Saturday Trivia - On Friday

I'm away for the weekeend, so there's no Saturday Trivia on Saturday - but there are a couple of non-mainstream items so here they are today instead:

What if Tutankhamun was alive today?
Earthtimes.org

What if Tutankhamun -- better known as King Tut -- was alive today, cloned from strands of DNA? The child pharaoh from ancient Egypt whose 3,300-year-old teenage face was briefly bared to the world last week would certainly face a totally different world than the one he knew.

Author Andrea Kail asked and answered that question in her winning short story, "The Sun God at Dawn, Rising from a Lotus Blossom," published in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume XXIII (Galaxy Press, 2007). The anthology includes winning short stories contributed by new and fledgling authors to the writing contest -- Writers of the Future -- now in its 23rd year.

"The genesis of my story was the picture of a 2005 reconstruction made from a CAT scan of Tutankhamun's mummy," Kail said. "He looks so alive and so sad in that picture that it really brought home to me that this was a real person."

"I began to wonder what would happen to a young ruler emotionally if he found himself alive today," Kail added. "Would he develop an inferiority complex when compared to other world leaders . . . would he be able to deal with an Egypt no longer at the center of power in the Middle East, let alone the world?"

Pauline Gedge Interview
CBC Radio

Pauline Gedge is the award-winning and bestselling author of eleven novels, eight of which are inspired by Egyptian history. Her first book, Child of the Morning, won the Alberta Search-for-a-New Novelist Competition. The Eagle and the Raven received the Jean Boujassy award from the Société des Gens des Lettres in France and The Twelfth Transforming won the Writers Guild of Alberta Best Novel of the Year Award. Her books have sold more than 250,000 copies in Canada alone; worldwide, they have sold more than six million copies and have been translated into eighteen languages. The Twice Born is her newest book and is published by Penguin Canada. She lives in Alberta.

PopCap’s SpinTop Launches New Puzzle Game
Northwest Innovation

Vancouver, B.C.-based casual computer game developer SpinTop Games announced Monday that it has released a new puzzle game with an Egyptian theme. SpinTop said the new title, called "Amazing Adventures The Lost Tomb," requires players to locate more than 2,000 objects hidden throughout more than 100 levels spanning numerous Egyptian landmarks and locations, including the Nile River and the Great Pyramid of Giza. SpinTop said Amazing Adventures will retail for $19.95, adding that a free trial is available for download at both PopCap and SpinTop web sites. SpinTop was acquired by Seattle-based computer game develop PopCap Games in July.