"Science in Fiction" (Reading)

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1. Names and numbers are relatively easy to find when scanning a text. In 30 seconds, which proper names (people, places, books, etc) and which dates can you find in this text?

"Science in Fiction"


By the time of his death in 2008, Michael Crichton had become the giant of the science thriller genre. He was perhaps best known for his novel Jurassic Park - published in 1990- offs of his books. (I say 'best-known' but let's not forget that he was also the man behind the famous story of the little alien ET, who befriends a small boy.)

For my money, however, his finest and most frightening novel was one of the earliest: The Andromeda Strain published in 1969. The novel builds on  the premise that if we are ever to encounter aliens from another galaxy, they are much less likely to be little green men than microscopic life forms.

On a slightly jollier note, sticking to alien life, there's Carl Sagan's Contact, published in 1985, the tale of the radio astronomer who encounters a signal that could have been sent only by an intelligent life form. On one visit to the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Chesire I was heartened to discover that this book (and the 1997 film starring Jodie Foster) was a favourite of the astronomers there.

But back to putting a shiver down your spine. How about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein? First published, anonymously, in 1818, it shows that even in what the writer and academic Richard Holmes so memorably termed 'The Age of Wonder', the dark side of scientific research was never far from imaginative minds.



2. Now find the answers to these questions about those names and numbers. The questions don't follow the order of the text.

  • Which is the oldest book the author mentions?
  • Which is the most modern?
  • What can be found in Cheshire?
  • Which creations bearing Michael Crichton's name are mentioned in the article?
  • Which of these does the authour say she likes most?
  • Which of Jodie Foster's films is mentioned in this article?
  • Whose name was on the title page of the first edition of Frankenstein?
  • When was the book that the Jodrell Bank astronomers like published?
  • Who coined the phrase 'The Age of Wonder'?
  • Which age does 'The Age of Wonder' refer to?
  • When did Michael Crichton die?

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