1. Why does Crake, in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, create a genetic pandemic that apparently kills off all human beings apart from his friend Jimmy?

   1. He is a power-hungry maniac

   2. To replace human beings with his own genetically engineered race, the Crakers

   3. He is madly in love with Jimmy and wants to annihilate any potential competition

   4. It’s a mistake – he was actually working on a virus to eliminate the common cold

2. How does James Bond defeat evil scientist Dr No in Ian Fleming’s novel of the same name?

   1. He disembowels him with a giant drill

   2. He shows him the error of his ways

   3. He throws him to the hungry crocodiles that No had intended to kill Bond with

   4. He buries him alive in bird dung

3. The plot of Don DeLilllo's White Noise hinges around the development of a drug intended to remove the fear of death. It is called

   1. Dylar

   2. Zestac

   3. Prozac

   4. Fullabene

4. Dr Hugo Grief is the apartheid-supporting, Hitler-admiring biochemist in Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider series. How can he be identified?

   1. By the distinctive lightning bolt scar on his forehead

   2. By the swastika tattoo on his right hand

   3. By his grey tongue and beautifully manicured nails

   4. By his nervous eye twitch

5. What is the name of the upper class English gentleman who is marooned on The Island of Dr Moreau by HG Wells, where the eponymous doctor is attempting through vivisection to turn animals into humans?

   1. Glen Carlile

   2. Edward Prendick

   3. Michael “Monty” Montgomery

   4. Jerry Springer

6. "In the small hours one morning," the wife of an author wrote, "I was awakened by cries of horror from [my husband]. Thinking he had a nightmare I awakened him. He said angrily: 'Why did you awaken me? I was dreaming a fine bogey tale.'" Which story of a scientist eventually destroyed by his invention did the author go on to write?

   1. Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

   2. Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

   3. Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

   4. Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus

7. “As for Rappaccini, it is said of him that he cares infinitely more for science than for mankind. His patients are interesting to him only as subjects for some new experiment. He would sacrifice human life, his own among the rest, or whatever else was dearest to him, for the sake of adding so much as a grain of mustard-seed to the great heap of his accumulated knowledge.” Who is the author of the short story Rappaccini’s Daughter, about a scientist experimenting with poisonous plants?

   1. Charles Dickens

   2. Aesop

   3. Nathaniel Hawthorne

   4. Jhumpa Lahiri

8. What is the subtitle of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, in which Victor Frankenstein creates a monster from human parts?

   1. Frankenstein, Or A Monster Lives

   2. Frankenstein, Or The Modern Prometheus

   3. Frankenstein, Or A Man of Many Parts

   4. Frankenstein, Or New Uses for Old Corpses

9. Why does Griffin, in HG Wells’ The Invisible Man, use his invisibility experiment to make himself invisible?

   1. He mistakes the potion for a glass of water and drinks it by accident

   2. He believes it will win him the Nobel prize

   3. To spy on his attractive colleagues in the shower

   4. He is frightened of his neighbour’s wrath after he makes her cat invisible

10. What experiment is headmistress Miss Emily conducting in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go?

    1. She is trying to turn her pupils into geniuses

    2. She wants to turn lead into gold

    3. She is attempting to prove that the cloned children in her school have souls

    4. She is searching for a sure-fire Booker prize-winning formula

11. "Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships / And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?” Who has Faustus summoned following his pact with the devil in Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus?

    1. Helen of Troy

    2. Homer

    3. The Trojan horse

    4. Aphrodite

12. Whose novel sees a determined scientist and his nephew enter an Icelandic volcano to discover a vast cavern inhabited by dinosaurs?

    1. HG Wells

    2. Dan Brown

    3. Jules Verne

    4. Michael Crichton

13. The scientist Dr Egan in Clive Cussler’s Valhalla Rising has invented a frictionless oil as well as a teleportation device which is being sought by a ruthless oil company. What is the name of the hero who saves the day?

    1. Magnus Falcon

    2. Dirk Pitt

    3. Kurt Austin

    4. James Bond

14. In whose books do the loyal assistants the Igors, based on Frankenstein’s monster, have the following code: never question the master ("No, thur, that'th an artery"); never pass judgement ("What do you want a hundred virginth for?"); never grumble ("Where am I going to find a brain at thith time of night?")?

    1. Barbara Cartland

    2. Robert Rankin

    3. Terry Pratchett

    4. Dick Francis

Solutions

1:B, 2:D, 3:A, 4:C, 5:B, 6:A, 7:C, 8:B, 9:D, 10:C, 11:A, 12:C, 13:B, 14:C

Scores

1. 0 and above.

   Back to the day job - the heady world of particle colliders holds nothing for you. You probably think the earth is flat.

2. 5 and above.

   You've emerged a fair way from the primordial slime but there's a long way to go before you're standing fully upright. Back to the lab.

3. 10 and above.

   Your may have been teased by schoolfriends as a science geek but you'll have the last laugh – listen out for that recruitment call from CERN