Sci-Fi Books

[JohannaK]

Havent you seen The Last Crusade? His name is Henry, Indiana was the name of his dog... and somehow it stuck? Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) makes fun of him for it.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Havent you seen The Last Crusade? His name is Henry, Indiana was the name of his dog... and somehow it stuck? Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) makes fun of him for it.

Actually, I haven't seen that one.

My point stands, however. People call him either "Indiana" or "Indy."

(For that matter, why would a dog be named "Indiana"? It would be like me naming my cat "Saskatchewan.")

 

[JohannaK]

People give their dogs all sorts of awful names. Their children, too.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I just realized that half of the dogs we've ever had have been named after cartoon characters (Scamp, Snoopy, Tinker, Casper).

I did name one of my cats after a character in a science fiction novel. Two others were named after historical figures.

 

[Leifmk]

Eventually Astrid grew up, of course... and married SF author Greg Bear (another author I met at yet another convention).

Speaking of Greg Bear; one of my all-time favourite SF books is his novel Eon. It was my gateway drug into English-language grown-up SF; it came out in 1985, I was 13 and had pretty much exhausted what was readily available of nerd-genre literature in my native Norwegian, thus was forced to get my English-reading skills up to scratch. Picked this up randomly in a bookstore because the cover looked promising (as one did in those days).

Elevator pitch: It's about 20 years in the future from when the book was written. The world has narrowly avoided a full-scale nuclear war already (the book doesn't go into much detail on this, but apparently the US and the Soviets both fired an ICBM or a few at each other, lost a city or three, and were able to stop and de-escalate back into Cold War normality) but the threat is very overhanging and real. Boom, a large asteroid appears out of deep space. But it doesn't hit the Earth, it decelerates and enters orbit. This is clearly not natural. It's quickly discovered that it's a hollowed-out colony / STL starship, and explorers are sent. But it's abandoned / mothballed. But it's not alien, it's human. From the future. And it's really weird because it's bigger on the inside than the outside, as it connects to an extradimensional tunnel that may be infinite in length.And then things get even weirder.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Speaking of Greg Bear; one of my all-time favourite SF books is his novel Eon. It was my gateway drug into English-language grown-up SF; it came out in 1985, I was 13 and had pretty much exhausted what was readily available of nerd-genre literature in my native Norwegian, thus was forced to get my English-reading skills up to scratch. Picked this up randomly in a bookstore because the cover looked promising (as one did in those days).

Elevator pitch: It's about 20 years in the future from when the book was written. The world has narrowly avoided a full-scale nuclear war already (the book doesn't go into much detail on this, but apparently the US and the Soviets both fired an ICBM or a few at each other, lost a city or three, and were able to stop and de-escalate back into Cold War normality) but the threat is very overhanging and real. Boom, a large asteroid appears out of deep space. But it doesn't hit the Earth, it decelerates and enters orbit. This is clearly not natural. It's quickly discovered that it's a hollowed-out colony / STL starship, and explorers are sent. But it's abandoned / mothballed. But it's not alien, it's human. From the future. And it's really weird because it's bigger on the inside than the outside, as it connects to an extradimensional tunnel that may be infinite in length.And then things get even weirder.

I think I have that one in my personal library (I have a big enough personal library now to not always be sure what I've got; this happens over 44 years and multiple moves). I know I haven't read it.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Speaking of Greg Bear; one of my all-time favourite SF books is his novel Eon. It was my gateway drug into English-language grown-up SF; it came out in 1985, I was 13 and had pretty much exhausted what was readily available of nerd-genre literature in my native Norwegian, thus was forced to get my English-reading skills up to scratch. Picked this up randomly in a bookstore because the cover looked promising (as one did in those days).

Elevator pitch: It's about 20 years in the future from when the book was written. The world has narrowly avoided a full-scale nuclear war already (the book doesn't go into much detail on this, but apparently the US and the Soviets both fired an ICBM or a few at each other, lost a city or three, and were able to stop and de-escalate back into Cold War normality) but the threat is very overhanging and real. Boom, a large asteroid appears out of deep space. But it doesn't hit the Earth, it decelerates and enters orbit. This is clearly not natural. It's quickly discovered that it's a hollowed-out colony / STL starship, and explorers are sent. But it's abandoned / mothballed. But it's not alien, it's human. From the future. And it's really weird because it's bigger on the inside than the outside, as it connects to an extradimensional tunnel that may be infinite in length.And then things get even weirder.

You think things got weirder in Eon, you should read Eternity; the sequel.

By the way, it isn't exactly "from the future." It is from a parallel reality where humanity evolved a little bit quicker so their timeline is a bit further along than ours. Maybe. Or maybe it is from the future. Hard to tell.

 

[Leifmk]

You think things got weirder in Eon, you should read Eternity; the sequel.

By the way, it isn't exactly "from the future." It is from a parallel reality where humanity evolved a little bit quicker so their timeline is a bit further along than ours. Maybe. Or maybe it is from the future. Hard to tell.

Oh I did read the sequel, and the prequel, and everything else by Bear I could get my hands on for the next several years. Most of it was good but nothing quite as good as Eon.

And it was pretty clearly from nearly the future; that is, historical records showed an identical timeline up to the point where a huge asteroid colony ship from the future originally didn't show up.

 

[Zkribbler]

(For that matter, why would a dog be named "Indiana"? It would be like me naming my cat "Saskatchewan.")

How 'bout Scratchkatchewan? or Sass-scratchewan?