I see 4 potential animals and would clue in this order: DUCK, SHARK, CALF, PHOENIX.
First 2 are obvious, there is a possibility that David missed CALF but since PHOENIX's aren't real, I'll put that last. I'm happy with either one though.
Edit:
RAY is possible too, for a manta ray. Probably would put it last though, as it's a stretch.
I see SHARK, DUCK, PHOENIX, and CALF. Of those, I'm most sure about the first two and iffy on the last two. PHOENIX is fictional, but still an animal, CALF is real, but just an age, not a species. Gun-to-head choice is PHOENIX
I'm thinking CALF, DUCK, SHARK are the most obvious. RAY would be my +1 if one of those is gray.
Oops, I missed PHOENIX. I think I still like my top three. To me, Animal (as opposed to, say, Creature) primarily means something that lives on land, which makes CALF my first.
Ray - death ray
Laser - laser death ray
Antartica - lots of scifi movies have something awoken from ice (The Thing! Xfiles! Alien vs Predator!)
Mercury - its in space...
missile -nuke the world apocolyptic scifi, riding the missle?
Pheonix - more fantasy than scifi maybe? but they are often conflated
Soldier - super soldiers!
Glove - infinity guantlet? comicbooky but also in space scifi-y?
Current order for me is:
Laser-ray-antartica-missile-mercury-pheonix-soldier
“The wind went mute and the trees in the forest stood still. It was time for the last tale.”
*Laser - strong, futuristic technology, very common in sci-fi stories
*Ray - strong, ray-gun very common trope, meta-caution due to Animal red clue
*Mercury - strong, planet, US space program series of missions
*Plot - moderate, sci-fi is genre fiction which is usually plot-heavy
*Screen - moderate, strong connection to the TV/film side of the genre
*Cover - moderate, sci-fi is a major book/magazine genre, lots of classic sci-fi covers are pretty well known
*Princess - moderate, fantasy connection, very prominant in Star Wars
*Soldier - moderate, not inherently sci-fi but very common theme
*Missile - week?, weapon/flight connection, but not common in sci-fi
*Phoenix - week?, character in X-Men stories with a sci-fi bent, general connection to fantasy stories
*Diamond - week, sometimes used in sci-fi settings as a material or to show changes in societal values, IIRC prominent in the 2001 sequel
*Antarctica - week, sometimes a setting for sci-fi stories
*Parachute - week, military/aerospace tie-in
*Date - week, b-movie drive-in connection
Am I missing anything...maybe a famous story with one of the other words featured?
With a 6(!) clue I'd expect some of these to be gray but Dp must be assuming the payoff will be worthwhile. Or otherwise we got a super lucky board
At a high level my question would be whether Dp is cluing for 'high-tech/space-opera' words alone or also for sci-fi as a literary and film genre. I'm guessing it's both considering the 6-clue, but I'd recommend Laser, Ray, and Probably Mercury for the first guesses.
