Talk:Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days

This is odd, because the name Roland Childe is almost always synonymous with a quest for some sort of tower. In Stephen King's Dark Tower books, Roland, a knight (aka a "Childe") looks for a Dark Tower and quests to reach the top. In Middle age literature, there is a tale of a Roland whose sister is kidnapped and taken away to the top of another dark tower, and so he must quest to rescue her. Now Alistair Reynold is using the name and the tower theme. Why is this? What is the fascination with this tale of Roland? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.98.120.83 (talk • contribs).
 * Why shouldn't there be? It's a perfectly valid concept to play upon, and the author was obviously hinting at the tower theme at the beginning by using the name. It adds to the depth of the literature and these sort of references should be encouraged. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by The Shrewd Dude (talk • contribs).

Disputes on the Primality of One
I think we can pretty much take it as true that the first sequence encountered is that of prime numbers. It might be wrong, but it is almost certainly an author mistake, rather than the characters being wrong. The spire doesn't let people through if they make a wrong answer, those are the rules. It would be relevant to the plot were the spire to admit them when they made a mistake. This scene is in any case designed to explain what's going on in the spire with an example people can understand, because not everyone's that hot on triangular numbers and hypercubes. I do concede that this is indeed not the series of prime numbers, but it's safer to say that this is a basic plot error, not some mysterious other sequence. Especially considering that 11, which is indeed the next prime number after 7, is in fact the correct answer.

As such, I have decided to change the wording of this trivia point to better describe what's going on. This explanantion has been created to prevent edit warring.

To be really sure, someone might want to ask Reynolds himself at http://www.alastairreynolds.com/teahouse/ should they have enough time211.30.66.138 (talk) 12:19, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Guess what- someone did ask him! (Wasn't me, btw). And it is "pure stupidity" according to reynolds. 211.30.66.138 (talk) 08:24, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Ha, I read that today and wondered if it was you. Isn't the internet grand. --Closedmouth (talk) 12:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Small world, isn't it? I was at one point wondering if this would wind up in wp:lamest edit wars, for which I would take full responsibility. Anyway, one little dispute solved, on to the next211.30.66.138 (talk) 08:27, 17 August 2008 (UTC)