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JoeNotCharles posted:This makes me think of an old story called The Waveries, about the Earth getting attacked by alien radio waves that initially copy the form of broadcasts sent out from Earth. At the beginning all the radios on earth start getting a fuzzy Morse code "S... S... S..." and the viewpoint character that's listening to it and immediately says, "That's Marconi" works in radio, so it's sort of his job. It moves on past Morse pretty quickly, though.
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Oct 27, 2008 16:40
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My wife's looking for one she read as a kid: Kids' book, winner of a Newbury or Caldecott or something like that. Written by Jane somebody, about her time growing up in China. May have "Yangtze" in the title or subtitle. You'd think knowing it was an award winner and a partial author name and title would make it easy to find, but she says she's looked for it in winner's lists and she can't find it, so she must have one of these details wrong. (Or maybe it's just a less famous award.)
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Oct 28, 2008 02:12
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Ballsworthy posted:Seconding the "everybody should read", it's very funny and one of the raunchier books I've ever read that weren't full-fledged erotica. Was the one you read full-on filthy-durty, Commissar? Because if not, A. Rex is not the book you're looking for. No, and I would definitely remember that because I was in 7th or 8th grade. I'm sure that would have been a treat for me. drat. I'm never going to find this book. 
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Oct 28, 2008 16:51
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Commissar posted:drat. I'm never going to find this book. Throwing out one more: The Boy's King Arthur? It's pretty much a direct retelling of Malory, with some ridiculously good artwork. I can't recall specifically if it has sheet music in it, but I would be the opposite of surprised to find that it does. http://www.amazon.com/BOYS-ARTHUR-DELUXE-Scribner-Classics/dp/0684191180/ref=ed_oe_h If that's not it, this volume will almost certainly help in your search: http://www.amazon.com/New-Arthurian-Encyclopedia-Paperback-Humanities/dp/0815323034/ref=sid_dp_dp I'm actually thinking about picking up that Encyclopedia myself, it looks pretty interesting. Edit: should have thought of this earlier, but I just sent an email to my mother, who happens to be a middle-school librarian with an Arthur fixation (which is evidently a congenital disorder). Edit the 2nd: She didn't know off the top of her head, but is going to do a little research. Ballsworthy fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Oct 28, 2008 |
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Oct 28, 2008 22:32
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Ballsworthy posted:Throwing out one more: The Boy's King Arthur? It's pretty much a direct retelling of Malory, with some ridiculously good artwork. I can't recall specifically if it has sheet music in it, but I would be the opposite of surprised to find that it does. That one might be it but Amazon only lets me look at one page, and since all the Arthur books start out the same, it's hard to remember. I'll have to find an actual copy (maybe at barnes & Noble) and thumb through it. Also tell your mom thanks.
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Oct 29, 2008 12:57
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Ignoranus posted:Someone else found it for me - it's entitled "Silicon Muse", by Hilbert Schenck. Published in the Oxford Book of Science Fiction, ed. Tom Shippey. haha, I was thinking how great the story sounded and how much I would like to read it...and it turns out I own it already. I have a fair few SF short story collections (probably over 100, one day I'll catalogue them properly) and that one just happened to be sitting right there on the shelf. So, uh, thanks for pointing me to a good story I guess :P
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Oct 30, 2008 03:46
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nuvan posted:edit: 5. read this one online. no idea if anyone will recognize it. story's about an AI that is "grown" or something, kinda like an artificial pregnancy. this is all done in the computer. turns out there's something special about it. I think it goes out into space or something like that, but it's been years since I read this one. This might be Greg Egan's Diaspora, which according to WP has its first chapter (which deals with the "birth" of the AI) available online. I have one: An SF novel, probably a juvenile, that involved a trip in a spaceship to a moonbase. The only real detail I can remember is that the ship springs an air leak on the way, and they have to send someone one outside to find where the air is leaking from. It's emphasized that it's much easier to find a trace of air leaking out into a vacuum than it is to detect from the inside. The plot involves sabotage of the moonbase or something by some criminals, I think. I read this in about 1980, in the UK. I remember there were diagrams of the ship in the front of the book.
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Oct 30, 2008 05:50
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I have one! This has been a private anguish since my childhood, since it was a young adult novel, or something similar. It was a fantasy book, in which a young girl was somehow connected to the faiere-world (I don't remember if she was one, or blessed by them, or something else). But she was marked by having like 10 or so blue hairs on her head, that I think could make a wish come true? And there was a rose theme... Obviously not much to go on, but I've not been able to find the story and I've always wanted to know what book it was. Thanks lovelies 
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Oct 30, 2008 06:49
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LeprechaunLass posted:I have one! This has been a private anguish since my childhood, since it was a young adult novel, or something similar.
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Oct 30, 2008 10:52
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I just came up with a very weird memory, and I'm almost not even sure I didn't somehow make this up. I don't remember much, just that it's probably fantasy judging from what I remember of it. There's a race of people who lives basically up in the trees -- either the trees are huge or the people are tiny because they use the branches as major roads, etc. that they walk along, and they have homes, I guess? somewhere on the tips of branches and maybe in the tree trunks themselves. Anyway, the ground is supposed to be this scary horrible place and anyone who falls there is assumed dead or worse. I also remember something about the clothes they wore, that had like flaps sewn in like wings to glide from branch to branch? Anyway, eventually one guy from the trees is on the ground for whatever reason (he fell, maybe?) and he finds out there is actually a race of people living on (under?) the ground, a lot of whom are the people who fell, and they're not actually going to kill him. And for some reason I want to say this is part of a series or something.
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Oct 30, 2008 14:23
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angelicism posted:I don't remember much, just that it's probably fantasy judging from what I remember of it. There's a race of people who lives basically up in the trees -- either the trees are huge or the people are tiny because they use the branches as major roads, etc. that they walk along, and they have homes, I guess? somewhere on the tips of branches and maybe in the tree trunks themselves. Anyway, the ground is supposed to be this scary horrible place and anyone who falls there is assumed dead or worse. Or if there was more sex, violence, mind-controlling fungus and spacegoing spider-plants then Brian Aldiss' Hothouse, though that doesn't have any sequels. Runcible Cat fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Oct 30, 2008 |
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Oct 30, 2008 16:06
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SkaWes posted:I often times confuse it with what I think is another series all together, I think in that one they could go from a "normal" world in to a world of magic by walking though some sort of tunnel or something, but again I think that was another book series entirely, and has nothing to do with the one I am thinking of. This sounds like the Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg. Not sure if it's what you were looking for originally. spf3million fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Oct 30, 2008 |
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Oct 30, 2008 19:13
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Here's one for the collective: Nuclear launch codes are embedded in the heart of a child so that if the president wants to go to war, he personally has to rip open the child's chest. For some reason the kid goes missing and is protected by an adult who was once a child. They hide out with Art Car type hippies on the West Coast called "Gluers". It's bugging the crap out of me that I can't remember anything else about this book.
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Oct 30, 2008 20:47
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Capn_Marrrrk posted:Here's one for the collective: I've read a review of that, or at least seen that plot point mentioned in a review of another book. I remember because it was such a bizarre concept. I'm pretty sure it was one of the books reviewed here.
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Oct 30, 2008 20:57
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Rocambole posted:The Fairy Rebel by Lynne Reid Banks? HELL YES! Thank you, you literary God.
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Oct 30, 2008 21:35
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LeprechaunLass posted:HELL YES!
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Oct 30, 2008 23:41
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Rocambole posted:Zilpha Keatley Snyder's Below the Root? (1st of a trilogy.) I just looked it up on Amazon and the name for the people "Kindar" just jumped out at me so yes, I think this is it. Unfortunately, Amazon also says it's out of print which means I won't be able to pop for my neighborhood bookstore to check. Thank you SO MUCH though. It's pretty cheap used so I might just order a copy anyway to sate my childhood yearning.
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Oct 31, 2008 00:37
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Does anyone remember a horror/mystery book (I read it about 8-10 years ago, but I think it had been published much earlier) about a man who is a stone worker of some sort in Europe/possibly Italy who gets to lead a project to restore a cathedral? As the book goes on, accidents happen, people die, and the central figure around this seems to be a stone gargoyle that's part of the cathedral. I recall the end having the gargoyle sort of decay/come to life to reveal the skinned body of the cathedral's original builder under it, and something about a tower/part of the cathedral almost collapsing on the man (it's hinted that the spirit/whatever did this as a last ditch attempt to kill him before he--I think--burns down the cathedral or blows its supports or something). I seem to recall there being a love figure, as well, and possibly either a young boy or a close friend of his who is killed at the site. If it helps, the book was about 200-300 pages in hardcover and I don't think it was teenager/children's literature. I never really finished it because I was in elementary school at the time and it freaked me out too much, plus I'd never really read such a long book so it was hard.
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Oct 31, 2008 07:28
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angelicism posted:Thank you SO MUCH though. It's pretty cheap used so I might just order a copy anyway to sate my childhood yearning. timeandtide posted:Does anyone remember a horror/mystery book (I read it about 8-10 years ago, but I think it had been published much earlier) about a man who is a stone worker of some sort in Europe/possibly Italy who gets to lead a project to restore a cathedral?
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Oct 31, 2008 11:57
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Rocambole posted:Yaaay! Another satisfied customer! Wow, I Googled it to make sure and the covers under Google Images are identical to what I recall. I'll have to pick it up to make sure, but it sounds like you're spot on. And it surprises me that it's apparently only 100 pages, I recall it seeming pretty long--but I was also about 10, so that could be why.
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Nov 1, 2008 08:41
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timeandtide posted:Wow, I Googled it to make sure and the covers under Google Images are identical to what I recall. I'll have to pick it up to make sure, but it sounds like you're spot on. But realistically, how many books with a steeplejack fighting the original cathedral mason who'd built himself into the cathedral and takes over the minds of small boys so they kill themselves as sacrifices could there be?
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Nov 1, 2008 09:59
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I think I read this book (short stories?) about 10 years ago, but I have no idea how old it was then. It's being told in the point of view of a young boy, who has an older brother who's a genius. The only thing I can really remember is the old brother could sleep thinking about something, and come up with a solution while he slept. I want to say it was based in a Tom Sawyer-style setting, but I'm not sure. Also one of the characters may have been named Tom. I think there was another brother too, and one thing I remember was this other brother got into a fight at school, and the genius brother convinced the teacher to not stop the fight. Can anyone help me?
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Nov 2, 2008 00:46
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This surely must be part of the Great Brain series by J.D. Fitzgerald. They are stories about Tom (T.D.) Fitzgerald, told from the point of view of his younger brother J.D. There's also a third, older brother named Sweyn. The books are set in turn-of-the-century Utah.
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Nov 2, 2008 03:13
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wheatpuppy posted:This surely must be part of the Great Brain series by J.D. Fitzgerald. They are stories about Tom (T.D.) Fitzgerald, told from the point of view of his younger brother J.D. There's also a third, older brother named Sweyn. The books are set in turn-of-the-century Utah. Holy crap it is. Thanks!
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Nov 2, 2008 10:01
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This one has been driving me nuts. A while ago I remember reading a Cthulhu-mythos based short story that I just can't find in any of my collections. It's about a future/world where gods are purchasable as pets, and a boy is denied his request for a dog in favor of a pet god. His parents take him to a sort of god dealership which I remember as a cavern. They travel past a variety of gods from different pantheons and end up in a weird side chamber with the more messed up Lovecraftian types. He picks up one of them and takes it home. It ends up getting jealous of his other friends and devouring them or something. I don't really remember. It was a weird mix of animal loyalty and malevolent intent. I worry sometimes I dreamed it up, but I'm dead certain I read it somewhere. I tried Google and got nothing. Does anyone remember anything like this?
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Nov 4, 2008 09:43
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AlbinoHagfish posted:This one has been driving me nuts. A while ago I remember reading a Cthulhu-mythos based short story that I just can't find in any of my collections. Well, you didn't dream it, I've read it too, but I'll be damned if I can remember anything more than what you posted. That's the problem with being a short story junkie, I guess; they're a lot harder to keep track of than novels.
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Nov 4, 2008 18:39
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Well I'm loving delighted I was able to get that much at least! I feel your pain on that one.
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Nov 4, 2008 21:01
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I remember one of my friends pointing out a rather interseting sounding book to me that was like 3 stories in one book but it would start one story, then start the next, then start the next, then end the first, end the second, and end the third. Said it may sound gimmicky but still a drat good book.
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Nov 4, 2008 21:19
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soapboxcritic posted:I remember one of my friends pointing out a rather interseting sounding book to me that was like 3 stories in one book but it would start one story, then start the next, then start the next, then end the first, end the second, and end the third. Said it may sound gimmicky but still a drat good book.
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Nov 4, 2008 21:49
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Ballsworthy posted:Well, you didn't dream it, I've read it too, but I'll be damned if I can remember anything more than what you posted. That's the problem with being a short story junkie, I guess; they're a lot harder to keep track of than novels. Could it be Charlie Stross's A Boy and his God?
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Nov 4, 2008 21:55
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soapboxcritic posted:I remember one of my friends pointing out a rather interseting sounding book to me that was like 3 stories in one book but it would start one story, then start the next, then start the next, then end the first, end the second, and end the third. Said it may sound gimmicky but still a drat good book. If on a Winter's Night a Traveller is quite similar to this, and is one of the best books ever written.
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Nov 5, 2008 00:35
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Double post.
JoeNotCharles fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Nov 5, 2008 |
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Nov 5, 2008 00:43
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Hobnob posted:Could it be Charlie Stross's A Boy and his God? Yes! Thank you SO much! Edit: Wow this story is kind of hosed up actually 
AlbinoHagfish fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Nov 5, 2008 |
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Nov 5, 2008 00:50
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Rocambole posted:3 is Arthur C Clarke, The Star, later Hobnob posted:This might be Greg Egan's Diaspora, which according to WP has its first chapter (which deals with the "birth" of the AI) available online. just to bring them up again, i'm going to restate my list. 1. group of people are on a ship orbiting mars. segregated by gender, they are given some sort of serum or drug to allow for very fast genetic mutation. they are being prepped to be the first martians. I think that at the end of the story they rebel against their creators 2. a group of people, possibly the entire population of a planet, have taken to having all their sensory organs replaced with functional artificial equivalents, that are controlled through a central box. this gives them all completely controllable synesthesia. a big part of their education is learning to control the box. the main character (a girl, if I remember right) experiments with turning more and more of her senses off entirely, eventually shutting them all down Identified as (The Star by Arthur C. Clarke) by Rocambole Identified as (Starborne by Robert Silverberg) by sintaxi Identified as (Diaspora by Greg Egan) by Hobnob Identified as (Pandora's Legions by Christopher Anvil) by sintaxi [EDIT] Updated list with current info nuvan fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Nov 26, 2008 |
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Nov 5, 2008 23:05
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nuvan posted:6. aliens invade earth. we start a guerilla war against them. they run their standardized intelligence test on us (which they weren't supposed to do) and find out we're smarter than they are, they just had/have better tech. This sounds vaguely Scientologist, so I'm gonna guess Battlefield Earth.
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Nov 6, 2008 00:21
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nuvan posted:6. aliens invade earth. we start a guerilla war against them. they run their standardized intelligence test on us (which they weren't supposed to do) and find out we're smarter than they are, they just had/have better tech. Do you remember what the aliens were like? The plot sounds pretty close to Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, where the aliens look like small elephants. I also recall a similar theme where the aliens are lion-like (leonine?) but can't think of the title or author at the moment.
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Nov 6, 2008 01:05
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nuvan posted:6. aliens invade earth. we start a guerilla war against them. they run their standardized intelligence test on us (which they weren't supposed to do) and find out we're smarter than they are, they just had/have better tech. Was it a series of short stories? I remember a story about this where the humans end up basically doing all the species dirty work on different planets, including one where they use trained snakes and gorillas against a species on this planet where everything is edible to them.
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Nov 6, 2008 03:36
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I really hope this hasn't been asked or answered thus far - I scanned through quickly, but didn't see anything: A children's short story/novel from back in the early 80's (at least, that was when I read it), the kind that was printed near quarto sized, like the little golden books, but paperback. From what I recall, it was pretty basic illustration, strong colors and such. What I recall of the story itself is: 1. There is a little (green?) dinosaur - I believe it was a cartoonish raptor (or other generalized, bipedal 'saur) - and he's wandering around looking for something. 2. Some point near the climax of the story, there is a pterodactyl that lives in a volcano. Said pterodactyl flies upwards out of the volcano. 3. The little green dinosaur ends up sleeping near the warm volcano. Or the pterodactyl does. Or together. Someone sleeps somewhere with lava. Yeah. I wish I had more info, but my mother doesn't remember the book, and "green dinosaur volcano pterodactyl children's book" doesn't actually bring up anything useful on google.
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Nov 6, 2008 12:01
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Piell posted:Was it a series of short stories? I remember a story about this where the humans end up basically doing all the species dirty work on different planets, including one where they use trained snakes and gorillas against a species on this planet where everything is edible to them. This! This is it. Of course, we still don't have a name, but more description always makes it easier to identify.
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Nov 7, 2008 00:27
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OK this has been bothering me for the last few days and no amount of googling or looking through my bookshelf seems to help. I have this weird memory of a book,well it may have been a dream but I don't think I'm that creative, in which there is a story of a guy ending up in a kind of purgatory. In this purgatory are people of various eras sitting in a HUGE dark room. All the people have different clothes on from different eras and looks like they could have been there for hundreds of years while some could only have been there for a short amount of time. Anyways, there's a well in the middle of the room with a bunch of people huddled around it. The main guy goes to look into the well and sees people floating, drowning, and sinking underneath the dark water. Just as he gets done looking into it one of the guys huddled around the well decides to jump in. Just as the guy hits the water there is this bright light that appears and the man disappears through it. The main character finally realizes where he is and what is happening. I'm pretty sure it's from a book but I can't seem to figure out which one it was from. I think I read it about a year or two ago. Needless to say googling "purgatory well book" or anything of the like doesn't turn up poo poo.
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Nov 7, 2008 07:54
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