Science Fiction Trivia

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RockDoctor
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Re: Science Fiction Trivia

Post by RockDoctor »

spud42 wrote: Tue Dec 12, 2023 1:00 pm
listening to the audiobooks of the EON series by Greg Bear, they have "the way" that seems to be endless and moving down they have opened access to other worlds possibly different timelines/universes.

give me 5 instances of travel to other worlds/times using some device,gate,tunnel to instant travel far from earth or even into the far past... HG wells time machine is not really what i am looking for more of a door you can step/drive /fly through...

i should make it more than 5 cause i can think of so many right now..
Having checked that I've got a couple of ideas in my "notes", I'll bite.
- In Harry Harrison's "The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World", Slippery Jim diGriz uses several instances of a time machine described loosely as a coiled-up force field, with a handle on the end ; hold the handle when the field unwinds and you get thrown through time and space.
- the "Rainbow Mars" short story collection from Larry Niven is all about Svetz, the main protagonist, being sent off into time/ space/ universes to collect things for the SecGen's museum/ zoo - a tyrannosaur ; a unicorn ... (I've forgotten the nature of the machine - I think it changed between stories).
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Re: Science Fiction Trivia

Post by spud42 »

ok i will give you number 5.

a few of the ones i thought of..
Heinlein Tunnel in the sky
60's or 70 tv... time tunnel
current the expanse

over to you sir.
Arthur: OK. Leave this to me. I'm British. I know how to queue.
OR i could go with
Arthur Dent: I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe.
or simply
42
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Re: Science Fiction Trivia

Post by ffutures »

There was also a 1965 Poul Anderson novel, The Corridors of Time, which had literal tunnels going to the past and future with "gates" a few months wide opening every few years if you knew how to enter them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corridors_of_Time
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Re: Science Fiction Trivia

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spud42 wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2023 1:24 pm
over to you sir.
OK. Usual rules of five answers, no repeats of universe, but one author who is operating in multiple universes is OK (sitting MPs excepted - they're meant to have some contact with reality).
Let's try this one : Five terrestrial, fictitious, nuclear power plants which have gone "bang", MBPs for ones that have been rebuilt at least once.
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Re: Science Fiction Trivia

Post by ffutures »

If a meltdown counts:

Turnmill Nuclear Power Station near Cardiff, in Torchwood. Partial meltdown triggered by time travellers, damage limited by the actions of two Torchwood agents who are both killed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_Wounds_(Torchwood)

https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Exit_Wounds_(TV_story)

There are others in the Dr. Who / Torchwood universe, I was reminded of this one while looking up one of the others.
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Re: Science Fiction Trivia

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ffutures wrote: Fri Dec 15, 2023 7:23 pm
Turnmill Nuclear Power Station near Cardiff, in Torchwood. Partial meltdown triggered by time travellers, damage limited by the actions of two Torchwood agents who are both killed.
Oh, I'd forgotten about that one. Yes, I'll accept a (partial) meltdown. The plant is sufficiently out of control by then that avoiding an explosion is luck, not judgement (witness Fukushima, where an explosion of the pressure vessel was avoided, but other, significantly damaging explosions did happen.
[Mutters : where's my Torchwood collection?]
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Re: Science Fiction Trivia

Post by RockDoctor »

ffutures wrote: Fri Dec 15, 2023 7:23 pm
Turnmill Nuclear Power Station near Cardiff, in Torchwood.
There is at least one other described by a Good Doctor, but not one of those doctors. This one held his doctorate of right.
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Re: Science Fiction Trivia

Post by RockDoctor »

Wait ... hang on ... It's been a while since I watched any of those. But ... the morgue drawer in which Jack surfaces (is re-buried) after nearly 2000 years buried in Cardiff is bottom-row, second from the right. Which is the one in which several episodes earlier, Suzy woke up for her second killing spree. Wasn't it.
I mean, wobbly sets and near-London gravel pits are pretty traditional for Doctor Seven and Blake's Who ... but do they think people won't notice?
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Re: Science Fiction Trivia

Post by RockDoctor »

RockDoctor wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2023 12:10 pm
ffutures wrote: Fri Dec 15, 2023 7:23 pm
Turnmill Nuclear Power Station near Cardiff, in Torchwood.
There is at least one other described by a Good Doctor, but not one of those doctors. This one held his doctorate of right.
Any takers on this clue? With hundreds of titles to his name, he's a good author to cross off the list of universes.
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Re: Science Fiction Trivia

Post by Cholmondely »

RockDoctor wrote: Tue Dec 19, 2023 3:13 pm
RockDoctor wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2023 12:10 pm
ffutures wrote: Fri Dec 15, 2023 7:23 pm
Turnmill Nuclear Power Station near Cardiff, in Torchwood.
There is at least one other described by a Good Doctor, but not one of those doctors. This one held his doctorate of right.
Any takers on this clue? With hundreds of titles to his name, he's a good author to cross off the list of universes.
I presume that it has to be Dr Isaac Asimov. No idea about the book, though!
Comments wanted:
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Re: Science Fiction Trivia

Post by RockDoctor »

Cholmondely wrote: Tue Dec 19, 2023 4:51 pm
RockDoctor wrote: Tue Dec 19, 2023 3:13 pm
RockDoctor wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2023 12:10 pm

There is at least one other described by a Good Doctor, but not one of those doctors. This one held his doctorate of right.
Any takers on this clue? With hundreds of titles to his name, he's a good author to cross off the list of universes.
I presume that it has to be Dr Isaac Asimov. No idea about the book, though!
Correct Doctor. It was very much an event "off stage", but clearly mentioned. Quite important in the arc of the storyline though.

Any other suggestions for fictional nuclear plant explosions? This seems to be harder than I'd expected.
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Re: Science Fiction Trivia

Post by Disembodied »

Does a fictional disaster at a non-fictional reactor count? Michael Swanwick's 1985 debut novel In The Drift is set in and around Philadelphia in the aftermath of a fictional full-scale meltdown at the entirely real Three Mile Island nuclear reactor.
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Re: Science Fiction Trivia

Post by ffutures »

Another one I found by accident - I thought I remembered a Superman story with an atomic-fuelled villain created by a reactor accident - couldn't find that, but did find Pozharnov, a small, abandoned city in Russia evacuated after a 1987 meltdown and later used as an alien base for an invasion of Earth. Appeared in comics and in the dire Justice League film.

https://dcextendeduniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Pozharnov

Sorry, still no exploding reactors!
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Re: Science Fiction Trivia

Post by Nite Owl »

Once again, the lowest hanging fruit possible.

THE CHINA SYNDROME

Although it was a fairly good movie.
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Re: Science Fiction Trivia

Post by RockDoctor »

Disembodied wrote: Wed Dec 20, 2023 5:37 pm
Does a fictional disaster at a non-fictional reactor count? Michael Swanwick's 1985 debut novel In The Drift is set in and around Philadelphia in the aftermath of a fictional full-scale meltdown at the entirely real Three Mile Island nuclear reactor.
  • Answer #1 was ffutures with the Torchwood boy, girls, and everything in between and exterior doing Cardiff. (For some reason I almost wrote "Glasgow" there ; but the Weevils getting kicked about on Saturday Night Sauchiehall Street would have been a bit un-BBC.)
  • Disembodied has #2 with Swanrick/ Drift/ Philly-TMI.
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