Science Fiction Trivia

[Malacandra]

Star Trek had plenty, beginning with the very first episode aired, "The Man Trap" - the salt vampire that looked either like Nancy or Dr McCoy or someone else according to need and was only seen in its true form right at the end when it was trying to murder Jim Kirk.

[Disembodied]

Star Trek: TOS's salt-sucker makes four … let's rule out any more Trek shapeshifters for now though. It's a very tempting trope for TV - probably because it's cheap, and because the actors and scriptwriters can have fun with it.

Lots more TV shapeshifters, I'm sure - they will be accepted but bonus points will be awarded for any examples from literature …

[Cody]

... bonus points will be awarded for any examples from literature...

Dim memories stir - something in The Silver Locusts (aka The Martian Chronicles)?

[Disembodied]

Dim memories stir - something in The Silver Locusts (aka The Martian Chronicles)?

I'll give it to you - there is a shapeshifting Martian in the story "The Martian", in The Martian Chronicles. Another literary example could be the Piurivar in Robert Silverberg's Majipoor books. Or the Changers, from Iain M. Banks's Consider Phlebas.

Over to you! With bonus points added.

[Cody]

Damn, should've remembered the Consider Phlebas example.


Being incapable of thinking-up questions lately, I'll cede to spud - he put up three, and I'm happy with the bonus points!

[spud42]

thanks Cody,

well a few weeks ago i had a nice question lined up but now i forgot it... so...

what book am i reading ? two clues. guild and 50-50

bonus Karma for explaining what the clues mean

[spud42]

clue, book written in 2015. getting a 3.97/5 rating at goodreads.......

what the character has to do is definitely not legal...

leave a few more days for another hint or 2...

[Disembodied]

Is it Rath's Deception, by Piers Platt? There's an assassin's guild, and they offer "50-50" employment deals: make 50 hits, and retire with 50% of the money from the contracts.

[spud42]

absolutely correct! and bonus Karma too... lol

the Tipper is all yours... treat her well..

[Disembodied]

OK, name the author and book (the first in a series): a young soldier teams up with the mind of an undead traitor general to fight against heretics who – the gravest of all sins – are using a different calendar.

[Disembodied]

A clue: it's part of a trilogy, and it's recent. So recent, in fact, that the third volume isn't published yet, despite the author putting out one book a year.

[Disembodied]

The obsession with the calendar isn't trivial. In this fictional universe, control of the calendar, and of ceremonies performed simultaneously across worlds, affects technology: weapons and defences - even starships - will or won't work, depending on the calendrical mathematics.

[Disembodied]

The novel picked up several nominations for big awards, and won one of them …

[Gimbal Locke]

Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee - trilogy: Machineries of Empire.

( My previous post here was in 2012? Time flies... )

[Disembodied]

Gimbal Locke nails it! Over to you …