These are the prelims of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Quiz conducted as part of Saahitya 2017 at IIT Madras. The quiz was done by Nithin Ramesan, Aditya YVV and Vishal Katariya.

1. prelims
A Rendezvous
with Drama
a scififantasy
quiz
prelims

2. How does this work?
30 questions
No negatives
Every answer/question has something to do with the world of SFF
No starred questions to break ties, we will take 9/10 teams if it comes to that.

3. Let’s begin

4. 1.
Portsmouth, a town in the UK renamed a road/street X, in recognition of a
successful 2013 novel. The author of this novel grew up in Southsea which is
close to Portsmouth and said he was “gobsmacked, befuddled, delighted and
baffled” by the honour. The name, however, is not apt in real life because it is
not what it denotes. What is X?

6. 2. X?
The Hollywood Walk of Fame awards stars to notable people in the film, television, music, radio
and theatre industries. Stars have also been awarded to fictional characters.
Out of all these fictional characters, only four have featured in live-action media - Big Bird, Kermit
the Frog, the Muppets and X.
X has traditionally been portrayed in films by an actor wearing a latex costume, although his later
appearances have involved animatronics and CGI effects as well.
X was envisioned as a metaphor for nuclear weapons, and embodies the kaiju subset of the
tokusatsu genre.

7. Godzilla.

8. 3.
In which academic subject from a fictional
fantasy universe would you see the pictures
on this and the the next slides?
___ TROPHY [C. 1996] THIS OBJECT CAN
BE FOUND IN THE DOMICILES OF
TEENAGE ___. THE FACT THAT IT IS
DISPLAYED IN A PLACE OF IMPORTANCE
LEADS ME TO BELIEVE THAT THESE ARE
FAUX FUR TROPHIES OF THE CRINITUS
FORTUNA FUROREM, WHICH IS
REPUTED TO BRING THE OWNER LUCK,
LOVE AND SUPERIOR FASHION SENSE.

9. DRINK COASTER [C. 1980] THESE HARD,
PLASTIC SQUARES ACT AS COASTERS FOR
COLD OR HOT <word> DRINKS.
INTERESTINGLY, THEY CONTAIN A HIDDEN
FUNCTION. RETRACT THE SILVER SLIDER,
AND A SPACE FOR STORING SMALL SCRAPS
OF PAPER IS REVEALED. WE POSTULATE
THAT THIS WAS A POPULAR WAY FOR
<word> STUDENTS TO PASS NOTES IN
CLASS (AND KEEP BEVERAGE RINGS FROM
STAINING THEIR DESKS).

10. Muggle Studies

11. 4. FITB

12. Game of Thrones.

13. 5.
____ Gernsbach was a Luxembourgish-American inventor, writer, editor, and
magazine publisher, who is known now as the father of the science fiction
genre. He published what is now accepted to be the first science fiction
magazine, Amazing Stories. How does he live on in the world of SF today?

15. 6. FITB

16. Terry Pratchett.

17. 7.
In the Wheel of Time series, the Dark One is a cosmic primordial
personification of evil. He has many names, such as “Father of Lies”,
“Sightblinder”, “Old Grim” etc. However, his true name references the Arabic
name for devil. What?

18. Shai’tan

19. 8. X?
Patrick Rothfuss’ (incomplete) fantasy trilogy, the Kingkiller Chronicles, has
been picked up by Lionsgate for both a feature film and TV series. The
executive producer for both has recently been announced as X. X, in addition
to being a producer, will also compose musical scores and write songs for
the franchise, as well as reserving the right to direct any stage adaptations
of the series.
In a statement, X said “Pat also writes about the act of MAKING music more
beautifully than any novelist I’ve ever read. I can’t wait to play a part in
bringing this world to life onscreen..”

20. Lin-Manuel Miranda

21. 9.
An American film director and screenwriter called Robert Bradbury (not
related to the Ray Bradbury) ‘invented’ or postulated a __________ brain,
which is a class B stellar engine. It has immense computational complexity
and gets its name because it is comes from the idea of stacking Xs around a
star as a gigantic computer. The ___________ brain would involve each X
drawing power from the star and propagating it up out through the shells.
What is X, a rather popular trope in science fiction books and movies? Also,
FITB with a word/concept that doesn’t come from science fiction.

22. X - Dyson Sphere
blank - matrioshka

23. 10.
What is the caption given to this t-shirt?

24. Darth Side of the Moon

25. 11.
The author of this series says that he based the protagonist after whom the
series is named upon his younger brother Donal. He (the author) thought
about how his brother resembled "a little James Bond villain" and "how
funny...a twelve-year-old James Bond villain" would be.
The initial choice for the name was meant to be Archimedes, but the author
realised that people thought it would about Archimedes himself and thus
changed the name to what is usually a female name. The last name is a play
on an Irish surname and also wishes to convey that this person was not a
very nice person in the beginning of the series.
Who is this protagonist?

27. 12. An impassioned defense of whom?
“I love the moment when X dies. All he ever did was whine.
Back the fuck up.
X is one of the greatest characters in the entire series. His mother died when he was 10,
leaving him to be shit on by his batshit crazy father, who had severe delusions of grandeur.
His younger brother, whom he loves more than anyone, is constantly ridiculed and belittled
by his father, while X is put up on a pedestal. He’s had to watch countless numbers of his
friends die defending a kingless nation that has been slowly declining for the past 3,000
years. The enemy’s forces keep getting stronger, while his kingdom’s forces keep getting
weaker. X knows that his people cannot endure much longer, yet he continues to fight for
them. Imagine the guilt and regret that he had to deal with on a daily basis. Imagine the
hopelessness that he had to ignore in order to serve a deranged old man and a ruined
country. It breaks my heart just thinking about it.

28. And then, X comes into the presence of Y. In his eyes, he finally has an opportunity to fulfill
his father’s expectations. When X tries to take Y, it isn’t because he is greedy/corrupted, it’s
because he doesn’t want to leave his people to die. He wants to know that he spent all those
years fighting for a reason. And when he is refused, that’s when X finally realizes that he
has become the man he hates the most: his father.
But the amaåzing thing is, X doesn’t give up. Even though he believes that he has failed all
his friends, he goes on to defend some of them from the attacking enemy, sacrificing
himself in the process. He admits to his true king what he has done and that in trying to
save his people, he has brought forth their demise. But his true king promises him that he
will not let that happen. Finally, for the first time in his life, X has hope. He has hope that his
people will survive and his country will return to its former glory. And then he dies.
That right there, is one of the saddest moments in the entire series. Fuck you.”

30. 13.
Lennart Nilsson was a Swedish photographer and scientist in the 20th
century who is best known for his pictures of the ‘unphotographable’, such
as human embryos. A film made his picture of the embryo famous, where
the concluding scene features a ____ _____ floating through space, where
the ____ _____ signifies a “great new beginning”.
Which film, and FITB for half points each.

32. 2001: A Space Odyssey
Star Child

33. 14. FITB.
Excerpts from an article titled: How could a ___ exist in the real world?
● The bombardier beetle: has two internal reservoirs that carry distinct chemicals. When
combined in a third reservoir, the resulting mixture gets extremely hot with a gas
byproduct that helps spray the scalding brew.
● Many animals - including humans and cows - produce a gas called methane during
digestion
● Modern birds eat rocks and stones to help digestion, which if agitated violently
enough, could produce sparks.
● Saharan Silver Ants have evolved an armor of silver, reflective hairs on their body that
allow them to forage in temperatures of upto 158 degrees F.

34. Dragons.

35. 15
11/22/63 is a Stephen King novel that was released in 2011. The novel was also adapted into a Hulu
television series by the same name. The story involves the protagonist traveling in time to prevent
a major incident.
King also said this when conceptualising: “I'd like to tell a time-travel story where this guy finds a
diner that connects to 1958... you always go back to the same day. So one day he goes back and just
stays. Leaves his 2007 life behind. His goal? [...] He does, and he's convinced he's just FIXED THE
WORLD. But when he goes back to '07, the world's a nuclear slag-heap. Not good to fool with Father
Time. So then he has to go back again and stop himself..... only he's taken on a fatal dose of
radiation, so it's a race against time.”
What does the title of the novel refer to?

36. JFK’s assassination

37. 16. X?
From Epic Rap Battles of History, featuring Deadpool and X:
But do you guys honestly think
That i would screw this feud up
And lose to the dude
A huge toothie cootchie chewed up?
…
You’re mad cause Sam Jackson
Killed your clone daddy

38. Boba Fett.

39. 17. Add a dash of TCQ, and give us X.
To begin with, X started off not as a fairy tale, but as a classical myth - that of Cupid and
Psyche. The story was rehashed as X for the first time in 1740 by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot
de Villeneuve, and was retold countless times, from the Norwegian fairytales to Sarah J
Maas’ bestselling novel A Court of Thorns and Roses.
Originally one of what the psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim called “animal groom” stories,
intended to reassure virginal brides about sex, X has itself been repeatedly transformed. The
original interpretations of it are distasteful. From depictions in antiquity to Canova’s
sculptures, artists have tended to present a swooning Psyche in Cupid’s embrace. Yet
Madame de Villeneuve’s version, on which numerous novels and films are based, argues “for
marriages of true minds”.

40. Obligatory Emma Watson photo.

41. 18.
The New York Times brought out a piece called “Obama’s Secret to Surviving
the White House Years: Books”. Barack Obama picked up this book initially
as escape reading, but this apocalyptic sci-fi epic put things unexpectedly in
perspective. About the book, he says, “The scope of it was immense. So that
was fun to read, partly because my day-to-day problems with Congress seem
fairly petty — not something to worry about. Aliens are about to invade!”
This book was also part of Mark Zuckerberg’s Year In Books in 2015. Which
book?

43. 19.
The major romantic plot line in this series, between X and Y, is an atypical
one. X is over a 100 years old, while Y is still a teenager when his infatuation
begins. For a majority of the series, his infatuation is prompted solely by X’s
physical appearance (a fact that has drawn criticism from fans and critics).
X and Y are also of different species to begin with, although that changes
somewhat as the series progresses. Rather predictably, X rebuffs Y’s
advances on multiple occasions, before finally admitting the possibility of a
relationship at the end of the series.
Name X & Y.

44. X - Arya
Y - Eragon

45. 20, 21.
To be launched later this year (October ‘17), Philip Pullman refers not to it as
one of two words usually used to describe companion books, but as an X, a
wordplay denoting that it is a new story that stands beside his previous
trilogy and has as much importance.
20. What is X?
21. What is the name of the new series?

46. 20. equel, a play on prequel/sequel
21. The Book of Dust

47. 22. h/t Subbu
The following images show the recently discovered Caynton Caves, in
Shropshire. It is claimed to have been used by followers of the Knights
Templar in the 17th Century and are located less than a metre underground.
The entrance was first discovered by a farmer in his field.
The cave was discovered when examining an ordinary X. This noun X was
made famous in an 1865 book. X?

49. Down the Rabbit Hole

50. 23. a wild yvv appears. what is X?
The earliest known use of the term X was by Bob Olsen in his short story
"Captain Brink of the X”, published in Amazing Stories, Volume 7, Number 8,
November 1932. Later, he also published a novella sequel four years later, “X
and the Slavers“ featuring the same characters.
Y’s famous 1959 novel is considered the defining work for the concept,
although it does not directly use the term X.
Some modern examples of this archetype include the Adeptus Astartes in
Warhammer 40k, SPARTANS from Halo, MACOs from Star Trek. Imperial
Stormtroopers of the Star Wars Original Trilogy also fit the role of X for the
Galactic Empire.

51. Space Marine

52. 24.
This continues from the previous question. About the protagonist of another
science fiction novel Z by Y, blogger and author Ted Gioia says, “[...] is more
than a character. He is prototype of an alternative personality structure. The
question of whether we can remake the human personality from the ground
up.” He also writes about the author,
This weirdness of the protagonist is reflected in the title of the book. Ted
Gioia also says, “Two years after his novel [...], which incurred charges that
he was a militarist, Y offered up Z, which would establish him as a free love
guru of the hippie generation.”

54. 25. Hawt af
Who played Feyd-Rautha in David Lynch’s Dune 1984 movie?

56. Sting

57. 26.
The third book of the series, it refers to the extermination of an alien species.
It is a portmanteau of two Greek words, one meaning ‘alien’ or ‘foreign’ and
the other to the act of killing. Rather ironically, the protagonist switches
modes from his acts in the first book of the series and works towards
preventing this mass killing of the entire species. Name the book.

59. 27. X?
X does not have a word for thank you, but what words in X do not exist in English?
● arrane (n.) a public dressing down (i.e. a word for when you lambast someone in public in order to
shame them in the eyes of others; derives ultimately from a word meaning "merciful")
● karlinqoyi (n.) the word karlin is the word for a horse galloping. This word is used to describe an
even faster gallop—one that, if sustained for a prolonged period, would kill the horse.
● kadikh (n.) an animal that's been captured but not yet tamed
● ita (adj.) neither too warm nor too cool (suggests that whatever is being modified is exactly the
temperature it should be in order to be used—so if it's a hot meal, it's appropriately hot; if it's a cold
drink, it's cold, etc.)
● lanlekhi (n.) the feeling you get when you eat one of something, and suddenly you want more of it
(think potato chips, M&M's, Skittles, where you eat one, and then you eat two, and then sixty potato
chips later...)

60. Dothraki.

61. 28.
The inspiration for A, a six book series chronicling the story of the
coming-of-age of a young man named Tavi in the realm of Alera, came when
X was challenged to by a member of the Del Rey Online Writer's Workshop.
The challenger bet that X could not write a good story based on a lame idea.
X countered he could do it using two lame ideas of the challenger's
choosing. The "lame" ideas given were "Lost Roman Legion", and "Pokémon".
X, however, is better known for his contemporary fantasy/mystery series,
The _______ _____ about a professional wizard named Harry _______,
following the world's only "consulting wizard" as he works supernatural
cases from both human and non-human clients.

62. A - Codex Alera
X - Jim Butcher

63. 29.
Tim Pyle and Robert Hurt have worked together at Caltech’s Infrared
Processing and Analysis Center for over twelve years. Their latest work
however, has gotten them quite a bit of fame.
“We are the yin and yang,” Hurt said. “The scientist with a strong interest in
___, and the ______ with a strong interest in science.”
They also tried envisioning the orientation by using marbles arranged on a
carpet in Hurt’s house.
What is their recent project?

65. 30.
Trailer for the TV adaptation of which book?

66. American Gods