Oolite Bulletins

The Day of the Triffids, a novel by ‎John Wyndham, or the 1962 film of the same name, classics both. Umm, the triffids weren't aliens, as I recall. Strongly bred (and this was before the understanding of the structure of DNA) by human scientists in, as I recall Siberia, and then shipped around the ...

What 2008 version? Are you seriously suggesting that someone took one of the classic cold war era SF films and recycled it as processed turkey??? No, sorry, it's a figment of your imagination. (Thoroughly off topic) I don't recall the reprocessed film in question -who would?- but I'd heard that par...

So let's have five examples of alien invasions (preferably of Earth, but I'm willing to look at alternatives if humans are on the receiving end) that don't involve 1: Martians 2: Anything that looks like a flying saucer 3: Anything that looks like a Grey, ET, etc. 4: Space vampires drinking our pre...

name 5 close encounters with black holes. One of the "Man-Kzin Wars" novellas has a crew in a 3-person GP/trader (not a Cobra, but something similar, GP #2 hull) chasing down a strange astrophysical phenomenon, with a side plot of post-war politics and the metaphorical stringing up of collaborators...

OK, I don't recall this one coming up recently. Let's have five aliens which canonically are bigger than planets - Ian M. Banks, in the Culture series has objects the size of large planets with multiple shells (as for Dyson spheres, but multiple of them), onion-like. Remnants of some previously Sub...

A clue … there's an alternate-history novel, set in a 20th century where Europe is still dominated by the Catholic Church. That universe sounds like Phillip Pullman's "Magesterium/Dust" universe (from "Golden Compass"/ "Subtle Knife"/ "Amber Spyglass" and the "Book of Dust" trilogy of which only v1...

Robert Heinlien published under the name Lyle Monroe 1942. Pied Piper Hang on, that reminds me. Does a bit of "Young Adult" (or even "Children's Fiction" by Pterry, set on the DiscWorld (-ish) count as SF? It's a bit borderline, but I'm thinking of "The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents", wh...

OK, I'm in a musical mood, so let's have five SF stories / films / TV episodes / whatever which have the NAME of a musical instrument in the title. Meaningless bonus points if it is actually about music. Only one title per musical instrument. And the usual rules - I'll try to take the Good Doctor o...

ok this should be a quick one for the genius ' in this forum im searching for a book i read many moons ago. i dont know the name or author. All i remember is children needing to eat something special/rare and probably expensive . the children who didnt eat were mentally disadvantaged and i think di...

Hi cbr, I know the feeling from multiple places. Once the screen gets really busy, the system slows to a crawl, and you don't know about the guy sneaking up behind you to put a 9TJ laser bolt through the back of your life support system. There was an addon which I had on my previous installation, I ...

Ok.... let's try another field of human endeavour - crime! Give me five SF stories / films / whatever where the principal characters are criminals, or have to commit a crime. And to make it harder we'll go with non-violent crime, or at the worst minor injuries - no murders, assassinations, or terro...

OK... Robert Heinlein's story "The Man Who Sold The Moon" (1950) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Sold_the_Moon Well, I think you've got the hat back. Harriman clearly had the same approach to budgets and schedules that Douglas Adams had to editorial deadlines ("I love the sound as they ...

Surely we've not reached the limit of SF's inability to stick to schedule or budget? Now that would be fiction, indeed!

The S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier program - all of them (...) This can probably be generalised to cover all flying megastructures of this general type I agree on the SHIELDbase, and the generality of Flying Secret Bases. I always wondered why they didn't just get shot out of the sky ... in the way they ...

Harry Harrison A Transatlantic Tunnel,Hurrah! budget falls short, Her majesty's government coughs up 80% but they are still 8% of budget short.... well digging a tunnel from Lands End to the American colony cant be cheap... and yes it is still a colony. In this reality George Washington lost and wa...