Science Fiction Trivia

[ffutures]

ok cbr is #2

im debating Kryptonite, according to wikipedia " it is a green, crystalline material originating from Superman's home world of Krypton that emits a unique, poisonous radiation that can weaken and even kill Kryptonians."

In my head i thought of a poison as something put into the body either injected or injested.... Radiation works at a distance..... what we call radiation poisioning scientists call Acute radiation syndrome.

ok i will Give #3 to ffutures because i didnt specify how the poision was to be used or even gave an example to hint what i was thinking. also it is commonly called radiation poisioning.

so 2 to go.......

Fair point, but they've shown it as having toxic effects as well as the radiation a few times, so I think it's nasty in all respects.

[spud42]

still 2 to go....
ffutures got #3 . Dont make him have to pick a question again , so soon. lol.

[Disembodied]

Bryce Mackenzie, CEO of Mackenzie Helium, is assassinated with poison - the Five Deaths of Twé - in the final book of Ian McDonald's Luna series, Luna: Rising.

[spud42]

Ok thats number 4 , 1 to go.

[cbr]

Number Five is Kryptonite. . .

[Cholmondely]

Number Five is Kryptonite. . .

You actually want the poisoned chalice?

[spud42]

he obviously doesnt because #3 was kryptonite from ffutures...

still 1 to go.

[ffutures]

I can think of a fairly prominent series of books whose main character's life is hugely affected by poisoning, but I'd sooner someone else got this, I'm a bit busy at the moment.

[Disembodied]

Well, if it doesn't have to be a fatal poisoning … in William Gibson's Neuromancer, Case, the former cyberspace cowboy, was caught trying to rip off his employers. As punishment, they crippled his nervous system with poison so he couldn't access cyberspace again.

They damaged his nervous system with a wartime Russian mycotoxin. Strapped to a bed in a Memphis hotel, his talent burning out micron by micron, he hallucinated for thirty hours. The damage was minute, subtle, and utterly effective. For Case, who’d lived for the bodiless exultation of cyberspace, it was the Fall.

[spud42]

well! I didnt specify fatal poisoning so Disembodied gets #5 and the keys to the duboius Vehicle which started life as a Cobra and had warped Chameleon circuit style into a chalice.....

Take it away Big D.

[Disembodied]

Ah, OK … how about three examples of space elevators in fiction (by which I mean a theoretically physically possible method of reaching planetary orbit by mechanical means, and not the lifts inside the starship Enterprise … or Willie Wonka's Great Glass Elevator). The elevator(s) should be meaningful to the plot, not just a piece of background detail. MBPs for anyone who can find one in film or TV - it seems as if this is one of those SF tropes which is common enough in literature but which is deemed too outré and confusing for screen audiences.

Usual rules, only one per author/universe.

[ffutures]

Might as well strike early - Arthur C. Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise (1979) is basically a novel about building a space elevator, not a lot else happens. Some politics, some religious opposition, a daring space rescue that isn't quite unnecessary but comes close to it, that's about it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountains_of_Paradise

[Disembodied]

Arthur C. Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise

That's one (and one of the first space elevators in fiction).

[Disembodied]

Not all space elevators have to be based on Earth … and there are some that are known, colloquially at least, as "beanstalks".

[Commander_X]

An Ancient Peace by Tanya Huff, has three of them on the planet Abalae.