
Meet Crazy Eddie
What, actually - not who.
Crazy Eddie is a cultural concept in the Motie civilization – an individual that thinks he can fix the main problem of the Motie race, which is repeated internal war and social collapse.
The Moties and Crazy Eddie are part of a book called “The Mote in God’s Eye”, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, which describes one of the most believable alian civilizations in Sci-Fi. Crazy Eddie is the iconic term that the Moties translators gave to their concept of someone who believes in a futile attempt to avert an unavoidable catastrophe. [Amazon]
Crazy Eddie is generic in the same way that Don Quixote or Robin Hood are generic – one can “act like a Crazy Eddie”, or “go Crazy Eddie”. A Crazy Eddie would be trying to build a Space Elevator – The Crazy Eddie Rope.
According to Motie culture, while Crazy Eddies sometimes successfully follow through with their plans, they inevitably fail to save the Motive race from another collapse.
Crazy Eddies are of course nothing more than fiction.
(Side note - The book was first published in March 1, 1991. That same year, the “Crazy Eddie” consumer electronics store forever made its mark on American culture with its insaaaane commercials. Was Eddie Antar a Larry Niven fan? Many have wondered. Regrettably, a movie based on the life of Eddy Anter is apparently in the works, but no word yet on a movie version of The Mote.)






For the obvious reasons, I invariably get too busy to blog exactly when things get interesting...