Hi all, first post.

Firstly; Steven, if you see this, really enjoying the book so far, only 80 or so pages in, so plenty more to look forward to!

I decided to see if I could find some reason for the Ludovician having the name that it does. A google search gives as it's first result a wikipedia entry on 'cyclic history', 'a theory which dictates that the major forces that motivate human actions return in a cycle.' I thought this kind of made sense, with the actions of the Second(?) Eric Sanderson being influenced by the letters from the First, and the Ludovician picking up on this. Anybody else got any thoughts on this?

Weirdly, there is no reference to 'ludovician' on the wikipedia entry, and a search for 'ludovician' within wikipedia only returns a link to the page on Steven Hall, not to the Cylic History page. Strange...

Pandaaka

Good spot LeaBee! The de la Hire thing looks interesting. Looks like the Ludovician Tables may have been a log of the motions of the sun, moon, and planets, something that Eric considers himself early on, at the beginning of chapter 3.

Or could the Ludovician be named after Ludovic Zamenhof, who invented Esperanto, and apparently was a great word-lover. Sounds believable to me, considering it's nature (or what I know of it so far). To tie into the above, Zamenhof has a minor planet named after him. Tenuous I know :? ...

Ordovician (Emphasis on the marine fauna.) + Ludovico Technique (Thank you Hello?) = Ludovician.

just finished watching Clockwork Orange with my class, and discovered the Ludovico technique is the torture technique used to turn the violent kid into a non-violent kid. perhaps this has already been discussed elsewhere on the forum, although a search brought up only this one post.

He(Pope Paschal I) entered into relations with Emperor Louis, sending him several ambassadors in rapid succession. In 817 he received from the emperor a document, "Pactum Ludovicianum", confirming the rights and possessions of the Holy See(sea).

I know it probably isn't a link whatsoever but I thought that the Holy See/Holy Sea thing was funny.

Found here.

---

And there it was, full of everything and overwhelming nothingness.
Leo went on, a false idea resting in a candy wrapper of societal perfection.

He had no idea what it meant to see, what it meant to know.

And there was no way for me to un-know. No way for me to un-see. No way I could ever shield myself in one of those brightly colored candy wrappers of pretend ignorance.

I think I wanted it that way, to be like Leo, but I knew that would never happen.

~A snippet of things to come.

Hi have just finished the book and now am obsessed! Put in ludovician in google it came up with the plant name artemisia ludoviciana which is a silver grey coloured plant and grows in dry coastal locations. I was wondering how this could connect with the shark. All I could think of was the colour and where it would grow-possibly naxos???
Then I was looking back through the book and came to the page of darwin text with 'plant' written all the way through it!
I don't know if this means anything and is probably obvious but I was thought I was being clever so had to write in!!!