pie (2013 version)

At least one of the courses you take at Harvard should end with pie.

We will make available, at the end of your exam on Dec. 12 or at a time and place to be mutually agreed, four pies. Two have already been claimed.

The other two go to the students who identify for us, via email, the highest number of these terms, all used in some work of science fiction (each line item indicates a different work). Guessing is strongly encouraged; you may append a comment or a relevant quotation from the work of science fiction if you like. We are aware that the Internet might help direct you to plausible results.

Please send in your answers, or guesses, to Stephen via email (burt at fas etc.), no later than Dec. 11; also indicate whether you are allergic to nuts, to gluten, or to anything else associated with pies, and whether there is one sort of pie you prefer. You do not need to identify them all. (If more than two of you get all the answers right, we will determine the winners at random.)

1. Wan and the Dead Men

2. Remem.

3. Mercerism, mood organs and the Voigt-Kampff test

4. Hailsham and a cassette tape by Judy Bridgewater

5. Wyoming, a computer named Mike, and a plot to throw enormous rocks at the Earth.

6. Janet, Jeannine, Joanna, Jael, and Whileaway.

7. The Navigators, the curvature of the Earth, and Frances Destaine.

8. Y.T., L. Bob Rife, and the Sumerian language

9. Geneva, Chamounix, and Professor M. Waldman

10. CalVin, Spanish Dancer, and metaphor.

11. Lorq von Ray, Illyrion, Mouse and a sensory syrinx.

12.Kemmer, and a planet whose name can mean "winter."

13. Mr. Million.

14. Caterham and extraordinarily large children.

15. Kip, the Deneb, and a raygun that vastly accelerates aging.