Last week, we asked you about classical science fiction. (Bet you were surprised at all those ancient Greeks and Romans with their robots.) This week, the Post invites you to consider. . .

We mean 'early modern' in the historians' sense. The early modern period starts with the Renaissance and goes on into the 18th Century. This quiz is short-answer. Remember: Pencil marks are hard to clean off the screen.

1. Mad scientist number one: which Shakespeare character uses weather control to kidnap miscreants onto his fantasy island?
2. In the same early-modern scifi drama, which character first utters the immortal words (no, NOT 'he's dead, Jim') 'brave new world', and why?
3. Mad scientist number two: what fictional German deal-with-the-devil story was based on the misadventures of a real chemist? For extra credit, how did the real mad scientist die?
4. Alternative worlds division: what English politician called his perfect world Utopia?
5. What is it about English politicians and utopian thinking, anyway? (Quiet in the back.) Which one of them called his utopia The New Atlantis?
6. What sexy fantasy story that featured supernatural beings and flying items of interior decoration first appeared in Europe in 1704?
7. Scientists as science fiction writers – you think this is new? Think again. What major astronomer turned his dissertation into an account of an Icelander on the moon?
8. Francis Godwin was a bishop, for pity's sake. How did he get away with publishing The Man in the Moone?
9. More lunatics. What famous French swordsman, himself often a fictional hero, is credited with inventing the ramjet, at least in a science fiction story he wrote?
10. How about women writers? What female English scientist of the 17th Century came up with a heroine who, as empress of another world, defends her native England using submarines and aerial weapons?

Boy, and you thought this was going to be an easy quiz. Check out the answers by clicking on the picture.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

30.04.12 Front Page

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