Science Fiction Trivia

[another_commander]

Is it absolutely necessary to wait for the last person who answered to put forth the next question? Can't someone just step in and do it if the last one to answer has been absent for a long time?

[Rorschachhamster]

Oh man, I'm sorry, more of a lurker, lately and this was outside my scanner range, I'm afraid.

Ok, an easy one (maybe?): Which universe of stories starts with the words "It's hard to be a larva.", even though it's not in the first book?

[Cody]

Can't someone just step in and do it if the last one to answer has been absent for a long time?

That'd be like jumping the queue! Shocked, I am! <grins> It has happened before, and when we judge the time is right, we do step in.

[spud42]

fortunately a question has appeared in the nick of time preventing the need for any queue jumping shenanigans!! close call that...

the question seems familiar but i cant think where ...... somebody??

[Disembodied]

Ok, an easy one (maybe?): Which universe of stories starts with the words "It's hard to be a larva.", even though it's not in the first book?

Is it from Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth series?

[Rorschachhamster]

Is it from Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth series?

Yes! You know the book? Hint: It's technically the first humanx book. For reasons.

[Disembodied]

Presumably it's from Nor Crystal Tears?

[Rorschachhamster]

Presumably it's from Nor Crystal Tears?

Correct! You win. Loved that book as a kid. And it's about the first contact between humans and thranx, so it is per definition the first book of the humanx commonwealth...

[Disembodied]

“Alcohol in the dust clouds. Goddamn stuff is everywhere. Any lousy species ever invents the telescope and the spectroscope and starts looking in between the stars, what do they find?” He knocked the glass on the table. “Loads of stuff, but much of it alcohol.” He drank from the glass. “Humanoids are the galaxy’s way of trying to get rid of all that alcohol.”

—Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons

Name the SF sources of the following licensed establishments:

1) Quark's
2) Milliways
3) The Hip Joint
4) The Gentleman Loser

[ffutures]

I know the first two and I think the third. Should I wait to see if someone knows all four?

[Cody]

Go for it - you know three, google the fourth.

[ffutures]

1: Star Trek - Deep Space 9
2: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams or HHG radio series
3: Futurama
4: Had to google this since it's a LONG time since I read the book: Burning Chrome by William Gibson

[Disembodied]

Correct! The Gentleman Loser is a location in Gibson's Neuromancer, too (in fact that was the one I was thinking of - but you're right, the bar first appears in "Burning Chrome").

Over to you …

[ffutures]

OK - REALLY hoping this is an easy one...

In an SF film made in the last decade, whose famous last words were allegedly inspired by verses recited by Kamikaze pilots?

[ffutures]

Hint 1: Plastic Dinosaurs