Science Fiction Trivia

[RyanHoots]

You'd better start a poll... in my opinion, it's probably the Lensman series.

Close, but no cigar!

So, I assume it's the first, in your opinion (or Google's).

[JazHaz]

Lets make it clearer. Who is considered by many to be the father of the space opera, and what was the title of his first book in this genre?

[Smivs]

Might it be Doc's 'Skylark' series then?

[JazHaz]

Correct, back to you!

EDIT: The full answer is E. E. 'Doc' Smith's The Skylark of Space.

Read the first paragraph in the above link.

EDIT 2: The series also has an item of technology called an "object-compass", which I think might be the origin of the space compass we use in Oolite!

[Smivs]

An Indian Love Call proved to be surprisingly lethal in which Movie?

[Disembodied]

An Indian Love Call proved to be surprisingly lethal in which Movie?

Mars Attacks!

[Smivs]

They're falling fast today!
Absolutely right, and back to you

[Cody]

Welcome to the 'one minute answer' club, D!

[Disembodied]

OK, maybe this will slow things down a bit ... name the author and novel:

A bureaucrat visits a backwards, backwater planet, hunting a smuggler who's brought in prohibited advanced technology. Just to complicate things further, the planet is on the brink of a once-every-two-centuries calamity ...

[Disembodied]

Just to add: the novel won a major SF award when it came out, so it's not that obscure ...

[DaddyHoggy]

You'd better start a poll... in my opinion, it's probably the Lensman series.

That's what I wanted to say, which is why I asked. And when I saw the close but no cigar, it had to be Skylark instead, but of course, by the time I went to answer, there'd be an answer and two more questions!!!

[Disembodied]

Clue time: the book was published, and won its award, in the early 1990s.

[Selezen]

Not sure on publication of this, but it all sounds damn close to the Pern universe.

I'm gonna clutch at a straw and say Dragonsdawn, by Anne McCaffrey.

[Disembodied]

Nope, not Anne McCaffrey. This book is significantly darker than her work. The author has written novels (not this one) with dragons in them, mind you, where the dragons form ... attachments to human riders – but it's a very different take on things from the Pern novels.

[Zieman]

Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick?