Wisdom from the 42nd Page

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

On the forty-second page of “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom” author Cory Doctorow wrote (emphasis added):

Dan moved to block the bedroom door. "Wait a second," he said. "You need rest."

I fixed him with a doleful glare. "I'll decide that," I said. He stepped aside.

"I'll tag along, then," he said. "Just in case."

I pinged my Whuffie. I was up a couple of percentiles—sympathy Whuffie—but it was falling: Dan and Lil were radiating disapproval. Screw 'em.

I got into my runabout and Dan scrambled for the passenger door as I put it in gear and sped out.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Dan said as I nearly rolled the runabout taking the corner at the end of our cul-de-sac.

"Why wouldn't I be?" I said. "I'm as good as new."

"Funny choice of words," he said. "Some would say that you were new."

I groaned. "Not this argument again," I said. "I feel like me and no one else is making that claim. Who cares if I've been restored from a backup?"

"All I'm saying is, there's a difference between you and an exact copy of you, isn't there?"

I knew what he was doing, distracting me with one of our old fights, but I couldn't resist the bait, and as I marshaled my arguments, it actually helped calm me down some. Dan was that kind of friend, a person who knew you better than you knew yourself. "So you're saying that if you were obliterated and then recreated, atom-for-atom, that you wouldn't be you anymore?"

"For the sake of argument, sure. Being destroyed

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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

This post marks the completion of the first months worth of thrice daily postings seeking to find answers on the forty-second page. For any readers who are unfimiliar with the special significance of the number 42, you can find out why 42 is significant from Wikipedia.

Therefore, it seems only appropriate that we look at the forty-second page of “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Novel,” where author Douglas Adams wrote (emphasis added):

He grinned again. Three billion and six people didn't know it, but today would be a bigger antic than anyone had bargained for.

The robot camera horned in for a close-up on the more popular of his two heads and he waved again. He was roughly humanoid in appearance except for the extra head and third arm. His fair tousled hair stuck out in random directions, his blue eyes glinted with something completely unidentifiable, and his chins were almost always unshaven.

A twenty-foot-high transparent globe floated next to his boat, rolling and bobbing, glistening in the brilliant sun. Inside it floated a wide semicircular sofa upholstered in glorious read leather: the more the globe bobbed and rolled, the more the sofa stayed perfectly still, steady as an upholstered rock. Again, all done for effect as much as anything.

Zaphod stepped through the wall of the globe and relaxed on the sofa. He spread his two arms along the back and with the third brushed some dust off his knee. His heads looked about, smiling; he put his feet up. At any moment, he thought, he might scream.

Water boiled up beneath the bubble, it seethed and spouted. The bubble surged into the air, bobbing and rolling on the water spout. Up, up it climbed, throwing stilts of light at the cliff. Up it surged on the jet, the water falling from beneath it, crashing back into the sea hundreds of feet below.

Zaphod smiled, picturing himself.

A thoroughly ridiculous form of transport, but a thoroughly beautiful one.

At the top of the cliff the globe wavered for a moment,

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Eon

On the forty-second page of one of my favorite sci-fi novels, “Eon,” author Greg Bear wrote (emphasis added):

her sleeve, opened the door for them, then sat behind a desk made of more baffle metal to fill out forms. When they were done, she opened a locked box and pulled out a green badge with an outline of the Stone printed in one corner, surrounded by a silver circle.

"Our security is tight here, Miss Vasquez," she said. "Make sure you know the rules. A green badge is a great responsibility."

Patricia took the indelible pen and signed the badge, then pressed her fingers onto an ID scan plate for storage in the security system computers. The woman clipped the badge to her breast pocket. "Pleased to have you with us. I'm Doreen Cunningham, head of security for First Chamber Science Compound One. Any questions or problems, feel free to visit."

"Thank you," Patricia said. Lanier led the way out of the guardhouse and up the rampart steps.

"If you like to exercise, we have a running path around the inner perimeter of the compound, with an extension that takes you to the second compound. There's a gym pit not far from here. I recommend pretty strenuous exercise whenever possible. The low-g is a bit easy on us. I tend to get flabby if I don't maintain. And exercise will acclimate you more quickly to the air pressure."

"I think the low-g is pleasant," she said as they walked to the front of a wide plastic-sheet quonset hut. "Bouyant."

Inside the hut were two vehicles resembling large snowcats, mounted on six rubber-tired band-steel-spoke wheels instead of treads. Patricia bent down to look beneath, then straightened. "Very rugged," she said.

"Our trucks. Easy to drive—you'll learn soon. But today, you're just going along for the ride: Keep your eyes peeled."

He unlocked a door and helped her up the high step into the shotgun seat. He paused before closing the door. "I'm sorry I came down on you so hard. I'm sure you understand how important you could be here, and—"

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Fahrenheit 451

On the forty-second page of “Fahrenheit 451,”—the classic sci-fi story of a world in which books are forbidden and must all be burned—author Ray Bradbury wrote (some emphasis added):

the words he had heard once in a nursery at a friend's house, a two-year-old child building word patterns, talking jargon, making pretty sounds in the air. But Montag said nothing and after a long while when he only made the small sounds, he felt her move in the room and come to his bed and stand over him and put her hand down to feel his cheek. He knew that when she pulled her hand away from his face it was wet.

Late in the night he looked over at Mildred. She was awake. There was a tiny dance of melody in the air, her Seashell was tamped in her ear again, and she was listening to far people in far places, her eyes wide and staring at the fathoms of blackness above her in the ceiling.

Wasn't there an old joke about the wife who talked so much on the telephone that her desperate husband ran out to the nearest store and telephoned her to ask what was for dinner? Well, then, why didn't he buy himself an audio-Seashell broadcasting station and talk to his wife late at night, murmur, whisper, shout, scream, yell? But what would he whisper, what would he yell? What could he say?

And suddenly she was so strange he couldn't believe he knew her at all. He was in someone else's house, like those other jokes people told of gentleman, drunk, coming home late at night, unlocking the wrong door, entering a wrong room, and bedding with a stranger and getting up early and going to work and neither of them the wiser.

"Millie?..." he whispered.

"What?"

"I didn't mean to startle you. What I want to know is..."

"Well?"

"When did we meet? And where?"

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The Host

On the forty-second page of “The Host: A Novel” author Stephenie Meyer wrote (some emphasis added):

didn't want to ask any questions that might move us into the more difficult areas of discussion.

"I enjoy teaching," I said instead. "It's somewhat related to my Calling with the See Weeds, so that makes it easier than something unfamiliar. I'm indebted to Curt for requesting me."

"They're lucky to have you." Kathy smiled warmly. "Do you know how rare it is for a Professor of History to have experienced even two planets in the curriculum? Yet you've lived a term on almost all of them. And the Origin, to boot! There isn't a school on this planet that wouldn't love to steal you away from us. Curt plots ways to keep you busy so you have no time to consider moving."

"Honorary Professor," I corrected her.

Kathy smiled and then took a deep breath, her smile fading. "You haven't been to see me in so long, I was wondering if your problems were resolving themselves. But then it occured to me that perhaps the reason for your absence was that they were getting worse."

I stared down at my hands and said nothing.

My hands were light brown—a tan that never faded whether I spent time in the sun or not. One dark freckle marked the skin just above my left wrist. My nails were cut short. I disliked the feeling of long nails. They were unpleasant when they brushed the sking wrong. And my fingers were so long and thin—the added length of fingernails made them look strange. Even for a human.

She cleared her throat after a minute. "I'm guessing my intuition was right."

"Kathy." I said her name slowly. Stalling. "Why did you keep your human name? Did it make you feel...more at one? With your host, I mean?" I would have liked to know about Curt's choice as well, but it was such a personal question. It would have been wrong to ask anyone besides Curt for the answer, even his partner. I worried that I'd already been too impolite, but she laughed.

"Heavens, no, Wanderer. Haven't I told you this? Hmm. Maybe not, since it's not my job to talk, but to listen. Most of the souls I speak with don't need as much encouragement as you do. Did you know I came to Earth in one of the very first placements, before the humans had any idea we were here? I had human neighbors on both sides. Curt and I had to pretend to be our hosts for several years. Even after

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