Oolite Bulletins

Aha! So I added some thorium to the google mix, and I got Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet, by the unlikely-sounding "Blake Savage" … the novel was also published as Assignment in Space with Rip Foster and Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet.

Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet is a young adult science fiction novel written by Harold L. Goodwin under the pseudonym Blake Savage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_Foste ... ray_Planet

that last clue got it over the line..... spent many googles without success until this...lol

damn ninja'd by Big D

And that's it all right. The text is free to download and it's by no means contemptible. Well done, and over to you.

OK: what links the first offworld Doctor Who story ever broadcast, and a fairground ride?

I think this was the first time we met the Daleks, on Skaro, and the only possible fairground connection I can think of is that they are a bit like Dodgems!
If I'm wrong, feel free to EXTERMINATE!

Smivs wrote: ↑Sat Feb 04, 2017 3:03 pm

I think this was the first time we met the Daleks, on Skaro, and the only possible fairground connection I can think of is that they are a bit like Dodgems!
If I'm wrong, feel free to EXTERMINATE!

Very much like - purely from memory* here, they were moved by electrified floors.

*Of having read about it. I personally was a very small boy when Doctor Who hit the screens.

Smivs wrote: ↑Sat Feb 04, 2017 3:03 pm

I think this was the first time we met the Daleks, on Skaro, and the only possible fairground connection I can think of is that they are a bit like Dodgems!
If I'm wrong, feel free to EXTERMINATE!

Smivs wins! It is indeed dodgems:

‘Let’s concentrate on the Daleks. Have you noticed, for example, that when they move about there’s a sort of acrid smell?’

‘Yes, yes, I’ve noticed that.’

‘I know – a fairground.’

‘That’s it. Dodgems.’

‘It’s electricity. I think they’re powered that way … I believe the Daleks have discovered a way to exploit static electricity. Very ingenious, if I’m right.’

https://www.scifinow.co.uk/books/simon- ... mell-like/

Which Sci-Fi film, based on three novelettes by Raymond F. Jones, features one of Howard Hughes' girlfriends and a ginger cat?

I vaguely remembered This Island Earth, IMDB tells me that the actress was Faith Marie Domergue, and confirms she was Hughes' girlfriend. No idea of the cat's name though...

Absolutely right!
The cat's name was Orangey and like all great actors he could be a bit feckless from all accounts.
Over to you...

Nice easy one - what's her name? (also the name of the story):

That's Helen O'Loy. I stumbled across this one within the last year, it's mid-20th-century science fiction - originally acquired as a domestic help, Helen gets modified by her owner and after a while she falls in love with him. Eventually, when she's almost ready to die of a broken heart, he returns her affections and they get married and live happily until he dies of old age; whereupon Helen implements measures to "die" also. Poignantly, she has the help of the narrator, who, it is clear, has also been in love with her for decades.

Yep, that's the one - your turn.

Okay. This one's for those who have read the Long Earth series (and doesn't include The Long Cosmos which I haven't read yet).

Can you identify three themes or plot elements that recycle earlier material from Terry Pratchett, all Discworld-related but not necessarily from the Discworld?

EDIT: This seems to be sinking like a stone so alternatively, how many lines does Lt Uhura have in the classic Trek episode "The Doomsday Machine"?