Nivens Manhole Cover Question

Way back when LarryNiven still wrote ScienceFiction, rather than that stuff he writes today, he wrote a story where (rewritten to avoid previous complete spoiler) people were surreptitiously screened at tech-literati parties, under the guise of apparently innocuous party chit-chat in the form of offbeat questions, one of which was "What can you say about chocolate covered manhole covers?" (which is also the story title, reprinted in the N-Space anthology).

I won't spoil Niven's answer. Let's hear yours.

Considering what happened to people who answered the question, it is extremely unkind to be asking people to consider it here. :-)

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"Unlike chocolate covered biscuits, they hold their form when dunked in coffee. Finding a coffee cup big enough to have a chocolate-covered manhole cover dunked in it is left as an exercise for the reader..."

Can this be important.

• what does that mean??

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It was a stumper at an SF convention Niven attended. He'd asserted that you could always make a publishable SF story by just picking one thing in the world and changing it slightly. So then he got asked this. And he sat. And he sat. And the room was silent. And nothing came. Then a month later he wrote his story and had it published to make the point. Of course I just made that up. -- PeterMerel

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In the conservative north-east of England at the turn of the century, great efforts were made to turn people away from "Greek Love". As a result a number of unusual patents were filed. Some were particularly painful devices (see Vitalogy manuals for references) but the Reverend Greene decided that the best approach was to tempt the sinner away at the moment of evil with a delicious snack. Thus the Chocolate Covered Manhole Cover was born. The success of his venture was never recorded due to scurrilous rumours and fictional scandal, though it is no coincidence that the chocolate digestive became a common retail item.....---RH.

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See MicrosoftsManholeCoverQuestion

CategoryHumor