Trivia Thursday


  1. This Robert L. Forward novel is about a race that evolves on the surface of a neutron star and which lives on a vastly compressed time scale, but nevertheless manages to make contact with human observers. Name it!
  2. What does the “T” in “James T. Kirk” stand for?
  3. This first collection of R.A. Lafferty precedes Strange Doings (1971), Does Anyone Else Have Something Further to Add? (1974) and Ringing Changes (1984). What is it?
  4. Which of these movies takes place on a planet with a green sky and pink sand as well as two moons?
    A) Dune
    B) Outland
    C) Dark Star
    D) Forbidden Planet
  5. A mentally retarded man’s intelligence is enhanced to that of a normal adult and then to supergenius. “Progress reports” in his diary, with successive changes in diction and spelling as well as intellectual content, chronicle his triumphant progress; and then, as the treatment fails, the reports record his collapse back into subnormality. Name this classic by Daniel Keyes!
  6. Who is the main character in Frederik Pohl’s Gateway/Heechee series?
  7. What song did HAL sing as Dave deactivated him in 2001?
  8. Some of Heinlein’s work has been animated. True or False?
  9. In this book Philip Jose Farmer writes of the entire human race being reincarnated along the banks of a huge river. Sir Richard Francis Burton sets off to find out who accomplished this remarkable feat, and why.
  10. Firestarter and The Tommyknockers are science fiction works by what famous horror fiction writter?

(Answers below the fold)

  1. Dragon’s Egg
  2. Tiberius
  3. Nine Hundred Grandmothers (1970)
  4. D) Forbidden Planet
  5. Flowers For Algernon If you answered Charly you’re partially right. But that’s the name of the movie.
  6. The main character is millionaire and cybercorpse Robinette Brodhead.
  7. The song was “Bicycle Built for Two” (a.k.a. “Daisy, Daisy”). This song was the very first tune played on a computer, at Bell Labs in the 1950’s. The implication was that HAL was “devolving.”
  8. True! Starship Troopers, an Anime version of Heinlein’s novel and Robert A. Heinlein’s Red Planet, a 3-part Saturday morning serialisation. Neither are notable for Heinlein fans.
  9. To Your Scattered Bodies Go
  10. Stephen King