Book List: What do we know Randall's read?

[drainbramaged]

Hey all-

There's a lot of buzz back and forth on this forum regarding the fancy-pants literature WE'VE all read, but how about Mr. Munroe? xkcd is full of more literary allusions than you can shake a librarian at, so I pose this question to the forum:

Based on xkcd comics, alt-text, etc., what books do we think Randall's read?
Please be sure to include evidence to support your claim.

I'll start off:
Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson

In the comic goto, the alt-text reads "Neal Stephenson thinks it's cute to name his labels 'dengo'." - a clear reference to Goto Dengo from Cryptonomicon.


What else can you all think to add?

[broken_escalator]

I have a hunch that he has read House of Leaves.

[drainbramaged]

I think we need to add Redwall and the Lord of the Rings:

http://xkcd.com/370/

[Adacore]

From a quick browse through some more recent comics,

- The Chronicles of Narnia
- The Giving Tree (fairly explicitly)
- Another Lord of the Rings reference
- And another House of Leaves reference

[Fedechiar]

The Ender series...
http://xkcd.com/304/
http://xkcd.com/241/

Oh, and Emily Dickinson, I guess (http://xkcd.com/788/)

[Microscopic cog]

He definitely read the first verse of The Raven, and because Randall isn't a high school goth kid he probably read the rest and maybe some other stuff by Poe as well.

http://xkcd.com/133/

[drainbramaged]

Also a reader of Hyperion:

http://xkcd.com/521/

[Jorpho]

Also a reader of Hyperion:

http://xkcd.com/521/

Y'know, you're the second person I can remember making that mistake.

[Bharrata]

The Ender series...
http://xkcd.com/304/

for some reason the structure of that comic screams to me the beginning of Fahrenheit 451, but I could be reading into things...


OH GOD THEYRE KICKING DOWN MY DOOR AND THEY HAVE FLAMETHROWERS




edit:

Y'know, you're the second person I can remember making that mistake.

Yggdrasil was also the ship in Xenogears. Finding out the meaning behind it from Joseph Campbell threw a whole new light on that game while I was playing it.



possible additions:

http://xkcd.com/800/ (the alt-text points to him possibly having read Kafka's Metamorphosis)




last edit:

has anyone else ever noticed that the text under the warning says:

"We did not invent the algorithm. The algorithm consistently finds Jesus. The algorithm killed Jeeves. <br />The algorithm is banned in China. The algorithm is from Jersey. The algorithm constantly finds Jesus.<br />This is not the algorithm. This is close."

only found it by looking at the source code to find if there was a reason for google sending me to a specific page for a search term that had little to do with the result.

Hilarious and weird. Way too small to see on the page normally.

[cemper93]

http://xkcd.com/782/ could contain a reference to Stephen King's Pet Sematary. I am however not quite sure because I'm not really into horror literature and therefore have no idea how widespread that trope is, but TVTropes has a whole article

Spoiler:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IndianBurialGround

about it.

[Jorpho]

Indeed, the first thing that comes to mind with "Indian Burial Ground" is "The Shining", followed closely by "The Amityville Horror".

has anyone else ever noticed that the text under the warning says:

Um, yeah, bazillions of people view the comic, so someone else has probably noticed that by now. Searching for the relevant forum topics is left as an exercise to the reader.

[Adacore]

has anyone else ever noticed that the text under the warning says:

Um, yeah, bazillions of people view the comic, so someone else has probably noticed that by now. Searching for the relevant forum topics is left as an exercise to the reader.

Wasn't there a blog post explaining it at some point too, or am I misremembering?

[Jorpho]

No, I think you're right.

[ahammel]

http://xkcd.com/483/

The alt-text mentions Neal Stephenson's Anathem (which I quite like, despite all the made-up words). It also implies that he's read Lord of the Rings, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.

On the subject of Neal Stephenson: the footnote in http://xkcd.com/856/ mentions Snow Crash, the only Stephenson book that features digitoneurolinguistic hacking so far as I know.

[Bharrata]

has anyone else ever noticed that the text under the warning says:

Um, yeah, bazillions of people view the comic, so someone else has probably noticed that by now. Searching for the relevant forum topics is left as an exercise to the reader.

Wasn't there a blog post explaining it at some point too, or am I misremembering?

My bad I guess, I never would have found it if I hadn't been searching for comics for this thread, so I figured adding it in with an edit wasn't out of line.


For anyone interested:

Spoiler:

http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2007/askcom-algorithm-billboards/

http://blog.xkcd.com/2007/04/19/billboards/

Guess it wasn't Google like I figured.

[PatrickRsGhost]

Indeed, the first thing that comes to mind with "Indian Burial Ground" is "The Shining", followed closely by "The Amityville Horror".

"The Shining" had nothing to do with an Indian Burial Ground. It was just a hotel that had seen some fucked up shit in its day. I've always seen it as cabin fever gone haywire, along with a little boy who has a unique ability to see ghosts, somewhat predict the future, and see things as they're happening or where they are.

"Amityville Horror", on the other hand, did. As did "Poltergeist I" (more of a city cemetery where only the markers were relocated; not the bodies) and "Poltergeist II" (DID have an Indian Burial Ground).

[folkhero]

The movie of The Shining had the hotel built on an Indian burial ground. Though it doesn't really matter because it's such a common horror trope that we can't determine what Randall may or may not have read based on him referencing it.

[AvatarIII]

Also a reader of Hyperion:

http://xkcd.com/521/

Y'know, you're the second person I can remember making that mistake.

I don't think the Endymion books were poopy, they just weren't of the same quality of the Hyperion books, there were still miles better than most modern space opera you can get.

[Jorpho]

Also a reader of Hyperion:

http://xkcd.com/521/

Y'know, you're the second person I can remember making that mistake.

I don't think the Endymion books were poopy, they just weren't of the same quality of the Hyperion books, there were still miles better than most modern space opera you can get.

For very particular values of "better", perhaps. I could rant, but this would not seem to be the most appropriate place.

[AvatarIII]

Also a reader of Hyperion:

http://xkcd.com/521/

Y'know, you're the second person I can remember making that mistake.

I don't think the Endymion books were poopy, they just weren't of the same quality of the Hyperion books, there were still miles better than most modern space opera you can get.

For very particular values of "better", perhaps. I could rant, but this would not seem to be the most appropriate place.

fair enough, I just thoroughly enjoyed the Endymion books, I remember reading them fondly, and wanted to defend them. feel free to rant about them wherever you feel is appropriate though PM/dedicated thread etc., I'd be interested to hear someone else's opinion of them.