story identification - Alien attack novel, a team of humans are sent on a suicide mission with every human on earth to direct them

The book begins after Earth has been attacked several times, already. These alien vessels are being sent into the system and attacking the planet.

An elite team of humans from all over the world (iirc) called the “Angels” are sent up on what is almost always a suicide mission to stop the ship and prevent if from wreaking destruction on the planet. As I recall it, only one person has ever survived one of these and that person is in pretty bad shape. Their actions are guided by a crowdsourcing effort, where anyone on the planet can suggest an action, which I think were voted on before the Angels would carry them out.

The one I read was a paperback, I don't think it made it to hardback.

I read the book sometime between 2000 and 2010. It was in English and it was pretty new. It was an uncatalogued paperback from a library. I think the cover art was a space ship of some kind, but I'm not completely sure.

Answer

Could it be Earthweb by Marc Stiegler?

I have the book, but it's in the (large) pile of books to be read one day so I'm going by some frenzied Googling and the Amazon summary:

Someone Out There really hated humans. Twenty years ago Shiva I swept aside Earth's defenses and rained down destruction until a suicide squad boarded it and blew it to smithereens. Now Shiva V has entered the Solar System. Vastly more powerful than any of its predecessors, it has destroyed all fleets sent against it. There is only one way to defeat a Shiva: get inside and kill it. Once again, in the personae of five champions, four billion of us are about to do just that, linked and coordinated by -- The Earthweb!

The summary doesn't mention The Angels, but a quick skim through the book suggests that the group of champions sent to infiltrate Shiva are called The Angels.

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Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...

game of thrones - Who were the Kingsguard escorting Cersei?

Now to the question... During the scene where Cersei sits on the Iron Throne and is "sworn in" we see her escorted by seven members of the Kingsguard. Now this is what I would expect as that is the correct number. However, I have no idea who they are ! [embedded content] The books pay more attention to detail in this area, but the show is also diverging and outpacing in this regard. We can see that a few of the names are not possible on the show. I have listed the names from the books and given why the reason they could not be members on the show in bold. Ser Jaime Lannister, Lord Commander - Stripped of title Ser Loras Tyrell - Dead and also was never a KG on the show. Ser Osmund Kettleblack - Possible, but not mentioned by name Ser Balon Swann - Possible, but not mentioned by name Ser Meryn Trant - Dead Ser Boros Blount - Possible, but not mentioned by name Ser Robert Strong (aka Zombie Mountain) - Confirmed I know it can be confusing mixing the books and shows, but the qu...

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