NAQT: Authors of Speculative Fiction
Isaac Asimov's "three laws of robotics"
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and MaddAddam
A trilogy by Margaret Atwood set in a post-apocalyptic world where corporations have created bioengineered diseases and people
Guy Montag
After hiding books, this character is eventually pursued by a robotic attack dog called the "Mechanical Hound," but escapes to join a community of rebels who memorize classic works of literature.
He tells his story to the explorer Robert Walton before dying
After pursuing his creation to the Arctic, what does Victor Frankenstein do?
Isaac Asimov
Along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, this author was one of genre science fiction's "Big Three" writers.
Douglas Adams
Besides the Hitchhiker's series, this author also co-authored two books offering comic definitions of British place names (The Meaning of Liff and The Deeper Meaning of Liff), and wrote a pair of novels about the supernatural adventures of the private investigator Dirk Gently (Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul).
The Invisible Man
Centers on a student of physics named Griffin who plans to use his invisibility to enact a "reign of terror." However, Griffin's invisibility makes it difficult for him to exist in society, and he is eventually killed by an angry crowd.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Life, the Universe, and Everything; So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish; Mostly Harmless
Characters in this series sometimes consult the title reference work, which offers the advice "Don't Panic," encourages hitchhikers to carry towels at all times, and provides the recipe for a drink called the "Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster."
George Orwell (Real name: Eric Arthur Blair)
Condemned the totalitarian government of Joseph Stalin in the fantasy Animal Farm and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Karel Čapek
Czech author that first introduced the word "robot" in the 1920 play R.U.R., which depicts the worldwide uprising of "Rossum's Universal Robots"
Around the World in Eighty Days
Describes a trip taken by the Englishman Phileas Fogg and his French valet Jean Passepartout to win a bet with members of the Reform Club.
Isaac Asimov
He created the "Three Laws of Robotics," wrote I, Robot, and helped to promote a conception of robots as useful machines rather than inhuman monsters. He eventually linked together his Robot and Foundation series into a far-reaching "history of the future," which also includes the novels The Caves of Steel, Pebble in the Sky, and The Stars, Like Dust.
George Orwell (Real name: Eric Arthur Blair)
His speculative fiction included attacks on British colonialism in the essay "Shooting an Elephant" and the novel Burmese Days
The Blind Assassin
Historical fiction novel by Margaret Atwood that contains a character who is a science fiction writer
He degrades the principles to "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
How does Napoleon change the principles of Animalism?
Offred flees her oppressive existence with the help of Nick, a chauffeur who claims to be a member of the underground Mayday resistance movement.
How does Offred escape in The Handmaid's Tale?
It is used to create human clones, which are then modified to posses different intellectual abilities, and sorted into social castes named after the Greek letters Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon.
In Brave New World, what is the "Bokanovsky's Process"?
The "Brave New World" speech from Shakespeare's play The Tempest
In Brave New World, what speech does John excitedly quote and from what play does it originate?
On the Caribbean island San Lorenzo.
In Cat's Cradle, where does the prophet Bokonon live?
The atomic scientist Felix Hoenikker, whose life is researched by the novel's narrator, John.
In Cat's Cradle, who is the creator of "ice-nine?"
Billy Pilgrim
In Slaughterhouse-Five, this character is kidnapped by aliens and placed in a zoo along with the actress Montana Wildhack, and is eventually assassinated.
That "answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything" is 42 (although the question itself remains unknown).
In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, what does Arthur eventually discover?
A starship named the Heart of Gold, along with the "paranoid android" Marvin, the two-headed galactic president Zaphod Beeblebrox, and the human scientist Trillian.
In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, what starship do Arthur and his friend Ford Prefect travel on and with who?
He must cover himself with clothes and thick bandages
In The Invisible Man, how is Griffin able to be seen?
That they are descended from aristocrats who were once served by the ancestors of the Morlocks
In The Time Machine, what does the Time Traveller speculate about the Eloi?
Archivist Professor Pieixoto
In an epilogue set in the year 2195, this character discusses Offred's unknown fate.
George Orwell (Real name: Eric Arthur Blair)
Included cultural criticism in the essay "Politics and the English Language"
Feelies, soma
Inhabitants of the World State enjoy a prosperous existence that includes immersive entertainment known as __________, and the drug _________
The Enlightenment and Romantic eras.
Mary Shelley was a product of these eras
Frankenstein (1818)
Mary Shelley wrote about the Swiss scientist Victor Frankenstein, who reanimates dead tissue and creates a "monster."
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Mary Shelley's husband
Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin
Mary Shelly's parents
Margaret Atwood
One of Canada's most prominent authors of literary fiction, this author has written multiple works that combine speculative elements with psychological realism.
George Orwell (Real name: Eric Arthur Blair)
Portrayed first-hand accounts of war in Homage to Catalonia
George Orwell (Real name: Eric Arthur Blair)
Portrayed poverty in Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier
Margaret Atwood
Published The Handmaid's Tale in 1985 and later wrote historical fiction (Alias Grace and The Blind Assassin), novels about the relationships between female friends (Cat's Eye and The Robber Bride), and The Penelopiad.
Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes
Ray Bradbury novels set in the Illinois community Green Town that focus on boys beginning to enter adulthood
Morlocks (The Time Machine)
Subterranean; resemble apes but are strong and clever enough to use the Eloi as livestock.
Eloi (The Time Machine)
Surface-dwelling; gentle and beautiful but intellectually limited
False; The invaders easily overcome human resistance, but eventually perish from lack of immunity to Earth microbes
T/F: In War of the Worlds (H.G Wells), the invaders struggle to overcome human resistance, but are well-suited to Earth microbes.
False; they lack family connections and spiritual fulfillment.
T/F: Inhabitants of the World State have strong family connections and enjoy spiritual fufillment
War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells)
The anonymous narrator observes a Martian spaceship that lands in Surrey, and flees the "Tripods" and "Black Smoke" that the Martians use as weapons in the conquest of Earth.
"Robbie"
The first of Isaac Asimov's many works about robots with positronic brains.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
The shipwrecked Edward Prendick discovers that the title vivisectionist performs painful experiments to transform animals into human-like "Beast Folk."
Aldous Huxley
This author belonged to a prominent family of British intellectuals that included the Victorian evolutionist Thomas Henry Huxley.
Aldous Huxley
This author took inspiration from Henry Ford's model of industrial production to create the "Bokanovsky's Process"
Kurt Vonnegut
This author was a prisoner of war in Germany during World War II, and lived through the Allied firebombing of Dresden, which he used as the basis for his novel Slaughterhouse-Five. He also wrote the novel Cat's Cradle.
Isaac Asimov
This author worked closely with Astounding Science Fiction editor John W. Campbell Jr. to create stories such as "Nightfall," and "Robbie."
Douglas Adams
This author wrote comic science fiction and fantasy novels that poked fun at genre tropes and the quirks of British culture. After working on Monty Python's Flying Circus, he created the BBC radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which premiered in 1978.
Offred
This character narrates The Handmaid's Tale and whose role as a "handmaid" is to bear children for "the Commander" and his wife, Serena Joy.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
This novel also described the distortion of the English language for political purposes ("Newspeak")
Slaughterhouse-Five
This novel contains a number of elements that recur in other Vonnegut novels, including the veteran Eliot Rosewater, aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, the unsuccessful science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, and members of the wealthy Rumfoord family.
Nineteen Eighty-Four
This novel introduced many words and phrases that are still used with reference to oppressive governments (thoughtcrime, doublethink, memory hole, "we've always been at war with Eastasia," "war is peace," "Big Brother is watching you").
Animal Farm (George Orwell)
This novel is an allegory of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath.
And Another Thing...
This sequel was written by Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer after Douglas Adams died
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Life, the Universe, and Everything; So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish; Mostly Harmless
This series focuses on Arthur Dent, an ordinary Englishman who becomes one of the last humans in the universe after Earth is destroyed by the alien Vogons.
Billy Pilgrim
This soldier in Slaughterhouse-Five becomes "unstuck in time," and perceives his life in a non-linear fashion.
He forbids John from living on an isolated island with the aspiring writer Helmholtz Watson. John then unsuccessfully tries to retreat from society, and eventually hangs himself.
What does the World Controller Mustapha Mond forbid John from doing in Brave New World? And how does he respond?
Ice-nine falls into the ocean, destroying almost all life on Earth.
What is the accident that occurs during the funeral of the San Lorenzan dictator Papa Monzano?
Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
What was Isaac Asimov's Foundation series inspired by?
Luigi Galvani's experiments in "animal electricity"
What was Mary Shelley inspired by when writing Frankenstein?
Fogg bets the Reform Club that he can travel around the world in 80 days or less and ultimately wins, with the help of an extra day gained by traveling eastward
What was the bet Phileas Fogg made with the Reform Club? And who won?
It fails, as the monster murders Frankenstein's brother William, friend Henry Clerval, and wife Elizabeth before fleeing to the Arctic.
What were the results of Victor Frankenstein's attempt to control nature
Lord Byron's villa on Lake Geneva during a writing contest
Where did Mary Shelley come up with the idea for Frankenstein?
An Indian woman named Aouda
Who does Phileas Fogg fall in love with during his travels?
A character in Brave New World; he is an Alpha Plus, who specializes in Hypnopaedia
Who is Bernard Marx?
A character in Brave New World. He is a young man who grew up on a New Mexico reservation and his ideals contrast with the shallow pleasures of the World State
Who is John the Savage?
A character in Brave New World; she is a vaccination worker at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre and an object of desire for a number of major and minor characters, including Bernard Marx and John
Who is Lenina Crowne?
Guy Montag's wife in Fahrenheit 451. She is deeply depressed and addicted to television programs that she watches on large "parlor walls."
Who is Mildred?
He is pursued by the Scotland Yard detective Fix, who mistakenly believes that Fogg is a bank robber
Who is Phileas Fogg pursued by and why?
His fellow pig Napoleon, who exploits the other animals and, sends the horse Boxer to be slaughtered
Who is Snowball ousted by in Animal Farm?
He meets the free-spirited Clarisse McClellan
Why does Guy Montag begin to question his profession?
Brave New World
Written by Aldous Huxley, this novel examines a futuristic society, called the World State, that revolves around science and efficiency. Emotions and individuality are conditioned out of children at a young age, and there are no lasting relationships because "everyone belongs to everyone else
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Written by George Orwell, who imagined a future Britain subsumed into Oceania, a superpower under the harsh rule of "Big Brother." Winston Smith and his lover Julia try to rebel against Big Brother, but are tortured into compliance in the Ministry of Love.
Animal Farm
Written by George Orwell. This novel describes barnyard animals who revolt against their owner, and try to create a more equitable society under the leadership of the pig Snowball, who develops principles of "Animalism" such as "Four legs good, two legs bad."
The Time Machine (H.G. Wells)
Written by H. G. Wells. A "Time Traveller" who visits the year AD 802,701, learns that humanity has diverged into two different species—Eloi, and the subterranean Morlocks.
Foundation series
Written by Isaac Asimov and begins when the "psychohistorian" Hari Seldon realizes that the Galactic Empire will soon fall, and creates the title organization to limit the length of the ensuing Dark Age.
"Nightfall"
Written by Isaac Asimov. Describes a rare moment of darkness on a planet with multiple suns
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Written by Jules Verne. Pierre Aronnax offers extensive commentary on marine biology while accompanying the mysterious Captain Nemo on a voyage in the submarine Nautilus.
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Written by Jules Verne. Professor Lidenbrock explains contemporary theories of geology and paleontology as he leads an expedition that travels beneath the Earth's crust from Iceland to the Italian volcano Stromboli.
Cat's Cradle
Written by Kurt Vonnegut and describes a substance called "ice-nine" that instantly turns liquid water into a solid. Another thread concerns the "bittersweet lies" of the prophet Bokonon, who comments on human stupidity after an accident that occurs during the funeral of the San Lorenzan dictator Papa Monzano
Slaughterhouse-Five
Written by Kurt Vonnegut. Billy Pilgrim travels between the present, past, and future as he is captured by the German army, witnesses the destruction of Dresden, becomes a prosperous optometrist in the town of Ilium
The Handmaid's Tale
Written by Margaret Atwood and portrays a dystopian near-future in which the United States has been replaced by the patriarchal Republic of Gilead.
The Penelopiad
Written by Margaret Atwood. A retelling of Homer's Odyssey from a female point of view
The Last Man
Written by Mary Shelley and describes Lionel Verney's efforts to survive a 21st-century plague that devastates human civilization
The Martian Chronicles
Written by Ray Bradbury and made up of loosely connected works about the expeditions of human astronauts, the displacement of indigenous Martians as human settlers arrive, and a nuclear war that destroys most life on Earth.
Fahrenheit 451
Written by Ray Bradbury. Depicts a dystopian future in which "firemen" burn books. The protagonist is Guy Montag, a fireman who secretly preserves books to read, leading to a rebuke from Fire Captain Beatty.
The Illustrated Man
Written by Ray Bradbury. The title character has tattoos that foretell the future.
Mary Wollstonecraft
Wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Aldous Huxley
Wrote Crome Yellow and Point Counter Point, but is best known for writing about a dystopian "World State" in the 1932 novel Brave New World.
Mary Shelley (1797-1851)
Wrote Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus in 1818 and The Last Man in 1826.
Jules Verne (1828-1905)
Wrote Journey to the Center of the Earth in 1864, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in 1870, and Around the World in Eighty Days in 1873.
Douglas Adams
Wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Life, the Universe, and Everything; So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish; Mostly Harmless
Herbert George (H.G) Wells
Wrote The Time Machine in 1895, and helped to establish another of science fiction's key themes by depicting an alien invasion in the 1897 novel The War of the Worlds. Wrote The Island of Dr. Moreau in 1896, and published The Invisible Man in 1897.
Ray Bradbury
Wrote the novels Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Martian Chronicles, and The Illustrated Man. He expresses themes such as censorship and the importance of literature in his works, especially in his 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451