Speculative Science Fiction Online Quiz | Literature

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Imagine a world where the second law of thermodynamics was reversed, and entropy is no longer a thing to fear. Objects no longer wear down with continued use; instead, using an object will make it better! Axes become sharper as they cut down more trees, and clothing becomes finer the more it is worn. Which author imagined such a world in 1984's 'The Practice Effect'?

Answer: David Brin

Although this is probably not the most famous example of the genre, it was the first one I read, and the idea still fascinates me. What kind of a society would develop in a world with this effect? An example Brin suggested was the development of professional 'practicers'. If you wanted to have several fine sets of clothing, you could hire people to wear it for you.

The height of absurdity occurs when a character is imprisoned, and is forced by the guards to attempt to break down the walls. Not using good tools, of course! The very act of attempting (and failing) to escape makes the walls that much stronger.

2. In one of his short stories, Isaac Asimov described a world surrounded by 6 (!) stars. With so many stars, one of them is almost always in the sky, and night comes but once in a thousand years. What would a people do, upon their first sighting of thousands of points of light in the sky? In which 1941 story did Asimov attempt to answer this question?

Answer: Nightfall

Asimov wrote this story after reflecting on a quote by Emerson: "If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God!". The implications of his setting are staggering; how many of our own dreams and speculations on religion and what's 'out there' stem from seeing those other lights in the sky?

3. In what classic 1953 Ray Bradbury tale does he raise the idea of a fireman whose job is not to put out fires, but to start them?

Answer: Fahrenheit 451

The fires started are used to burn books in the ultimate act of censorship. Ironically, many concerned parents have wanted to censor this treatise on censorship for the sake of children reading it in schools!

4. What author's 'Guns of the South' (1992) features (in some editions) a cover picture of Robert E. Lee holding an AK-47?

Answer: Harry Turtledove

The assault rifles were brought back in time by a group of disgruntled South African supporters of apartheid who saw the Civil War as a turning point in race relations. In addition to creating a great deal of fascinating culture clashes, Turtledove's book raises an interesting point: Virtually every event in history leaves some (small or large) group disappointed. If time travel ever were to become a possibility, what would prevent people from going back and literally trying to change everything in history?

5. Time travel is also examined in 'Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus'. Which author describes a group of men and women determined to change the events of 1492 in 1996's 'Pastwatch'?

Answer: Orson Scott Card

One curious occurrence in the novel is the discovery that the world we live in (where Columbus sailed for what we know as America in 1492) was itself the result of someone's attempts to fix the past, raising the question: For all the horrors that were perpetrated by Columbus and the subsequent conquistadors, could there actually have been something worse?

6. In what novel by Kurt Vonnegut does he raise the possibility of an as of yet undiscovered, form of water, terming it "Ice-nine"?

Answer: Cat's Cradle

Ice-nine is unique in that it's freezing point is higher than room temperature; if left alone it would tend to freeze rather then melt. What's more, it is what is termed a "seed crystal". If a small amount of ice-nine is dropped in a glass of normal water, the water will change state to ice-nine. If a small amount is dropped in the ocean, then...
In many ways, ice-nine served as a parallel and a symbol for the nuclear threat that gripped the world at the 1963 publication of the novel.

7. In what 1966 Philip K. Dick short story does he suggest the idea of a company that can (for a fee) implant memories that are even better then the real ones, including a certain special one about a secret agent on Mars?

Answer: We Can Remember it For You Wholesale

You may be more familiar with this as the movie 'Total Recall', which was based on the story ('Blade Runner' was also based on Dick's 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep'). The questions raised in his short story are fundamental: What exactly is a memory, and how do we know if we can trust in it?

8. Robert Heinlein wrote a series of stories based around the premise that longevity is genetic. By a selective breeding program and a great deal of patience, one could eventually have humans living far beyond a normal life span. What novel tells the story of the longest lived of these children of Methuselah, Lazarus Long?

Answer: Time Enough for Love

Lazarus has lived for over 2000 years at the time of the telling of his story, and provides a perspective on human history from the first world war onwards, interspersed with serious and humorous tips on how to survive life (for example, "In a family argument, if it turns out you are right - apologize at once!")

9. What work of Larry Niven tells of an exceedingly large artificial planet of a peculiar shape "orbiting" a star?

Answer: Ringworld

I put orbiting in quotation marks because the surface already fills the entire orbit! It is a ring surrounding the star at a radius of about one earth orbit. There are walls of about 1000 miles high on both sides of the ring, and, if the ring spins fast enough, these walls are sufficient to keep an atmosphere's worth of air around the ring.

Its surface is positively huge...population problems would disappear overnight!

10. Finally, we go a bit further back (a century or so). What author's 1865 'From the Earth to the Moon' described the launching of a rocket containing 3 men (from Florida no less!) in an attempt to win the international space race to put the first men on the moon?

Answer: Verne

For a novel written in 1865 this is a true work of genius in the field of speculative fiction. Although Verne got many things right, he also got many things wrong. In particular, he pictured space craft as merely large bullets to be fired from larger cannons, not visualizing the rockets we have today.

I fear that in this quiz I have given a few authors and works (Ursula K. Le Guin, 'Flowers for Algernon', and some more of David Brin's short stories, to name a few) short shrift. This is a very broad genre, and the 10 works in this quiz only scratched the surface!

Source: Author kevinatilusa

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor Bruyere before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Speculative Science Fiction Trivia Quiz

Speculative science fiction is a type of work which focuses more on a fascinating setting or situation than on characters or plot details. In each question you will be given one of these situations, and must identify the work or author from which it cam

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