Dragaera

[spoiler?]lights going out

Wed May 17 14:29:23 PDT 2006

On Tue, 16 May 2006, Philip Hart wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, 16 May 2006, Michele Riccio wrote:
>
> > On 16 May 2006 at 15:12, Kenneth Gorelick wrote
> >
> > > >> In fact, the very purpose of the Cycle might be to set up that
> > > >> joke, and when somebody tells it the small invisible lights will,
> > > >> without any fuss, go out.
> > > >>
> > > >>
> > > > Only if it is told 9 billion times, with 9 billion variations.
> > > >
> > > > Snarkhunter
> > > And I thought no other living person had read that one...
> >
> > Were we not supposed to get the reference?
>
>
> I assumed people would recognize the premise and last sentence of
> one of the classic SF stories (freely available on the web,
> incidentally, but no link since I'm not sure about the copyright
> status).

Is this referring to the short story about [begin vague recognition] a man
who sells automating equipment to monks spelling out the names of god,
after which the stars start going out?