Contemporary_SFF_-_Festivus_2023

9. In a Reddit AMA, the author that created these beings likened a disruption in their communication to patients with a severed corpus callosum and alien hand syndrome. A childrens’ song about these beings that ends with the line “nine, ten, break it apart and put it back together” earlier describes them erroneously as “the corpse soldier.” These beings’ names include their unit number and the name of half of one of the Four Emanations, leading to names like One (*) Esk Nineteen. These beings are created from people captured during planetary annexations through a surgery that destroys a person’s sense of identity and rebuilding it such that the brain perceives itself as a part of objects like Swords or Mercies . Following its destruction at the hands of Anaander Mianaai, the last surviving one of these beings from the Justice of Toren is Breq. For 10 points, name these beings, human bodies controlled by starship AI that partially title the novels in Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy. ANSWER: ancillaries [prompt on AI or artificial intelligence before read; prompt on Radchaai starships before “starship” is read] 10. Dr. Lokken designed this ship’s mechanism in which its upper and lower parts, connected by Zylon cables, detach and rotate to create artificial gravity via centripetal force. This ship, which ends up in orbit around a planet in the triple star system 40-Eridani, is equipped with unmanned pods called “beetles” intended to send research back to Earth since it was not equipped with enough supplies and fuel to return. The spin drives that power this ship utilize light at the (*) Petrova frequency to propel itself using the phototaxis of an alien microbe called Astrophage threatening to consume all the energy from the Sun. After reaching the star Tau Ceti, this ship encounters a ship dubbed Blip-A by this ship’s only surviving crew member, Ryland Grace. For 10 points, name this spacecraft that titles a 2021 novel by Andy Weir. ANSWER: the Hail Mary [accept Project Hail Mary ] 11. While talking with Markus T’mwarba, the protagonist reveals that using one of these things programmed her to destroy her ship and forget about it with self-hypnosis. After escaping the Rimbaud , a character called The Butcher reveals he was able to use one of these things, made evident by his lack of understanding of the word “I.” In that novel, the title one of these things is researched by the poet (*) Rydra Wong. In one story, the protagonist’s proficiency with one of these things allows her to see glimpses of future events like her daughter’s death in a rock climbing accident. The protagonist of that story determines that aliens are using two of these things that differ in their presentation of time, which she dubs Heptapod A and Heptapod B. For 10 points, name these things, one of which is deciphered by Dr. Louise Banks in Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life.” ANSWER: languages [accept Babel-17 ; accept Heptapod A or Heptapod B before mention; accept alien writing systems ] 12. The protagonist befriends a police robot called a Zombie by playing her guitar near an oil pipeline in this author’s short story “Spider the Artist.” The phrase “White ants never devour bronze, worms do not eat iron” is written on a sign on the shop of the blacksmith Ogundimu, who marries the protagonist’s mother in a novel by this author. The protagonist, an Ewu with the ability to shapeshift, recounts to a journalist her quest to defeat her father Daib in this author’s novel Who (*) Fears Death . The title character of a novel by this author befriends the jellyfish-like Meduse Okwu when her otjize brushes against his tentacle. This author is credited with coining a term for a genre that contrasts a similar term used to describe works by authors like Octavia Butler; that term coined by this author is Africanfuturism. For 10 points, name this author who wrote the Binti trilogy. ANSWER: Nnedi Okorafor [or Nnedimma Nkemdili Okorafor ]