Science Fiction Trivia

[Selezen]

Yeah, Mac, you were right. Too damn easy...

Not a clue on your one... Don't wanna resort to google again.

[Commander McLane]

Good to know that I gave some people something to do over the weekend!

@ DH: It's not Heinlein or Herbert.

@ EV: It's not Solaris.

Another hint: There is another story-in-the-story, but as a kind of holodeck projection instead of a book. It is about two Spanish conquistadores and their quest for a hidden gold treasure. They fail to get it. Which leads my to another way to sum up the theme: Both the main story of the novel and all small stories-within-the-story are about the hunt for something (gold, a strange artefact, contact to an extra-terrestrial intelligence), and how forcing the success of the mission (inevitably?) leads to disastrous results, even the complete destruction of the thing that was hunted in the first place. Hence the titel of the whole novel.

Perhaps that gives you something more to chew on? And it still isn't googable.

However, if you want to use this last resort, you can highlight my final hint below:

<fun with Google>
The whole chain of events begins in Birnam Wood. (No, it's not Shakespeare.)
</fun with Google>

[Disembodied]

OK, I've got it, I think – although I had to resort to Google and your final clue: is it Fiasco by Stanislaw Lem?

[Commander McLane]

Yes, right about the novel and its author.

But that wasn't the actual question.

I am looking for a book-in-a-book. During a journey to a distant star one of the protagonists reads a couple of pages from a (ficticious, I think) old SF-novel, and we get to read it with him. The novel tells the tale of an explorer who enters the vast kingdom of the termites somewhere in central Africa. It is a huge area behind the rainforest, covered by thousands and thousands of termite mounds. Nothing except billions over billions of termites can live there. After days of struggle and fight with the aggrevated termites, killing millions of them, he finally reaches the centre of their kingdom, one oddly shaped and coloured mound. He manages to blast through the strange material and finds what the termites are protecting so fiercly.

Three questions:

1) What does he find?
2) His find has a strange power, as he painfully finds out when he takes it with him to Europe. Which?
3) What has happened to his find when we leave the story and return to its reader in the starship?

[Disembodied]

Tsk. Let's see ...

1. "... a perfect sphere, of a heavy substance that was transparent, like glass, but having a much higher index of refraction."

2. It attracts insects of all kinds.

3. It's disappeared from inside a locked safe.

Now I have to find a copy of the book, of course, and read all of it ...

[Commander McLane]

Tsk. Let's see ...

1. "... a perfect sphere, of a heavy substance that was transparent, like glass, but having a much higher index of refraction."

2. It attracts insects of all kinds.

3. It's disappeared from inside a locked safe.

Now I have to find a copy of the book, of course, and read all of it ...

I can highly advise that. But OTOH, as you already seem to have come across the downloadable PDF version, you could as well start with reading that one.

Oh: and correct on all three questions. By the way: Since I first read Fiasco I found this little short story even more intriguing than the "big" story. Perhaps an early sign of an affinity to Africa? Don't know.

And now for something completely different: A LARCH. (Or a least a new challenge by the brain in a jar.)

[Disembodied]

I don't mind reading short stories on a screen but I draw the line at reading a whole novel. I'd prefer to find a physical copy anyhow!

Anyway, here's my question: how, exactly, do you get from the TARDIS control room to the wardrobes?

[allikat]

Anyway, here's my question: how, exactly, do you get from the TARDIS control room to the wardrobes?

You walk off the set, through the double doors, down the hall, take the double doors on your right, up the stairs one floor, and it's down the hall on your left

[DaddyHoggy]

I don't mind reading short stories on a screen but I draw the line at reading a whole novel. I'd prefer to find a physical copy anyhow!

Anyway, here's my question: how, exactly, do you get from the TARDIS control room to the wardrobes?

Hmmmm, this has a strangely familar quality about it - I only recall the wardrobes featuring once - I think it might have been Colin Baker's Doctor - didn't he wrap Tom Baker's long scarf around his neck at one point...

Good question!

[Disembodied]

I'll give you a clue: precise directions are given in one episode from the relaunched series (i.e. from Christopher Ecclestone onwards).

@ Allikat: apart from walking off the set, you're really quite close!

[Chrisfs]

The interior of the tardis is configurable in layout and size (in one Peter Davidson episode, they had to jettison some rooms for a reason),
so the answer could change over time.

oh and Yeah for Steve Moffett as Head Writer!
can't wait for new series.

[Disembodied]

I suppose this is true, and what with the space-Titanic smashing into the hull and all the rest of the general wear and tear, those directions could be redundant now ... so I'll rephrase the question:

How, using the most up-to-date information available, do you get from the TARDIS control room to the wardrobes?

And Steven "Nightmare Fuel" Moffat ... should be good. A whole new generation of psychologically damaged children, courtesy of the BBC ...

[Selezen]

First left, second right, third on the left, go straight ahead, under the stairs, past the bins, fifth door on your left.

Thanks to my son's DVD collection for supplying the answer!! (The Unquiet Dead)

[Disembodied]

First left, second right, third on the left, go straight ahead, under the stairs, past the bins, fifth door on your left.

Give the man a coconut! Selezen gets his pick of the costumes and can ask the next question ...

[Selezen]

Oh poo, now I gotta think of another one?

Right. OK... Something suitably obscure, maybe...

Name the book series this comes from:

"When the giant Colonial VIII ship Venturer lifted off from Miami in May 2219 its occupants and Terra Control looked forward to an uneventful though long voyage..."