50 Fun Facts About Science Fiction

Which 1920 Czech play gave the world the word 'robot'?

Karel Capek's title stands for Rossum's Universal Robots, and the premiere was in Hradec Kralove in January 1921.

Who wrote that robot play?

His brother Josef is usually credited with suggesting the word itself, from the Czech for forced labour.

Which 1984 novel put the word 'cyberspace' in front of a wide audience?

William Gibson had already used the word in his 1981 short story 'Burning Chrome'.

Which trio of awards did William Gibson's debut novel win?

Neuromancer took the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick awards, a first for a debut; it was released with no fanfare and spread by word of mouth.

William Gibson's 1984 debut opens which sequence of novels?

Count Zero followed in 1986 and Mona Lisa Overdrive in 1988.

Science fiction's most famous award is named after whom?

He founded Amazing Stories and is often called one of the fathers of the genre.

Which magazine did that award's namesake found?

The award trophy, a finned rocket on a wooden base, was modelled on 1950s car hood ornaments.

In which year were those awards first presented?

They were handed out at the 11th Worldcon in Philadelphia and were originally meant to be a one-off.

What shape is that award's trophy?

Jack McKnight and Ben Jason based it on the hood ornaments of 1950s cars.

Which organisation gives out the Nebula Awards?

They were first presented in 1966 and are judged only by professional writers.

In which year were the Nebula Awards first presented?

There are no written rules on what counts as science fiction; nominators and voters decide.

Which 1818 Gothic novel is widely treated as an ancestor of the genre?

Mary Shelley began it at 18, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818.

What subtitle did Mary Shelley give that novel?

A revised edition under Shelley's own name followed in 1831 with a more explicitly moral tone.

Mary Shelley passed close to which building while travelling the Rhine in 1815?

An alchemist named Johann Konrad Dippel had run experiments there a century earlier.

In which 1942 short story did Isaac Asimov first list all three Laws of Robotics?

It was later collected in I, Robot, and the laws became a safety feature no positronic robot could bypass.

Which 1950 Asimov collection contains those laws?

Other authors writing in his universe adopted the laws, and references to them turn up well outside the genre.

Which novel won the very first Nebula Award for Best Novel?

It also tied with Roger Zelazny's This Immortal for that year's Hugo.

Where was Dune originally published?

The serials were called Dune World and Prophet of Dune, running in 1963-64 and 1965.

What is the substance found only on Arrakis called?

Frank Herbert wrote five sequels before his death in 1986, and his son has since continued the series.

Blade Runner was adapted from which Philip K. Dick novel?

Ridley Scott's film moved the story to a dystopian Los Angeles of 2019.

How many different versions of Blade Runner exist?

The 1992 director's cut came after strong test screenings of a workprint; The Final Cut followed in 2007.

Who composed the Blade Runner score?

It was nominated for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe, even as the film itself flopped in North America.

Which Arthur C. Clarke short story mainly inspired 2001: A Space Odyssey?

Kubrick co-wrote the screenplay with Clarke, drawing on 'Encounter in the Dawn' as well.

What did Kubrick famously do instead of commissioning an original score?

Dialogue is sparse too, with long sequences carried by music alone.

How did Gene Roddenberry pitch Star Trek in his first draft?

He had written extensively for Westerns, and each episode was to be a self-contained adventure.

Which production company backed the original Star Trek?

Its head, Lucille Ball, was persuaded to keep both Star Trek and Mission: Impossible alive in 1966.

How many seasons did the original Star Trek run before NBC cancelled it?

Ratings were low throughout; the afterlife in syndication is what built the franchise.

Which studio head was persuaded to save both Star Trek and Mission: Impossible?

Desilu had gone from one half-hour comedy to deficit-financing two expensive hour-long dramas.

Which H. G. Wells novel describes a Martian invasion of Earth?

The Martians attack because their own older, smaller world has reached the last stage of exhaustion.

In which English county does the narrator of that invasion novel live?

His brother flees to Tillingham in Essex as London and the south are overrun.

Which 1927 German silent film is the genre's great early landmark?

Fritz Lang directed it from a script by Thea von Harbou, based on her own 1925 novel.

Who wrote the novel and screenplay behind that film?

She collaborated with Lang on the script, and the novel had originally been written as a treatment.

Which music producer released a truncated version of it with a rock soundtrack in 1984?

Freddie Mercury, Bonnie Tyler, Loverboy and Adam Ant all appeared on it.

Which cyberpunk novel is listed as an influence on that film?

Plato's cave and 1990s Telnet hacker communities are listed alongside it.

What did The Matrix take at the box office, against a $63m budget?

It became the highest-grossing Warner Bros. film of 1999 and the fourth-highest-grossing film of the year.

Which national film tradition shaped The Matrix's fight scenes?

Anime and martial arts films supplied the choreography and the wire work.

How many Hugo Awards did Ursula K. Le Guin win?

She also collected six Nebulas and twenty-five Locus Awards across a sixty-year career.

In 2003 Le Guin became the second woman honoured as what?

Anthropology, Taoism, feminism and Carl Jung all left fingerprints on her fiction.

Among the world's most-translated authors, where does Jules Verne rank?

He sits below Agatha Christie and above William Shakespeare, a position he has held since 1979.

What was his bestselling sequence of adventure novels called?

His publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel announced the sequence in 1866 with grand educational ambitions.

Verne originally conceived Captain Nemo as a scientist of which nationality?

His publisher objected, worried about the politics of a hero avenging himself on the Russians.

Which subgenre emphasises scientific accuracy above all?

Soft science fiction leans on the social sciences instead, and space opera on pure adventure.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy began in 1978 as a sitcom on which network?

Douglas Adams later rewrote the story for novels, TV and film, often contradicting his own earlier versions.

Which fireman is the protagonist of Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451?

Bradbury wrote it during the McCarthy era, inspired by the Nazi book burnings that had terrified him as a teenager.

The title of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World comes from which Shakespeare play?

Miranda's wonder at the island's visitors is meant ironically, since she cannot see their evil nature.

Brave New World opens in the year AF 632. What does 'AF' stand for?

That corresponds to AD 2540, in a World State where citizens are engineered in artificial wombs into intelligence-based castes.

Which band recorded 'Journey of the Sorcerer', the Hitchhiker's Guide theme tune?

The Bernie Leadon instrumental comes from the 1975 album One of These Nights and was used for the radio, TV, LP and film versions.

What special Hugo Award did Asimov's Foundation trilogy win in 1966?

It beat Burroughs's Barsoom books, Heinlein's Future History and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings among the runners-up.

Which Nobel-winning economist credits the Foundation series with turning his mind to economics?

He regards economics as the closest existing science to Hari Seldon's fictional psychohistory.

Who narrated The Book in the original Hitchhiker's radio series after Michael Palin and others declined?

He was cast after a three-month search; William Franklyn took over for the later radio series after his death.