Mark and Jon Hickman are joined by Jon Bounds to work through some more of the L section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Lazlar Lyricon
Lazlar Lyricon is a customiser of space craft to the staggeringly wealthy. He customised the Disaster Area’s limo, and is said, by Ford Prefect, to have “no shame”.
Lazlar Lyricon also leant its name to a convention of Hitchhiker’s fans. The first was in our home city of Birmingham, and there’s a link in the show notes to an episode of Saturday Review, which scratches the surface of Adams’ move into the world of interactive fiction.
Leda and the Octopus
Leda and the Octopus is something of which a statue was made. It used to sit in the office of the Guide’s editor in chief, but now doesn’t. Of course, we all know that this is a play on the artworks based on the Greek myth of Leda, who comes across Zeus disguised as a swan.
Leovinus
Leovinus is the designer of the Starship Titanic, who fell in love with the computer inside. In the game, you have to assemble all the various parts of the ship that were scattered around it, and build a giant metal woman, at which point you’re given a video message from Leovinus, as played by Douglas Adams, in which he gifts you the ship.
Life Begins at Five Hundred and Fifty
Life Begins at 550 is a book, less popular than the Guide.
LifeSupport-o-System
The LifeSupport-o-System. It supports life on the Grebulon ship, and it’s perhaps the laziest name anyone has ever come up with for a piece of sci-fi.
Lintilla
Lintilla is an archaeologist with millions of clones. She, and all her clones, were played by Rula Lenska, who later went on to voice the Guide in its bird form. She has millions of clones because of a malfunction which meant the cloning machine got halfway through making one clone before starting the next, so it was impossible to stop it without committing murder. Eventually, the manufacturers concocted a plan to marry all the clones off to some hastily-made male clones, adding a line to the contract that meant they were aggreeing to “cease to be”.
Links
Lazlar Lyricon 1985 Saturday Review - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x2Ri4c8YFg)
Want To Marry Amazon’s Alexa? You’re Not Alone - Vocativ (http://www.vocativ.com/371706/amazon-alexa-propose-marriage/index.html)
Follow Jon Hickman on Twitter (https://twitter.com/jonhickman)
Follow Jon Bounds on Twitter (https://twitter.com/bounder)
Follow Mark on Twitter (https://twitter.com/iamsteadman/)
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