Science Fiction Trivia

[Old Murgh]

im a field service tech so i do a lot of driving each day. plenty of time to listen. i wouldn't say they are better than reading not worse either depends on the narrator . I have had some books i had to stop listening to because they ruined the book, couldnt stand the voice or the tempo of the delivery etc.

That's very true. A poor narrator is no substitute for self-reading and only leads to irritation.

But a skilful actor who gives life and depth to characters, can supply comedic timing and controls tempo through narrative craft, that surpasses what I can do with my weary eyes. I think the excellent Steven Pacey reading Abercrombie's First Law books is a pretty good example. I recommend hitting the sample button on The Blade Itself.

I had my audiobook awakening when I discovered Stanislaw Lem's The Star Diaries chronicling the cleverly witty adventures of space traveller Ijon Tichy, It was during my delinquent youth, and I lifted a pirated narration of this book, read by a comedic genius, in voice, timing, in complete control of the stories' absurd nature, but sadly recorded on poor audiocassette quality (as found on YouTube). I have since become conscientious and keep trying to pay for it, but the only available recording is read by a dullard with no sense for the jokes, sucking the life out of the great material. Listening to them side by side reading the exact same words, it's amazing what little things make or break the experience.

[ffutures]

Sorry for the delay, it's been a busy week. Okay, since people seem to be tired of the normal "five thing" questions, and Mornington Crescent is a bit too much like hard work, let's try something that needs a little creativity.

Let's have explanations, in 100 words or less, of various science fiction topics. I'll give a few starter examples. Meaningless Bonus Points for silliness or for being misleading without actually lying. There are no wrong answers - whatever your answer is, you should also add another thing to be explained. We'll keep going until everyone gets bored or runs out of ideas. The person who suggests the topic gets to issue the Meaningless Bonus Points.

E.g., if one of my questions was "Explain the plot of On The Beach" a perfectly acceptable answer would be "There's a nuclear was and everyone dies of radiation poisoning" - it may not be the most silly or misleading explanation, so no bonus points, but it's an answer. The person who answers then sets another question to be added to the list to be answered e.g. "Explain how Star Trek's transwarp drive works." And so forth. I'm not going to worry about the same author or universe reappearing, but please set a question that relates to something different to the one you just answered - e.g. another question about nuclear war would be a poor choice after the On the Beach question.

Starter questions:
"Explain the different types of Kryptonite"
"Explain the plot of Slaughterhouse Five"
"Explain why there are Kzinti in Star Fleet Battles, a Star Trek game."
"Explain why crossing the streams is a bad idea."
"Explain the time paradoxes in the Terminator series."

Easy enough, I think (ducks hastily)

[ffutures]

OK... that evidently didn't work. Let's try a more conventional five things question. This one will hopefully be fairly easy...

I'm looking for five SF works that have a title consisting of a SINGLE word plus a NUMBER, or a NUMBER plus a SINGLE word. The word must be a word in English or another real language, and not one representing a number. The number must NOT be a volume number or similar. No two from the same universe, author, etc.

I'm prepared to accept mixed alphanumeric strings as the number, within reason, or a SINGLE word for the number.

Examples
Ralph 124C41+ - Word plus an alphanumeric string, that's fine. If you used it you couldn't use anything else by Hugo Gernsback
Slaughterhouse-Five - Word plus a number as a word, that's fine. If you used it you couldn't use anything else by Kurt Vonnegut
THX 1138 - THX isn't a real word, so no. But if it was you couldn't use anything else by George Lucas
Orbit 7 or Orbit Seven - no if it's an SF anthology in the Orbit series, yes if it's used in a different context.

Usual rules - only one entry at a time, and wait for someone else to answer before you post another answer.

You can't use any of the examples above, but you CAN use other things by the same authors etc., if you can find them.

[Disembodied]

Does it all have to be literature, or would Blake's 7 fit the bill?

[Cholmondely]

Skylark 3 (EE Doc Smith)?

[ffutures]

Does it all have to be literature, or would Blake's 7 fit the bill?

That's one. Have a Meaningless Bonus Point for getting rid of the obvious one first!

Skylark 3 (EE Doc Smith)?

And that's two - a good one because it's the name of the spaceship, and actually the SECOND book of the Skylark series. Have a MBP for that!

Three to go.

[Commander_X]

Babylon 5

Deep Space 9

[ffutures]

Babylon 5

Deep Space 9

Babylon 5 is OK, another obvious one I thought of when I set the question.

Deep Space 9 isn't. It's two words plus a number, not one. Also, what happened to only one answer at a time? Bad Commander_X, no MBPs!

Two to go!

[Old Murgh]

An obvious Fahrenheit 451?

[spud42]

Second Foundation by Asimov ??

[Disembodied]

(Quickly, before spud42 realises):

Space: 1999

[Commander_X]

[...] Bad Commander_X, no MBPs! [...]

<raises hands acknowledging the yellow card>

[Cholmondely]

But what are we supposed to do with these MBP's? ... can I give mine to Commander_X?

[ffutures]

An obvious Fahrenheit 451?

Very obvious, and absolutely correct... have a virtual cookie (I ran out of MBPs)

One to go!

[ffutures]

But what are we supposed to do with these MBP's? ... can I give mine to Commander_X?

Build a Euro MBP mountain?