a section of the WP page, but it oneboxes to the beginning of the page.

Yes, Tancred.

Rand al'Thor

> They don't buy Jake's lame story and Jake decides that he must show them the truth and he and Tobias both morph in front of them. It turns out that the campers are Star Trek fans and (believing the Animorphs to be actual aliens) insist on helping the Animorphs. [...] Meanwhile, every other chapter consists of somewhat-related diary entries from Lt. Isaiah Fitzhenry, a great-uncle to Jake's grandfather, who fought in the American Civil War, specifically against General Forrest.

Heh, this is familiar.

OK, so I've read #47.

Shokhet

I don't remember any Civil War stuff. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Rand al'Thor

And #48.

@Shokhet Did you read all of them?

Shokhet

23:32

@Randal'Thor I thought I must have read almost all of them. Perhaps not.

Rand al'Thor

OK, I definitely haven't read #49, or probably anything after that.

Shokhet

It's hard to tell from skimming the titles. They're not super descriptive.

Or perhaps they are, and I just don't remember them very well.

Rand al'Thor

Yeah, you have to click on each one individually :-)

And some of them just take you back to the main list page.

Shokhet

I don't remember the cover of #54.

Buuuut don't read the wiki page. Major spoilers there!

Rand al'Thor

I bet!

(But were they spoilers to you, or have you read it?)

Shokhet

23:37

That's what I'm trying to remember. I don't think I remember when they a;ldkfa;sdlfkja;dfklan;dvs....

Oh no, totally don't remember any of that. So I haven't read 54

The last few books' covers and stories don't sound familiar at all. Huh.

Remember two hour missions, because otherwise you get stuck in morph? (Tobias the hawk?)

Rand al'Thor

How long did it take Tobias to get stuck as a hawk? Was it way back in their very first mission in book #1?

*their very first Yeerk pool infiltration

Shokhet

No, I don't think it was that early. (Runs to WP to check)

Rand al'Thor

He only regained the ability to morph in book #13, so he must have become a nothlit pretty early at least.

Shokhet

First book. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animorphs#Animorphs

Huh.

Rand al'Thor

For that matter, when does Ax join the team? Book #4?

I remember not wanting to discuss the Animorphs books with other people, because anyone could be a Controller and I mustn't give away that I knew about the Yeerks :-D

Hey @Shokhet, are you a Controller?

Shokhet

23:45

@Randal'Thor That's great :)

I knew it couldn't be real. You must have had a great time reading the books, then.

@Randal'Thor You should have asked that a long time ago, before revealing all of the secrets...

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet Well, I knew that really as well. (I wasn't that young when I read them!) But hey, that kind of pretence increases the immersion.

Either that or I'm just crazy.

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor Right.

Walking that fine line of suspension of disbelief.

I didn't discuss the books with anyone because I knew how silly it would sound.

Rand al'Thor

Oh, apparently the cycle of 5 in the PoV characters turns into a cycle of 6 towards the end, so Tobias and Ax get as much room as the others rather than only half as much each.

That must have confused the hell out of me when I read #47 and #48.

@Shokhet Some of them do get pretty weird. Remember that one where the Helmacrons fly up Marco's nose and the entire book is set inside his body?

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor Sounds vaguely familiar.

Rand al'Thor

Or the one where they infiltrate a madhouse to discover that a specific kind of oatmeal is a deadly drug for Yeerks?

Or the one where Jake wakes up ten years in the future, a future where the Yeerks have won?

Shokhet

23:54

Again. Vaguely familiar. They used that oatmeal at least once later, right?

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet Did they? I don't remember it ever coming up again. Maybe I didn't read that one.

Then there was the three-parter with David (remember David?)

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor One of the synopses that I read (of an early book I may have missed) has them meeting the Ellimist, and he offers to save them because the Yeerks do win in the future.

Was that the same future?

Rand al'Thor

And the one where Rachel morphs into a starfish, gets cut in half, and turns into two people when she morphs back. Multiple personality syndrome extraordinaire!

@Shokhet Dunno. My memory is pretty vague of that one.

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor They captured a Yeerk at least once or twice. I remember they starved one out, but they may have given one oatmeal (or threatened the same)

DukeZhou

@Randal'Thor re: Stack Dada I'm taking that as a success!

Rand al'Thor

23:59

@Shokhet There was a Yeerk who infested Jake once, and they had to starve it out of him.

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor Don't remember that one. I remember being somewhat upset that the Animorphs could heal themselves by morphing in and out. (This happened at least once with a whale morph.) That felt like cheating, and is also inconsistent with your starfish tale.

Rand al'Thor

I think it was the same Yeerk who'd been inside Tom?

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor Right. I knew it infected one of them. I thought it was Rachel or Cassie, though.

Transcript for

The Restaurant at the End of the Univ…