How would different SF/F Authors Escape the Prisoner's Island as Number 6?

[badducky]

I've been catching episodes of "The Prisoner" courtesy of the crappy selection at the Benbrook Public Library. (Can you imagine a library without any Neil Gaiman or Gene Wolfe books or Ann McCaffrey books? *shivers*)

Got me thinking about how different authors would escape the island.

Cory Doctorow - of course - would hack the hi-tech system with low-tech tools (like countering the white balloon by wrapping it in a homemade Mario Bros. quilt), unite the fellow prisoners against the pernicious number 2, and
leave the burning wreckage of the island behind.

Hal Duncan would get in a drunken punji-stick battle with anyone who tries to keep him from riding his chariot of loyal, loving white bubbles to the Paris Ghettos. Of course, Hal made his own grain alcohol out of coconuts and spare parts littering his apartment.

Neil Gaiman would cheerfully hack the orange alert system with his sonic screwdriver, liberate everyone who survives the rebellion, and then hop into his blue police box to whoosh himself to the fourth great and bountiful human empire. (He's actually Doctor Who, you know.)

John Shirley would throw a punk concert and release strange toxins upon the crowd, getting everyone completely stoned except for him - because he's naturally developed quite an immunity - at which time, he merely takes to the sky in the helicopter that was brought to life by sacrificing a woman to the AI processor, and allowing her soul to merge with the machine.

Jeff VanderMeer would disappear underground in the caves around the village, and he would be the only one to escape the carnage from the old ones beneath.

Gene Wolfe would not need to leave the island. You see, he's actually the one running the show, and Number 2 will be tricked into revealing all sots of information to Number 6. Number 2 is really in for it.

Anyone else have any ideas?

[Stormhawk]

Originally Posted by badducky

Neil Gaiman would cheerfully hack the orange alert system with his sonic screwdriver, liberate everyone who survives the rebellion, and then hop into his blue police box to whoosh himself to the fourth great and bountiful human empire. (He's actually Doctor Who, you know.)

No new ideas, but I agree with this theory. ^_^

[Tom Johnson]

Most of the old time SF authors would simply teleport from the island.

"The Weed of Crime Bears Bitter Fruit!"

[maxmordon]

Franz Kafka would show that Number Six actually is living some sort of test to become Number Six and actually he can leave the island whenever he wants and that they will be testing him to see what's more convinient


Jorge Luis Borges would show him leaving the village just to die in the last second and we would discover that this is actually the village of the Lotus Eater from The Oddyssey


With Gabriel García Márquez, Number Six would ride with his Victorian Bicycle through the waves on a particullary stormy day to reach the heavens

[badducky]

Chris Roberson would invent a time machine to bring Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe to the island so they could deduce the mysteries of the thing, revealing the true nature of the island with a combination of strange alien technologies and strange quantum physics.

Then, everyone would escape in the middle of a Beatles concert.

[MattW]

Gene Roddenberry would invent some loophole in physics to escape the island, only to be conveniently forgotten if he ever were to return.

[badducky]

Speaking of paranoid television shows...

Ever feel like you're being watched?

http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2008/0...soners-island/

[ChaosTitan]

Spooky....

[Shweta]

Originally Posted by badducky

Got me thinking about how different authors would escape the island.
<snip>

Iain Banks would learn how the island worked, play Number 2's own game against him, get attacked by the Island's defenses when he won, and discover at the last minute that the bubble that's been most horrible to him is actually an ally in disguise, which protects him in a force field, wipes out all his enemies, and then...
either whisks him away to safety
or collapses at the last minute, so that he drowns with scattered shards of the island surrounding him.

Tim Powers would fall through time and find himself in far worse trouble.

Jaqueline Carey would--
er. *looks around*
Oh yeah, all-ages forum. Nevermind.



(and, er, hi Jeff)

[Smiling Ted]

Tim Powers would discover the way in which the Village has secretly altered the course of Western History through its influence on Welsh vacation architecture, and then destroy Number One.

Neil Gaiman would sit in the Village square and tell a story in which he escaped the Village, only to write a novel about the Village in which the hero creates the Village, wherein another agent is forced to write his memoirs about life in the Village-

Ray Bradbury would escape the Village with the aid of a pair of new sneakers and the innocence and joy of a boy just turned 13 in a small town in Ohio.

Cory Doctorow would successfully hack the Village, but instead of escaping, would establish a hardwired link to the outside through which he would blog about the possibilities of escape.

[badducky]

Michael Moorcock would summon Arioch, and use the chaos lord's magic to turn all the white island bubbles into a mighty airship, to fly off into an uncertain future of war and death.

[~grace~]

Originally Posted by badducky

Neil Gaiman would cheerfully hack the orange alert system with his sonic screwdriver, liberate everyone who survives the rebellion, and then hop into his blue police box to whoosh himself to the fourth great and bountiful human empire. (He's actually Doctor Who, you know.)

Oh. my. god.

you are like actually a genius.

[badducky]

Stephen Brust would start an Irish Folk Band, and lazily drink and smoke until his sheer coolness turns the lowly members of the staff to the other side.

Then, there will be a large gun-battle, with fiddle-players.

[Higgins]

Originally Posted by Smiling Ted

Ray Bradbury would escape the Village with the aid of a pair of new sneakers and the innocence and joy of a boy just turned 13 in a small town in Ohio.

Oh boy. I should have seen this one coming.

I'll try the Roger Zelazny angle...His first person hero would be such a tough guy that they would let him out to do their dirty work after implanting a gizmo in his brain (where else?) and this gizmo would go
bad after bouncing around in the said tough noggin' with mind-numbing
results for all concerned...at least in the first few books of the series...

[Shweta]

William Gibson would upload himself into cyberspace.

[Dawnstorm]

Originally Posted by badducky

Cory Doctorow - of course - would hack the hi-tech system with low-tech tools (like countering the white balloon by wrapping it in a homemade Mario Bros. quilt), unite the fellow prisoners against the pernicious number 2, and
leave the burning wreckage of the island behind.

Cory Doctorow would successfully hack the Village, but instead of escaping, would establish a hardwired link to the outside through which he would blog about the possibilities of escape.

Cory Doctorow would infuse the island with quantum linked nanobots until it gets uplifted, convince it to get rid of the guards. Then he'd merge with it and marry the supplies freighter to build his own empire. He'd get rebelled against by Charles Stross who got bored by experiencing the life of iron bars.

The twist is that none of them was there in the first place, and the island is really Vernor Vinge.

Michael Moorcock would summon Arioch, and use the chaos lord's magic to turn all the white island bubbles into a mighty airship, to fly off into an uncertain future of war and death.

Michael Moorcock would pin random newspaper clippings to the wall and have pointless conversations with fellow inmates. Then he'd die trying to escape. Three times. Then he'd get bored with dying and reappear somewhere entirely else, twenty years in the future and five years before he was born.

***

Paul di Filippo would make fun of the guards until they kick him out. Then he'd write about that.

***

Clive Barker would apply for Master Torturer and get the job. But he'd only torture himself and make others watch.

[Higgins]

Originally Posted by Tom Johnson

Most of the old time SF authors would simply teleport from the island.

"The Weed of Crime Bears Bitter Fruit!"

But Heinlein would teleport into the body of a woman.

[Pthom]

Originally Posted by Higgins

But Heinlein would teleport into the body of a woman.

or morph into a cat ... and walk through the wall.

[engmajor2005]

Robert Howard would go into a furious rage, slicing down those in his way with a broadsword, or failing that, rip everybody limb from limb; he would then claim the well-endowed slave girl dressed in naught but a loin cloth as his prize.

H.P. Lovecraft would escape via his own madness. Physically, he would be in a corner of some dark room, rocking back and forth and spewing forth the most horrible gibberish; mentally, he would be in a place of sunshine and warmth, a place where no eldrich horrors have tainted the very air with their most vile wickedness.

[kullervo]

They would all remember the show and wait for the comma.

[Pthom]

Larry Niven would crawl into the autodoc and wait till plate tectonics moved the island near enough to the mainland that he could just walk home.

--or--

He would power up the stepping plate, and with a Pierson's puppeteer in a General Dynamics hull go find the center of the galaxy.

[dempsey]

To uselessly contribute:

Originally Posted by badducky

Can you imagine a library without any Neil Gaiman or Gene Wolfe books or Ann McCaffrey books? *shivers*

My heart hurt when I read that. Literally. A pain in my chest.

Perhaps I should get this looked at.

[Higgins]

Originally Posted by kullervo

They would all remember the show and wait for the comma.

Was the show that heavily punctuated?