Playing along with this one solely for sake of #5; 22. - Edit 2
Before modification by Joel at 11/08/2013 11:37:42 PM
View original postTest Your Geekdom
Vol XVI: A Novel Idea
15 questions for 32 possible points, name the books and authors. 1 point for the book, 1 for each author (some have more than one), Good Luck!
- 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.
Orson Scott Cards "Enders Game"
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.
Frank Herberts "Dune"
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.
Um. I will take a wild stab with Thieves World, even though I was pretty sure the inn in that one was the Vulgar Unicorn. Seems like Lynn Asprin co-authored that and her husband edited, but since I am pretty sure that is not the answer it probably does not matter.
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.
Isaac Asimovs "Foundation," though it was FIRST published as a serial in John Campbells "Astounding Science Fiction" magazine.
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.
William Gibsons "Neuromancer." An underappreciated series in an underappreciated genre, the more so for its timeliness and the recent popularity of the derivative and absurdly implausible Steampunk genre. Most Steampunk does not even involve computers (with the notable exception of Gibson and Sterlings foundational "The Difference Engine,"
which stands to reason since megaflops and gigaflops are pretty much impossible without electronics (or quantum computing; either way, it is unobtainable for a Victorian/Edwardian society.) Dieselpunk, maybe, but Steampunk? Ridiculous; TLotR is more realistic.
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.
L. Frank Baums "The Wizard of Oz" ("All we own, we ooooowe-oh."
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.
Ray Bradburys "The Martian Chronicles" Although, their interaction with native Martians is fairly brief.
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.
I have no idea unless it is Anne McCaffreys "The Dragonriders of Pern," and your synopsis seems a bit harsh for what were intended as childrens/young adult books. Yes, I realize I should actually read the series so I would know one way or the other.
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.
Presumably L. Ron Hubbards Battlefield Earth
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.
C. S. Lewis' "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"
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.
Been a while since I read that, but it sounds like Dan Simmons' "Hyperion." I have never understood the popularity of that series; my HS librarian asked me to read it and give an opinion on whether it deserved the ban some busybodies had demanded, and my basic reaction was "it does not deserve ANYTHING."
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.
Carl Sagans "Contact"
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.
No idea.
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.
I guess "Black Company," but I have no idea of the author.
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.
Again, no idea.