Skip to main content

story identification - Name of a YA sci fi anthology?


I have been trying to locate an anthology of young-adult sci fi short stories that I read in primary school in the late '90s (I do not know when the book itself was published). I can only remember a few elements:




  1. A story featuring an astronaut working on the Moon, who is caught in a blast and discovers a blinded and disoriented person who is recovering from it. He has a long chat with this person, who (unaware his savior is a human) openly states that he and his fellow aliens are planning an invasion of Earth.




  2. A story involving a spacecraft getting caught in an event horizon. The story ends with people in another ship watching as the first ship undergoes spaghettification.





  3. A story involving a group of commandos (the leader of which is distinct by wearing black, and his 2IC in brown), attacking some large ground craft (with tank-like tread) and eventually taking it over. They then drive it to the enemy base pretending that the enemy side had won the engagement. One thing they did was lay out the bodies of dead commandos (along with fake-dead ones) on the front of the vehicle as they approached the base, to 'show the trophies' of the 'enemies' they'd killed, and once inside they leap up and begin attacking (a sort of Trojan Horse arrangement). The plan sort of works and a fierce fight breaks out; all the team are killed except their deputy leader; each of them (leader and 2IC) have a very powerful bomb (there are only two available), and the lone survivor uses his to detonate the base in a suicide run.




  4. A story of two people who get on a spacecraft or rocket that sends them to a planet filled with nature with no other humanoids. For some reason, water causes their tunics and other clothes to melt away. Their craft cannot be used anymore so they are stranded on this planet. It is then revealed that they are Adam and Eve.




The cover art of the one I was reading featured a large greyish land vehicle like the one described in 3. I remember there also being a lot of yellow used on the cover.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

harry potter - What is the difference between Diffindo and Sectumsempra?

In the Harry Potter books, Diffindo is called the 'Severing Charm' and it’s most commonly used to cut ropes and the like. However, in the last book Hermione uses it on Ron but misses, creating a 'slash in his jeans' and his knee gets cut, causing him to 'roar in pain'. We've only seen Sectumsempra used once on screen when Harry directly uses it on Malfoy in the sixth book, but there it's mentioned that he is 'waving his wand wildly'. Wouldn't Diffindo, if used in such a fashion also cause a similar effect? Similarly, if it was able to cut Ron, it would also be able to, say, chop off an ear (George's)? In that case, how are these two spells different, except for Sectumsempra seemingly used exclusively to hurt humans? Answer While Diffindo and Sectumsempra both can be countered by other spells, Diffindo is far more easily countered. Reparo, a relatively common spell, can completely reverse its effect when used once. “He pulled the old cop...

aliens - Interstellar Zoo story

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...