Science Fiction Midterm 2

memorize titles and authors and plots

The Man Who Evolved

Edmond Hamilton

Desertion

Clifford D. Simak

Seed Stock

Frank Herbert

Rogue Farm

Charles Stross

Reason

Isaac Asimov

Super-Toys Last All Summer Long

Brian Aldiss

Fondly Fahrenheit

Alfred Bester

The Golem

Avram Davidson

Nine Lives

Ursula K. Le Guin

Exhalation

Ted Chiang

We Can Remember It For You Wholesale

Phillip K. Dick

Burning Chrome

William Gibson

Pretty Boy Crossover

Pat Cadigan

Computer Friendly

Eileen Gunn

mad scientists subjects his younger college friends to witness him evolve into, eventually, protoplasm

The Man Who Evolved by Edmond Hamilton

Man, dog, and technician woman transform young men into Jovian species so they can go to Jupiter and report back their findings. They never return so he sets out himself with his dog.

Desertion by Clifford D. Simak

A colony of earth people sent to start a civilization on another planet are running out of food and their preparations are insufficient. One ugly sea peasant and his wife adapt and innovate like the hawks despite scientist prohibitions.

Seed Stock by Frank Herbert

In a post-apocalyptic world riddled with government surveillance bugs, a couple on a farm defend their property from a bio-meshed farm made up of a group of loving, dreaming, people wishing to blast off to Jupiter.

Rogue Farm by Charles Stross

Two technicians on a solar station assemble a robot (QT-1) to help manage the beam-attending worker robots, but the robot turns philosophical and starts to worship the converter “Master", refusing to believe any earth and man-made nonsense

Reason by Isaac Asimov

A couple live in a simulated reality and have a robot child named David and a Teddy bear companion that struggle with the idea of love and what is real. The husband works to make the robots, and they are finally allowed to attempt to have a biological child.

Super-Toys Last All Summer Long by Brian Aldiss

A man’s android servant/companion with synesthesia starts killing people when it gets to hot, so they are constantly on the run. The man himself is in danger of projection and adopting the android’s anger impulses

Fondly Fahrenheit by Alfred Bester

Old jewish married couple sitting on the porch and talking unflustered by the robot-like being that joins them and speaks of killing cruel humanity

The Golem by Avram Davidson

Two technicians on a dead planet used for uranium mining are joined by a ten-clone of a genius, which later die in a mine during an earthquake, leaving one alive and in existential crisis

Nine Lives by Ursula K. Le Guin

Beings in a silo with replaceable/refillable lungs, one anatomist dissects his own brain to discover it works on air-flow, when they think time is slowing down, he realizes that they exist in a closed system, not immune to entropy, and that they are all in fact mortal.

Exhalation by Ted Chiang

A man yearns for Mars and so he goes to a buisness that will give him convincing memories, but turns out he’s an assassin that already went to Mars, and was also visited by mouse-like aliens that won’t invade Earth until he’s dead

We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Phillip K. Dick

two digital outlaws hack into a young mafia affiliated woman’s online cash transfer, kills her in the process. One of them is in love with a girl, the other uses her as a good luck charm but she turns to prostitution so she can get enough money for artificial eyes and become an influencer.

Burning Chrome by William Gibson

16 year old boy likes to go into clubs to be seen because he is pretty but he also likes to think a lot and does not want to become self-aware data like his friend, who he loves platonically, because he loves to see others and not just be seen.

Pretty Boy Crossover by Pat Cadigan

kindergarten-aged girl goes to a testing center to see determine whether, when she is older, her brain can become a data organizing executive. She meets two other kids there that are creative and less obedient and are going to be euthanized. When she discovers this, she gets the help from chickenheart who saves them and adopts them so that they can jumble up the system and create new things.

Computer Friendly by Eileen Gunn