The Library of Babel: Difference between revisions
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** Death's Library is a variation - every person's life story writes itself into a book somewhere on his shelves. As you go back, the histories are written on scrolls, then animal skins, then stone slabs... One character asks Death's daughter (adopted) what came before the slabs, because some people would "quite like to know". She replies that she didn't get that far, as she was running out of candles. |
** Death's Library is a variation - every person's life story writes itself into a book somewhere on his shelves. As you go back, the histories are written on scrolls, then animal skins, then stone slabs... One character asks Death's daughter (adopted) what came before the slabs, because some people would "quite like to know". She replies that she didn't get that far, as she was running out of candles. |
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*** Which leads to a humorous scene where the protagonists find someone's book and upon going to the last page, are tipped off that he is sneaking up behind them. |
*** Which leads to a humorous scene where the protagonists find someone's book and upon going to the last page, are tipped off that he is sneaking up behind them. |
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*** They then temporarily incapacitate the sneaker by [[Throw the Book At Them|dropping |
*** They then temporarily incapacitate the sneaker by [[Throw the Book At Them|dropping ''his own life story'' on top of his head]]. The shelves are... rather tall. |
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** Death also has a more straight version of this; at one point he is looking for information on the Discworld's version of [[Death World|Australia]], XXXX. He walks into the library and asks for information on the dangerous animals, and is [[Rummage Fail|buried in books]]. He then changes the request to the ''non''-dangerous ones, and one sheet of paper floats down, reading [[Everything Trying to Kill You|some of the sheep]]. |
** Death also has a more straight version of this; at one point he is looking for information on the Discworld's version of [[Death World|Australia]], XXXX. He walks into the library and asks for information on the dangerous animals, and is [[Rummage Fail|buried in books]]. He then changes the request to the ''non''-dangerous ones, and one sheet of paper floats down, reading [[Everything Trying to Kill You|"some of the sheep"]]. |
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* This is [[Older Than They Think]]—there is a short story by Kurd Lasswitz, ''The Universal Library'', exploring this same idea and written in 1901, decades before Borges. |
* This is [[Older Than They Think]]—there is a short story by Kurd Lasswitz, ''The Universal Library'', exploring this same idea and written in 1901, decades before Borges. |
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* The Great Library in the ''[[Thursday Next]]'' books, which contains every book that will ever be written, and a few more besides. |
* The Great Library in the ''[[Thursday Next]]'' books, which contains every book that will ever be written, and a few more besides. |
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* The Archives of the University in ''[[The Kingkiller Chronicle|The Name of the Wind]]'' and sequels. It has no natural light, and it's so vast it's difficult to find anything, since no librarian could live long enough to implement an organization system, so there are different systems in place in different areas. It has [[The Big Board]] that marks locations in the world where teams of librarians are retrieving more books. There is one character, Puppet, who has lived in the Archives for years. There are "bad neighborhoods" of shelves with no organization whatsoever. There are secret passages that access the Archives from the undercity that was buried hundreds or thousands of years ago. |
* The Archives of the University in ''[[The Kingkiller Chronicle|The Name of the Wind]]'' and sequels. It has no natural light, and it's so vast it's difficult to find anything, since no librarian could live long enough to implement an organization system, so there are different systems in place in different areas. It has [[The Big Board]] that marks locations in the world where teams of librarians are retrieving more books. There is one character, Puppet, who has lived in the Archives for years. There are "bad neighborhoods" of shelves with no organization whatsoever. There are secret passages that access the Archives from the undercity that was buried hundreds or thousands of years ago. |
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* In Clifford Simak's "The Goblin Reservation", a crystal planet containing all the knowledge of the previous universe (the one before the last Big Bang) is offered as payment for the book's [[McGuffin]]. |
* In Clifford Simak's "The Goblin Reservation", a crystal planet containing all the knowledge of the previous universe (the one before the last Big Bang) is offered as payment for the book's [[McGuffin]]. |
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== Live Action TV == |
== Live Action TV == |
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