Science Fiction Masterpieces Trivia Quiz

Answer: Robert A. Heinlein

Mind-controlling alien parasites invade the Earth and American secret agents try to counteract them. It's a 1951 book from one of Sci-Fi's masters, Robert A. Heinlein.
The aliens are slug-like and are able to control the mind of their victim, by simply touching it. The secret intelligence agency of the country sends agents to investigate, but they get taken over as well.

Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer.

Answer: Pat Frank

Pat Frank's 1959 novel is a description of the after-effects of a nuclear war on a small community in Florida. The protagonist, Pat Bragg, sends the message "Alas, Babylon" to his brother, meaning that there is an imminent nuclear attack. He also sends his family to his brother in Florida.

The following day Washington DC is destroyed by nuclear explosions, along with many areas of New England.

Answer: Philip K. Dick

This 1964 book by Philip K. Dick examines the difficulties faced by settlers from Earth in coping with life on planets and moons of the solar system. Life in the colonies is very harsh and the colonists turn to drugs and alternate realities in an attempt to cope with the situation. Palmer Eldritch, who has been in deep space for ten years, crash lands on Pluto. Eldritch has discovered a more potent drug, and the authorities want to liquidate him.

Answer: Cordwainer Smith

Norstrilia is the short name of the planet Old North Australia, in the fictional universe Instrumentality of Mankind. People are seeking to obtain the immortality drug "stroon" which delays human aging. The drug is farmed from sheep by the wealthy estate owners. The last of them is Rod McBan, who, by the standards of population laws, is unfit to receive it, because he is imperfect and must be "culled".
Cordwainer Smith is the pseudonym of Paul Linebarger and "Nostrilia" was published in 1975.

Answer: J.G. Ballard

"Crash" is a 1973 publication by J.G. Ballard that follows a group of people who find sexual arousal by being involved in car crashes. These people experiment with erotic situations, each one being more atrocious than the previous. The publication is highlighting the increasing dependence on technology within relationships.

Answer: Joanna Russ

"The Female Man" is a feminist Sci-Fi book published in 1975 that follows the lives of four women living in parallel universes. One of the women lives in a world where all men became extinct, another in a world where the Great Depression never ended, another one in world where men and women are at war against each other and the last one in world like the 1970s in America.

The women visit each other's worlds and witness the different ways that women are treated in each one.

Answer: Thomas M. Disch

Thomas M. Disch's "Camp Concentration" was published in 1968 and is set during a future war in which USA is at war with the rest of the world and use every conceivable weapon in order to gain victory. Personnel are injecting prisoners with various chemicals that raise mental abilities very quickly, but that result in death within nine months.

Answer: Walter M. Miller Jr.

"A Canticle for Leibowitz" by Walter M. Miller Jr. was first published in 1959 and is set in a desert Catholic monastery, after a devastating nuclear war. A monk who is serving in the monastery discovers, in a fallout shelter, everyday items from the 20th century, which he considers as being relics of a saint.

The book covers a period of a thousand years and observes what happens with the relics.

Answer: Frederik Pohl

Frederik Pohl's "The Space Merchants" was first published in 1952, co-written with C.M. Kornbluth. It is set in an overpopulated Earth taken over by business corporations where the states merely exist to ensure the survival of these corporations. One such corporation, seeking volunteers to populate Venus, assigns Mitch Courtenay to this task.

Answer: Marge Piercy

"Woman on the Edge of Time" by Marge Piercy was first published in 1976 and follows the life of a Mexican American woman who has lived in poverty and racism. The book is a mix of time travel and issues such as feminism and social justice. It also tackles the subject of the treatment of mentally ill.