Daily puzzles/problems.

[billl]

With italics and bolding, I think I've shown how Deadeye Dick is a tantalizing candidate, particularly if we are ready to stretch things a bit here and there, going on my decades-old memory of the book:

**SPOILERS for the novel, Deadeye Dick SPOILERS**

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- by Phlip K. Dick
Four Quartets -- Dick kills someone inside of someone he kills (mother and foetus), much as four is embedded in quartets or something...
Mr Balcony -- strange name for a person, maybe a nickname?
Necronomicon -- Necro = dead
One Way Pendulum
The Cop and the Anthem -- Dick = detective
The Coral Island -- Haiti is an island
The Gift of the Magi -- an unlucky gift. i.e. his shooting ability
The Great Gatsby
The Meaning of Meaning -- in a meta sort of way, I think part of the protagonist's story turns into scripts that he has written or something
The Waste Land -- neutron bomb
The House at Pooh Corner
Tulips and Chimneys

Finally, in regards to the last two clues, I can't remember how the bullet got to its victim(s), but maybe it involved a window (Pooh stuck in the window?) or a chimney...?

[MarkBastable]

Er, no - though it pains me to say so, given the ingenuity of your response, and Jack's too.

You don't need to know anything about the novel in question to get to the answer.

With italics and bolding, I think I've shown how Deadeye Dick is a tantalizing candidate, particularly if we are ready to stretch things a bit here and there, going on my decades-old memory of the book:

**SPOILERS for the novel, Deadeye Dick SPOILERS**

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- by Phlip K. Dick
Four Quartets -- Dick kills someone inside of someone he kills (mother and foetus), much as four is embedded in quartets or something...
Mr Balcony -- strange name for a person, maybe a nickname?
Necronomicon -- Necro = dead
One Way Pendulum
The Cop and the Anthem -- Dick = detective
The Coral Island -- Haiti is an island
The Gift of the Magi -- an unlucky gift. i.e. his shooting ability
The Great Gatsby
The Meaning of Meaning -- in a meta sort of way, I think part of the protagonist's story turns into scripts that he has written or something
The Waste Land -- neutron bomb
The House at Pooh Corner
Tulips and Chimneys

Finally, in regards to the last two clues, I can't remember how the bullet got to its victim(s), but maybe it involved a window (Pooh stuck in the window?) or a chimney...?

[prendrelemick]

At the moment its a case of "pearls before swine."

[Jack of Hearts]

Yeah. This one's a toughie.









J

[billl]

I might be on the verge of solving this (or at least feel closer than in my first guess, which was, despite my initial enthusiasm, sort of a B.S. attempt).

[Jack of Hearts]

It was funny, though.


It's up to you guys. No idea here.









J

[billl]

Well, I just spent a lot of time on something that didn't work out.

@Mark, Here's a question to put my mind at ease, though: Many of Vonnegut's titles have "extended versions", and so, for example, do we need to consider "Slaughterhouse-Five" as being possibly also known as "Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death"? Or should we just be looking at the titles we'd typically see on the front cover in largest print (e.g. "Slapstick", "Slaughterhouse-Five")?

[Scheherazade]

To the title of which Kurt Vonnegut novel might the following lead you?

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Four Quartets
Mr Balcony
Necronomicon
One Way Pendulum
The Cop and the Anthem
The Coral Island
The Gift of the Magi
The Great Gatsby
The Meaning of Meaning
The Waste Land
The House at Pooh Corner
Tulips and Chimneys

You have given the titles in alphabetical order (taking "the" into account as well)... Are we supposed to rearrange them or their authors (the initial letters of their names, for example) some how to get to the answer?

[billl]

Um,

My crazy theory I was working on has me thinking that the answer might be "Deadeye Dick", because of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Deadeye,_or_Duty_Done

an animated cartoon based on (best I can tell) a character from Gilbert & Sullivan's musicals (that would be W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan), in particular the musical called H.M.S. Pinafore.

[MarkBastable]

You have given the titles in alphabetical order (taking "the" into account as well)... Are we supposed to rearrange them or their authors (the initial letters of their names, for example) some how to get to the answer?

Along the right lines. The authors of the listed works have something in common.

[Jack of Hearts]

They all have at least one initial in their nom de plume, well at least the ones that this reader knows... (A.A. Milne, T.S. Elliot, Phillip K. Dick, etc.).







J

[billl]

I was thinking that the librettist W.S. Gilbert might be the missing member of such a list, his inclusion providing a link to the Vonnegut novel Deadeye Dick via the character 'Dick Deadeye' from H.M.S. Pinafore...

Originally, I was looking for other authors who shared book titles with titles of Vonnegut books, hoping that one would have initials in his/her name, but this was as close as I got (besides the obscure mystery writer Jo A. Hiestand, author of "Pearls Before Swine")

[prendrelemick]

They all have at least one initial in their nom de plume, well at least the ones that this reader knows... (A.A. Milne, T.S. Elliot, Phillip K. Dick, etc.).







J

I was looking at that, but there are some exceptions - O Henry and Hillary Putnam.

[MarkBastable]

I was looking at that, but there are some exceptions - O Henry and Hillary Putnam.

It was during these New Orleans days that I adopted my pen name of O. Henry. I said to a friend: "I'm going to send out some stuff. I don't know if it amounts to much, so I want to get a literary alias. Help me pick out a good one." He suggested that we get a newspaper and pick a name from the first list of notables that we found in it. In the society columns we found the account of a fashionable ball. "Here we have our notables," said he. We looked down the list and my eye lighted on the name Henry, "That'll do for a last name," said I. "Now for a first name. I want something short. None of your three-syllable names for me." "Why don’t you use a plain initial letter, then?" asked my friend. "Good," said I, "O is about the easiest letter written, and O it is."


I've never heard of Hilary Puttnam.

[Jack of Hearts]

That's either a huge clue or a cruel misdirect.







J