Interstellar MegaChef (Flavour Hackers, volume 1) By Lavanya Lakshminarayan

[james_davis_nicoll]

To escape her loathsome kin, Saras needs to win Interstellar Megachef. Two minor challenges: she is unfamiliar with interstellar cuisine and the judges despise Earthlings like Saras.

Interstellar MegaChef (Flavour Hackers, volume 1) by Lavanya Lakshminarayan

Comments

This doesn't have anything to do with the book but the setup reminded me of it

[jwgh]

A while ago, I had an idea for a game where you would play as a standup comedian who got kidnapped by aliens to participate in some kind of galaxy-wide comedy competition, and you would have to figure out what different alien races thought was funny to win the competition. In hard mode, you wouldn't understand their language (though maybe you could figure some of it out as you went on) and would just be parroting phrases, trying to get the aliens to laugh using timing, delivery, and by seeing what worked and didn't for other comedians. A lot of this would be randomized to allow for replayability.

I think I was partly inspired by insult sword fighting in Monkey Island and partly by the time that I tried to explain a pirate joke to my then boss, who is German. (The joke was: 'A pirate walks into a bar, and for some reason there's a little steering wheel sticking out of the fly in his pants. He orders a drink, and when the bartender brings it to him, the bartender says, "I know it's none of my business, but I have to ask: What's the deal with the steering wheel?" The pirate sighs and says, "Arrr, it's driving me nuts."' It turns out that this silly joke requires a lot of cultural knowledge and is completely opaque to even very good non-native speakers.)

[bolindbergh]

That one's perfectly transparent to me, and I've been learning English for less than fifty years. :-P

[kithrup]

I have read something, within the past 5 years, with a character named "Serenity ," close enough annoy me until I can figure out what it was...

[bunsen_h]

I remember having run across a book with a character whose job title was "Serenity". Details are not coming to mind.

[kithrup]

Might be the same book.

[jreynolds197]

Perhaps The Goblin Emperor? Maia was addressed as 'Serenity' instead of Majesty.

[bunsen_h]

Could be. The time frame feels right, though that "sense" is very vague, and the suggestion doesn't make my brain go "click!"

[(Anonymous)]

Various important real people have had a form of address of "Serene Highness". It seems to be the next best thing to a Majesty. I suppose that if you don't have the actual highness or the majesty, that just leaves the serenity. I believe they make do with Serenity in Thailand, as well. The other stuff, they're above that.

Robert Carnegie

[bolindbergh]

From Apple as well.

[lokifan]

On the other hand, I don’t think the UK prides itself on being tolerant and inclusive, what with the white supremist race riots and such,

Nah, we still find ways to be impressed with our tolerance of the little people.

[ba_munronoe]

When I saw the cover and saw the title, a book by Daniel Pinkwater popped into my head: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaves_of_Spiegel