Donnie Darko reference in The Left Hand of Destiny

[Mr. Domino]

Ok, so, this is probably the absolute last thing I was expecting from a book about glorious battles worthy of song, and a great campaign of the Klingon Empire and all that jazz, but here's a very obvious reference to the ending of Donnie Darko located on page 257 of The Left Hand of Destiny, Book Two.

"Don't worry about me," Darok said. "Old men like me never die in places like this."
"No?"
"No. We die in interesting places like, oh, brothels."
"I don't think a brothel is such an unusual place for a man to die."
"Crushed to death by a small spacecraft that falls out of the sky directly onto a bed at four in the morning, killing no one else?" Darok asked.
Pharh considered. "All right. That would be interesting. Has that ever happened?"
"My father," Darok said proudly. "When they found him he was only about a centimeter thick, but they could still make out the smile on his face."

What do you guys think? It was very jarring to have what seems like such a blatant reference in the middle of what was otherwise a very serious scene, but its also something I'll remember the book by now.

 

[j3067]

References like that are not an uncommon occurrence in TrekLit. The most recent one I came across was a, 'Nymock chewing on a power cable'. I think of them as Easter Eggs; they don't really bother me.

 

[Sho]

I recently complained about pop culture references, here and some following discussion.

And of course those sonic screwdrivers keep popping up in Vanguard.

 

[Ood Sigma]

And of course, Darok is an anagram of Darko.

 

[DS9Continuing]

And of course, Darok is an anagram of Darko.

Mind = blown.

.

 

[captcalhoun]

References like that are not an uncommon occurrence in TrekLit. The most recent one I came across was a, 'Nymock chewing on a power cable'. I think of them as Easter Eggs; they don't really bother me.

don't you mean a 'mynock'?

 

[Peter Q Taggart]

Loved all the references in Greg Cox's "Rise and Fall of Khan" books.

 

[j3067]

References like that are not an uncommon occurrence in TrekLit. The most recent one I came across was a, 'Nymock chewing on a power cable'. I think of them as Easter Eggs; they don't really bother me.

don't you mean a 'mynock'?

Unless I was the victim of kindle formatting on this one, it was written as 'Nymock' in Vanguard: Precipice. It was mentioned just before Tim Pennington causes a...distraction. It did seem to be a clear reference to the Mynock scene in The Empire Strikes Back.

 

[Mage]

References like that are not an uncommon occurrence in TrekLit. The most recent one I came across was a, 'Nymock chewing on a power cable'. I think of them as Easter Eggs; they don't really bother me.

don't you mean a 'mynock'?

Unless I was the victim of kindle formatting on this one, it was written as 'Nymock' in Vanguard: Precipice. It was mentioned just before Tim Pennington causes a...distraction. It did seem to be a clear reference to the Mynock scene in The Empire Strikes Back.

Read that part again, and then read the discription of the ship Tim and T'Prynn borrow....

 

[j3067]

don't you mean a 'mynock'?

Unless I was the victim of kindle formatting on this one, it was written as 'Nymock' in Vanguard: Precipice. It was mentioned just before Tim Pennington causes a...distraction. It did seem to be a clear reference to the Mynock scene in The Empire Strikes Back.

Read that part again, and then read the discription of the ship Tim and T'Prynn borrow....

At least the description of the ship with the 'Nymock' problem stopped short of being a 'hamburger with an olive on one side'.

While reading further in Vanguard: Precipice yesterday I think I ran across a reference to the 1981 film, Das Boot. Fortunately the Pennington did not take the, braided nose hair, discussion further.

 

[WarsTrek1993]

There's plenty of popular references in ST. The Shatnerverse novel "Preserver" used the theme of Shrodinger's Cat. (You never know if he's alive or dead until you open the box).

 

[Christopher]

I wouldn't call the Schroedinger's Cat paradox a pop-culture reference. It's a scientific argument and thus relevant to a lot of science fiction.

 

[Stevil2001]

Yeah, the egregious outside reference in Preserver is to Asimov's Foundation novels.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Yeah, the egregious outside reference in Preserver is to Asimov's Foundation novels.

Ah, and here was me thinking it was the sound of feral ordovers munching the grass.

 

[captcalhoun]

the one that bugged me in those MU Shat books was "Project SIGN" a clear reference to the USAF UFO study which followed (preceded?) 'BLUE BOOK'.