There was a writer from Tulsa, Oklahoma (he died in 2002), who was, for a little while in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the best short story writer in the world. His name was R. A. Lafferty, and his stories were unclassifiable and odd and inimitable — you knew you were reading a Lafferty story within a sentence. When I was young I wrote to him, and he wrote back.
— Neil Gaiman
It’s hilarious, incredibly funny and at the same time it’s insanely dark. You get the feeling like it’s a guy just writing to amuse himself: “I don’t care if any of this makes sense, but I want to see weird stuff happen.” One of his stories starts off, “He began by breaking things that morning.” There’s a short story called “Ginny Wrapped in the Sun,” and it’s just about this little girl who’s super strong, running around, picking things up. You get such a sense of joy and boundless imagination in every sentence – even if the story doesn’t totally cohere, you feel like it’s about something.
- Bill Hader
This is a puzzle cache with two steps so you will need to solve the first puzzle below to find the location with the information to solve the second puzzle and then the cache. Along the way I hope you are able to learn a little something about R.A. Lafferty, an Oklahoman author that really needs more of a spotlight shown on his works. I first heard of him when attending a talk by another author, Neil Gaiman, and after hearing the high level of praise he had for Lafferty, I have been reading and collecting his works ever since. They are the definition of unique and often hurt your head, but they are brilliant.
STAGE 1 = N36 AB.CDE W097 FG.HIJ
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A = Year the "The Devil is Dead" is published; 4th digit
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B =Year his first science fiction story "Day of the Glacier" is published; 3rd digit
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C =Year his first story is published in the "New Mexico Quarterly Review"; 3rd digit
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D =Number of Nebula Award nominations
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E =Age when he moved to Perry, OK
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F =Year he was awarded the Phoenix Lifetime Achievement Award from DeepSouth Con; 4th digit
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G =Year "Space Chantey" was published; 4th digit
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H =Year he won the World Fantasy Award's lifetime achievement award; 4th digit
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I =Year he started night school at the University of Tulsa; 2nd digit
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J =Number of Hugo Award nominations
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.
Use information found at the coordinates to stage one to solve the below puzzle and find the cache
FINAL STAGE = N36 16.ABC W097 18.DE
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A =Number of letters in the 1st two words
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B =4th number((treat all numbers as single, individual numbers)(top to bottom/left to right))
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C =Total words on the first three lines
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D =Next to last number
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E =3rd and 4th numbers
Please take some time to read the short stories linked to each of the two pictures below. These are some of Lafferty's more well known works and I hope you enjoy them.
