70
votes
Accepted
In The Martian, how were the crew in the Hermes shielded from radiation?
It was handwaved.
“In the book they have this really thin, light, flexible material that blocks all radiation,” says Andy Weir, author of the book The Martian on which the film was based. “There’s ...
- 212k
67
votes
Accepted
Book where a space ship journeys to the center of the galaxy to find all the stars had gone supernova
This sounds like the short story "At the Core" by Larry Niven.
Four years after the events in the other short story "Neutron Star", spaceship pilot Beowulf Shaeffer is on Jinx, a ...
- 456
49
votes
In The Martian, how were the crew in the Hermes shielded from radiation?
He would die with that kind of protection.
There were some inaccuracies in the book and the plot. But it was a great book anyway.
That list of doom:
1. Atmosphere
On a reddit Q&A, one fan ...
- 7,934
47
votes
Accepted
Short story about interstellar travel gone wrong
The story you’re thinking of is “Cascade Point”, a 1983 novella by Timothy Zahn. It appeared in a collection of his other stories, Cascade Point and Other Stories.
I can’t ...
- 7,620
43
votes
Accepted
Short story about a man trying to invent force field, but fails and someone else builds a better one
This is almost certainly Not Final!, a short story by Isaac Asimov.
The story follows your memory very accurately. It was thought that Earth would be safe from invasion from the inhabitants of Jupiter,...
- 60.2k
32
votes
Accepted
Short story- crashed pilot must run/jump around a small planet to catch the sun and charge her life supporting suit
This is probably "A Walk in the Sun" by Geoffrey A. Landis. But it's the Moon. Here's what Wikipedia says about it:
The story follows Trish, the final survivor of a terrible crash
landing ...
- 5,633
32
votes
First "space walk" described in fiction?
There is a space walk scene in Edison's Conquest of Mars (1898) by Garrett P. Serviss. (Note that for some reason ISFDb barely notes the original 1898 serialization.)
The following quotes are from ...
- 115k
31
votes
Accepted
1980s or earlier sci-fi short story where a planet is calling to a woman and she becomes an astronaut to travel there
This description sounds like James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon)'s 1981 novella "With Delicate Mad Hands", although lacking some major details. The protagonist of the story is a young, ...
- 1,180
30
votes
Short comic about alien explorers visiting an abandoned world with giant statues that turn out to be alive but move very slowly
This is Omega Men #26: "Brief Lives" written by Alan Moore and drawn by Kevin O'Neill.
and the ending
- 666k
26
votes
Accepted
Story about spacecraft crew losing consciousness as they get farther from Earth
I think this is In Numbers by Greg Egan.
I have the story in a collection of text files gleaned over the years from the Internet. According to ISFDB it has only been printed once in Asimov's magazine ...
- 94.1k
24
votes
Science fiction story or novel where alien plant erupts from under ice
This is the Chinese ship Tsien landing on Europa in 2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke.
Chapter 11, Ice and Vacuum:
Perhaps it's a phototrope, its biological cyce triggered by the
sunlight ...
- 820
21
votes
Short story where human explorers accidentally blind an alien race
As James Wirz correctly deducted in his answer, the story I was looking for is called "Stranger's eyes", by Russian Author Dmitri Bilenkin (Дмитрий Биленкин). Originally published under the ...
- 3,189
21
votes
Accepted
Space exploration/RPG PC game where humanity is trapped in a space bubble
If it's not SC2, then might it have been Solar Winds? I have vague recollections of playing this and it sounds like it might be what you describe.
I'm not sure on the exact combat mechanics but I do ...
- 226
19
votes
Accepted
Sci-Fi story about people traveling through space in confined spaces then fighting once returning planet side
This is probably The Hated by Frederik Pohl.
It concerns space crew cooped up together on a long mission to Mars. They get on each other's nerves big-time. They are psychologically conditioned to not ...
- 49k
19
votes
Accepted
I am looking for a Sci-Fi book about scientists on an alien planet exploring the dead civilization that once lived there
This is Total Eclipse by John Brunner
As you remembered, it's about a human archeological expedition to a planet with extinct aliens, and the aliens were eventually discovered to have destroyed ...
- 32.9k
18
votes
Accepted
Story about a man and an alien exploring an alien world
This is the late Stanley G. Weinbaum's 1934 classic short story A Martian Odyssey, which you can read (legally!) for free here or buy in The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum.
Here's the alien:
‘The ...
- 27.8k
18
votes
Accepted
Short story about aliens trading for hydroponics
In Value Deceived by H. B. Fyfe (1950)
Story appeared in collection Possible Worlds of Science Fiction edited by Groff Conklin.
The alien home world had all its food crops destroyed by a blight. They ...
- 14.4k
18
votes
Accepted
Short story where interplanetary explorers find a strange planet that's weirdly suited for human life
This is surely Drop Dead, a short story by Clifford Simak, first published in Galaxy in July 1956.
It indeed deals with a team of scientists surveying a new world, and being surprised by its lack of ...
- 60.2k
18
votes
Accepted
Story about a lone planetary explorer with a robotic assistant
This sounds very much like The Sound of Screaming, a short story by Theodore L. Thomas published in October 1960 in Amazing Stories.
The plot is essentially just what you recall. The explorer is named ...
- 60.2k
17
votes
Accepted
Science fiction short story where explorers land on planet inhabited by humanoids who eat algae
This is "Bordered in Black", by Larry Niven. It was first published in 1966 in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and it is collected in Inconstant Moon (1973), Convergent ...
- 17.4k
17
votes
Looking for a novel about a mysterious sphere/cube shaped object
Just had an epiphany and googled "book with neural lace". I found it.
If anyone is curious by my non-descriptive question, the book is Excession by Iain M. Banks, 5th book of the Culture series.
...
- 221
17
votes
Accepted
What is the name of this (possibly 40 year old) Sci-Fi novel
Sounds like The Legacy of Heorot by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. More details in the previously asked questions
A planet where killing a monster brought even worse devastation
Colonists kill ...
- 1,586
17
votes
Accepted
Short story about flowers that look like seductive women
"Planting Time", a 1975 short story by Pete Adams and Charles Nightingale, which you might have read in one of these anthologies. I read it in Galactic Empires Volume I (Brian Aldiss, ed.) ...
- 157k
16
votes
Accepted
The Target who shot back: old sci-fi short story
"Gambler's choice" (1971) by Bob Shaw, collected in Alien Worlds: Stories of Adventure on Other Planets (1981) along with an excerpt of "Out of the Silent Planet". The original ...
- 55.5k
16
votes
Accepted
First story in which the vacuum of space and its consequences were discussed?
1827: "A Voyage to the Moon", a novel by George Tucker, available at Project Gutenberg.
The machine in which we proposed to embark, was a copper vessel, that would have been an exact cube ...
- 157k
15
votes
Accepted
Sci-fi book about a small sea-cucumber like alien that made humans go insane and/or die
This is the 1976 novel Mindbridge by Joe Haldeman.
The planet circles Groombridge 1618 and the small alien creatures are called "bridges." The explorers (called "Tamers") wear ...
- 49k
15
votes
Accepted
Old book about space travel c. 1930-1960
Men of Other Planets by Kenneth Heuer, published in 1951.
From a review by P. Schuyler Miller in Astounding Science Fiction, December 1951 (available at the Internet Archive):
This handsome little ...
- 157k
15
votes
Trilogy in the 80’s about space travel to another world
This is presumably the Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, published over the years from 1992 to 1996. It fits the general description, with thick novels, mostly read in ...
- 94.7k
15
votes
Accepted
1960's-1970's (possibly older) sci-fi story about a man stuck on an inhabited planet with a twist
This is Fredric Brown's Something Green.
Here's a blog post about the story.
The story was about a man who crashed on a uninhabited planet and was wandering around for few years looking for another ...
- 32.9k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible