Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“What’s so special about that date?” Ringier asked, uncertainly. “On that day four years ago, I attended the PDC Wallfacer Hearing, at which Luo Ji proposed using the sun to send a spell out into the universe.” The scientists and engineers glanced at each other. Fitzroy went on, “And it was right around that time that Trisolaris issued a second com

The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and bloody-mindedness. Thus it was that the sun and moon orbited the Disc because they were persuaded not to fall down, but didn’t actually fly away because of uncertainty. Charm allowed trees to grow and bloody-

But the scientific men do muddle their heads, until they imagine a necessary mental connection between an apple leaving the tree and an apple reaching the ground. They do really talk as if they had found not only a set of marvellous facts, but a truth connecting those facts. They do talk as if the connection of two strange things physically connect

‘On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.’