Test Your Geekdom
Vol XVI: A Novel Idea
The Answers
View original post1. This 1985 SF Novel revolves around a game that ends with the complete destruction of an alien homeworld, much to the horror of the winner of the game.
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
View original post2. This 1965 SF Novel is often compared to Lawrence of Arabia, set in the distant future on a bleak desert world it tells the story of a young man and his mother's flight from the destruction of their home and the loss of his father at the hands of her father, and their plans for the future.
Dune by Frank Herbert
View original post3. This 1984 Fantasy novel was the first collaborative novel of a writing duo who would publish dozens of novels together. Set in a world still recovering from a cataclysm centuries prior, it begins the chronicles of a group of several adventurers as they meet back up in the Autumn at the Inn of the Last Home, after a five year period of lone travels.
The Dragonlance Chronicles, Vol I, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
View original post4. A collection of five short stories, which were first published together as a book in 1951, this book spans a period of roughly 150 years chronicling the early period of a group struggling (initially unknowingly) to be the foundation of a new empire as the ancient Galactic Empire is destined to collapse, as calculated by the science of psychohistory.
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
View original post5. This 1984 Novel, considered one of the originators of the Cyberpunk genre, tells the story of a washed up computer hacker name Case.
Neuromancer by William Gibson
View original post6. First published in 1899, this book tells the story of an orphan girl after her home is hit by a cyclone, and her travels and encounters as a street walker with a number of cowardly, heartless, and stupid men in a land totally unlike her home in rural Kansas.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
View original post7. This book is a collection of short stories published in 1950 chronicling the colonization of Mars and the colonists’ interaction with the native Martians.
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
View original post8. This 1968 book, set in a distant future, more closely resembles fantasy as it focuses on the story of Lessa, a young girl who was the sole survivor of her family's brutal massacre, and her plots for revenge before becoming telepathically bonded to a golden dragon.
Draognflight by Anne McCaffrey
View original post9. A Saga of the Year 3000, this 1982 book follows the events on Earth as it becomes a battlefield between the few surviving scattered human tribes fighting their alien conquerors.
Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000, by L. Ron Hubbard
View original post10. This 1950 novel is the first in a series of high fantasy novels chronicling the events in a magical world. The first book focuses on four children living in an old country house in the English countryside during World War 2 who stumble across the entrance to a magic realm hidden in a wardrobe.
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
View original post11. This 1989 book is a frame story set around several individual tales of seven pilgrims who tell their tales to each other as they journey to the Time Tombs, where legend has it all but one of them will be slaughtered but that one granted a wish.
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
View original post12. This 1985 novel originated some years before as a screenplay but did not become a film until 1997, starring Jodie Foster. The book focuses around mankind's first contact with alien intelligences via a radio signal of a repeating sequence of the first 261 prime numbers with a speech by Hitler and a 30,000 page manual for a machine embedded into it the signal.
Contact by Carl Sagan
View original post13. This 1969 techno-thriller documents the efforts of Wildfire, a team of scientists investigating an alien microorganism killing or driving people insane.
The Andormeda Strain by Michael Crichton
View original post14. This 1984 book is the first in a series of dark fantasy novels chronicling an elite company of mercenaries with a black reputation.
The Black Company by Glen Cook
View original post15. This 1974 SF novel has a pair of authors. Beginning roughly ten centuries in the future in orbit of the planet of New Chicago this story revolves around the crew of the INSS MacArthur as they encounter an alien probe and track it back to its origin system, and of mankind's first encounter with aliens.
The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Previous Quizzes
Vol I: Quotes
Vol II: The Sequel
Vol III: Openers
Vol IV: Name That Toon
Vol V: The Sincerest Form of Flattery
Vol VI: Big Dumb Objects
Vol VII: Apocalypse How
Vol VIII: Time Loop
Vol IX: You Bet Your Life
Vol X: Parodies
Vol XI: Zombie Apocalypse
Vol XII: Humanitarians
Vol XIII: Scary Movies
Vol XIV: Circle Quiz 2.0 or the Scif-FI Circle Quiz
Vol XV: Comic Crossover