Oolite Bulletins

Stab in the dark: Tannhäuser Gate?

A third stab... Arcadia 234?

i think the first answer was right, he had the name of the Tannhauser gate battle tatted on his shoulder.

El Viejo wrote:

A third stab... Arcadia 234?

I've seen BladeRunner a gazillion times (in almost as many versions), and cannot recall any mention of Arcadia 234. I'm guessing you're stabbing in the opposite direction, then. (I've never seen Soldier that I know of - unless unwittingly stumbling across [parts of] it on tv at some point.)

Killer Wolf wrote:

i think the first answer was right, he had the name of the Tannhauser gate battle tatted on his shoulder.

Ooh, this look promising! Maybe I'll finally get the chance to torment the commoonity with one of the 4167 pieces of insanely obscure trivia I've come up with while waiting...
(So far, this thread has consisted of either questions I've had absolutely no clue on, or questions that got asked and answered while I was offline...)

CheeseRedux wrote:

I've seen BladeRunner a gazillion times (in almost as many versions), and cannot recall any mention of Arcadia 234. )

That popped into my mind as soon as I saw Selezen’s question… but I may be remembering it from the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, rather than from the film Blade Runner.

Meh, I knew it was too easy! CheeseRedux gets it.

More Trivia Questions! Less Obscure Books!!!

Selezen wrote:

Meh, I knew it was too easy! CheeseRedux gets it.

More Trivia Questions! Less Obscure Books!!!

Yay!

I would love to accommodate you, but I not just yet. I have this one thing that will never be asked unless I do it. Should it ever become my turn again, I promise you some real trivial trivia.

I've struggled a bit with the wording here; since my knowledge of obscure SF books is nowhere near the average of this group, I run the risk of giving too generic clues. So if this description of some other work than the one I'm thinking of, I apologize beforehand.

Anyway, book & author please:

Earth, sometime in the future. A passing asteroid hits the planet, knocking it off its axis. The oceans are flung into the atmosphere, or worse, into space. Storms rage for centuries. The remaining water falls as snow in the higher altitudes, covering the former landmasses in an impenetrable layer of ice. The only inhabitable places left are what used to be the ocean floors; vast salty deserts where humankind's survivors eke out a meagre existence.

Two millennia later, three factions are locked in a struggle of conquest and survival: One is descended from those privileged few who had access to shelters, supplies and technology; who have later forged a mighty kingdom. Another evolved from a group that has built their power on salvaged bits of technology, becoming genetic wizards in the process. The third and most numerous group consists of loosely connected nomadic tribes, who often find themselves caught in the struggles of the other two. It is from this last group a prophesy arises; a prophesy of a new king being born...

Edit: Fixed spelling error

Sounds good (and familiar) - if I haven't read it - I'd like to!

More clues:
The people of the Kingdom were a religious lot. Among the things left over from the ancient civilization(s) were a vast number of green documents, depicting a small pantheon of old gods. On the reverse side were various religious buildings and symbols, one of which were chosen as the symbol of their new god.
After reclaiming the power of flight, they built large, winged flying machines. The King took as his symbol a black bird, and the Kingdom itself was named after the bird.

CheeseRedux wrote:

The King took as his symbol a black bird, and the Kingdom itself was named after the bird.

The Kingdom of DaddyHoggy!

Smivs wrote:

The Kingdom of DaddyHoggy!

Unfortunately I'm no James Bond, so I'm unable to tell what kind of bird DH is. But you may very well be right.

I’ve definitely not read this one… the kingdom’s name I can get, but I’d have to resort to google for the book title and author.

El Viejo wrote:

I’ve definitely not read this one… the kingdom’s name I can get, but I’d have to resort to google for the book title and author.

Given the level of dedication to the world of SF displayed earlier in this thread, I'm no going to say I'd be surprised if anyone had read it, but I certainly didn't excpect it to be widely read.

I've almost exhausted my clues of the not-immediately-googleable kind, so I'll give you some circumstantial hints.

The book is a fairly recent publication. (No, not fairly recent as in not-written-by-candlelight. Fairly recent as in almost-certainly-typed-on-a-computer.)

There are plans to make the story into an animated feature. Several short clips/trailers can be found on YouTube, and some other places.

For some reason, the author chose to label his work as the opposite of science fiction.

The name of the Kingdom's god is Ben.

The genetic wizards were not named after a particularly ineffective sorting algorithm and a 1982 science fiction movie. I think. Probably.

The third group were often called the dregs of society. Literally.


If someone has a good next question, google the darn thing so we can move on!