Science Fiction Trivia

[Disembodied]

Well, a bit of a giveaway in your question, but there's Charles Stross's Laundry novella "The Concrete Jungle", where part of the SCORPION STARE network goes live in Milton Keynes.

There's also the video game Beyond Good and Evil, where you play an investigative reporter on an alien world. Obtaining photos of alien creatures and evidence is an important part of the gameplay.

[ffutures]

Well, a bit of a giveaway in your question, but there's Charles Stross's Laundry novella "The Concrete Jungle", where part of the SCORPION STARE network goes live in Milton Keynes.

That's a slightly tricky one because the Milton Keynes example uses video cameras, but it's established in other stories that you can do the same trick with a still camera, and it's certainly very important to the Laundry universe (see especially one of the later novels, I won't say which one because spoilers).

There's also the video game Beyond Good and Evil, where you play an investigative reporter on an alien world. Obtaining photos of alien creatures and evidence is an important part of the gameplay.

Having read the wikipedia summary, that definitely qualifies.

OK - three to go!

[Milo]

I haven't seen this one, but it seems very on-point: https://www.timelapse-themovie.com/ (also a respin on https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734543/)

[Disembodied]

In William Gibson's short story "The Gernsback Continuum", the main character is a photographer hired to take pictures of the crumbling remains of 1930s futurist American architecture - and starts to find himself hallucinating elements of the Metropolis-style 1980s imagined by early SF …

[ffutures]

I haven't seen this one, but it seems very on-point: https://www.timelapse-themovie.com/ (also a respin on https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734543/)

Definitely qualifies - though you have to wonder how they can afford all that polaroid film, it's incredibly expensive now!

In William Gibson's short story "The Gernsback Continuum", the main character is a photographer hired to take pictures of the crumbling remains of 1930s futurist American architecture - and starts to find himself hallucinating elements of the Metropolis-style 1980s imagined by early SF …

OK, that's another good one - one to go!

[ffutures]

Nobody?

Small hint - a British TV series of the late 70s-early 80s had one story which revolved around photography.

[Disembodied]

Would that be "Assignment 4" of Sapphire and Steel, involving the faceless entity that lives inside photographs, and can trap people within them too?

[ffutures]

Would that be "Assignment 4" of Sapphire and Steel, involving the faceless entity that lives inside photographs, and can trap people within them too?

It would indeed - and you win the virtual coconut. Tag, you're it!

[Disembodied]

Right … I'm not personally sure how common this is, so we'll make it a list of three instead of the usual five. Name three *major characters* from any interstellar spacefaring SF book, film, TV series etc. - i.e. one where interstellar travel is possible, even common - who originally came from a pre-interstellar culture. They don't have to be the main character of their story, but they should definitely be more than one-offs or bit parts. Usual rules, only one per author/universe.

[cbr]

John Carter ...

[Disembodied]

John Carter ...

Sorry … AFAIK John Carter only travelled within the solar system. That's interplanetary, not interstellar!

[Milo]

Al Capone from The Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton.

"One of several well-known historical figures to return from the Beyond, Al Capone constructed an organisation which quickly gained control of New California. He attempted to spread to several other planets, with varying degrees of success. Capone's Organisation was most notable because he tried to force both the possessed and non-possessed to continue to work together. His tactics in expanding his sphere of control were noted by the whole of the confederation. His use of Kiera's Hellhawks allowed the continued security of his stronghold for the majority of his power."

A pre-interstellar mind in a post-interstellar possessed body counts, right?

[ffutures]

Jerry Pournelle - all of the major characters in his novel Janissaries are US Special Forces soldiers led by Captain Rick Galloway kidnapped by aliens and forced to fight on an alien planet.

Poul Anderson - The High Crusade - an alien scout ship lands in medieval Britain intending to conquer the earth; the aliens are promptly slaughtered by the local knight, Sir Roger, Baron de Tourneville, who plans to use the ship to take his entire village to fight the French then conquer the Holy Land, but ends up conquering the alien empire instead.

And one more for luck - Arthur Dent, in The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

[Disembodied]

Al Capone from The Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton. […] A pre-interstellar mind in a post-interstellar possessed body counts, right?

Definitely counts!

Jerry Pournelle - all of the major characters in his novel Janissaries are US Special Forces soldiers led by Captain Rick Galloway kidnapped by aliens and forced to fight on an alien planet.

Poul Anderson - The High Crusade - an alien scout ship lands in medieval Britain intending to conquer the earth; the aliens are promptly slaughtered by the local knight, Sir Roger, Baron de Tourneville, who plans to use the ship to take his entire village to fight the French then conquer the Holy Land, but ends up conquering the alien empire instead.

And one more for luck - Arthur Dent, in The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

More than enough! Back to you for the next round.

Obviously it's not as uncommon as I thought. The ones I came up with were Leela, from Doctor Who (although frankly almost all of the Doctor's companions could have counted); Crichton, from Farscape; and Wulf, from Strontium Dog. Can't believe I forgot Arthur Dent, though …

[ffutures]

Okay. Let's try something different. Five SF stories, films, books or whatever in which poetry, a poet, or a poem is vital to the plot. But not something that exists in a non-SF context - for example, a couple of SF novels have quoted The Ancient Mariner, but that exists in a non-SF context so I wouldn't accept it. The usual rules re only using one example from a given source / author / universe.

Poetry that exists in universe but may not be vital to the plot can be argued about.