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navyjack posted:This would be Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. Yay, thanks! Such a fast response too!
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Oct 28, 2009 06:26
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Cortel posted:I read a short story in high school about a kid whose mother bought him these really, really bland crackers or something and she made him eat them every day because they were good for him or something, and the package had pieces of a buildable house thing, and he built it and it was some magical thing that he could walk into (even though it was tiny). The story ended with him coming home not being able to find it, asking his mother where it is, to which she replied something about her throwing it away in spring cleaning, and then him posting adverts for the crackers for the rest of his life.  .Number two, as already mentioned, is Flowers for Algernon. The movie was called Charly and I think may have been a novelization with that name as well.
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Oct 28, 2009 08:07
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Cortel posted:Second one was in the same literature book for high school (I think) was about this guy that had surgery to make him really smart, and there was a mouse that had the surgery a little bit before him and he fell in love with the female doctor and the mouse died and he revealed that to the scientific community. I later found out that the entire love sequence was edited out of the story, and I think it was actually a whole book. I think there was a movie too, because I'm remembering the part where he shows the dead mouse at the conference in a black and white film style from the 50s or something. It is Flowers for Algernon, there were actually two versions. The shorter novella (without the "love sequence", I think there was *something* along those lines but it was far less elaborate) was written considerably earlier than the novel length version, so it's not that the one you read was edited, but that it was later expanded upon. There have been several movie adaptqtions, the best known is called "Charly" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon
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Oct 28, 2009 11:50
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I read an amazing book in English in school set in the 1800s about slavery on a plantation. One of the main characters was an old slave who had been on the plantation for many years. He had a son who fell for the plantation owner's daughter and she taught him to read, they planned to run away together to the North... but the son was whipped to death when he tried to run away. I think the plantation owner's name was Sandford, and the book was written by someone Aguirre... It was beautifully written and I would very much like to read it again. Hoping someone can help! EDIT: Thanks, already found it. The Longest Memory by Fred D'Aguiar. a flamboyant bogan fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Oct 28, 2009 |
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Oct 28, 2009 15:08
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mania posted:Book 1: The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico?
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Oct 28, 2009 22:38
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Cortel posted:Second one was in the same literature book for high school (I think) was about this guy that had surgery to make him really smart, and there was a mouse that had the surgery a little bit before him and he fell in love with the female doctor and the mouse died and he revealed that to the scientific community. I later found out that the entire love sequence was edited out of the story, and I think it was actually a whole book. I think there was a movie too, because I'm remembering the part where he shows the dead mouse at the conference in a black and white film style from the 50s or something. We must've had the same textbook because I found the story during one class and read the whole thing that day, totally engrossed and not paying attention to the teacher.
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Oct 29, 2009 17:16
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wheatpuppy posted:Number one is The Serial Garden by Joan Aiken. It's part of the Armitage family series. The kid just needed one more box to free the woman trapped in the tiny paper village. It's pretty You beat me to it! Of all Joan Aiken's wonderful short stories, that's the one I remember the clearest. I will have to dig up her anthologies when I'm next at my parents' house. Fake edit: Wow, all the Armitage Family stories have been collected together in one book! Hello, birthday present  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Serial-Garden-Complete-Armitage-Selection/dp/1931520577
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Oct 29, 2009 19:35
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Charmmi posted:We must've had the same textbook because I found the story during one class and read the whole thing that day, totally engrossed and not paying attention to the teacher. iirc it was some generic lit. textbook, but yeah, it was a p. awesome story. I was pretty pissed when I told a friend about it and she told me they had cut out a bunch of it  (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Oct 30, 2009 05:21
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Another sci-fi short story I'm trying to remember the name of. So, through the magic of science some guy is able to resurrect a person from the past. He chooses a composer from the early 18th century, someone who I'd never heard of who the narrator thinks was as gifted as any but always overlooked. He then proceeds to educate the baroque-era composer on the innovations in music, going through Mozart, Beethoven, etc up through modern stuff. Ultimately the composer becomes fixated on disco music and refuses to listen to or compose anything else, to the frustration of the narrator. Given the disco stuff, I'm assuming it was written in the 70s but I read it probably within the last 5 years or so, though it could have been in an older anthology.
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Nov 1, 2009 13:14
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regulargonzalez posted:Another sci-fi short story I'm trying to remember the name of. No clue, but sounds hilarious.
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Nov 1, 2009 18:30
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Johnny Aztec posted:Now, I read this back in Junior high, so bear with me. Quoting myself for the next page. Fuuck, I just need a clue I can google. A name, an author 
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Nov 2, 2009 06:02
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regulargonzalez posted:Another sci-fi short story I'm trying to remember the name of. It's 'Gianni' by Robert Silverberg, in 'The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party'.  http://www.majipoor.com/work.php?id=374 posted:"Giovanni Pergolesi is one of the lesser-known geniuses of music. He wrote prolifically in his short life, then died in 1736 at the age of 25. Some high-minded scientists in 2008 use a machine to pluck the composer from just before his death into the future so they can allow his talents to develop as if he had lived longer. Then Gianni discovers pop music... After all, in his day, opera was pop music." nothing is real fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Nov 2, 2009 |
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Nov 2, 2009 17:40
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I really don't intend to troll this great thread so instead I'll tell you a story: I used to go into bookstores and ask whoever worked there about this book I'd heard about from a friend. It was some kind of growing up/coming of age theme centered on a boy in a boarding school, had some English name I don't know what the gently caress. Apparently, he goes through a number of trials in his life in order to reach adulthood, in such a sense that some of it can be read as the basic struggle between good and evil. The novel develops into a series and apparently a big boarding school universe builds itself up during the books, but several events alter the lists of persons including violent deaths etc. So, somewhere in the series our boy develops friends, falls in love and experiences lots of weird stuff. It's basically like the new Adrian Mole thing. Oh, and as far as I've heard he has magic powers of some sort, I don't know what the gently caress. There was something about some bad professor named Volbeat or Lordaeron or whatever. Oh, and I think I heard they were made into movies. And I go and on while people really really try to actually realize what it would be like if you never heard about harry potter before. I managed to have one girl baffled for 15 minutes while her colleague had tears in her eyes from laughter behind her. Now, get to back to doing useful stuff and please don't probate me
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Nov 2, 2009 18:25
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I read this book when I was early teens from my dads scifi collection, so it was probably published late 70s/early 80s, and I think it was the first book in a series. What I remember of the plot is that there are two space mercs (think Han Solo types) who land on a planet and get dragged into a conspiracy of some sort involving members of an underclass who've lived underground (literally) for so long that they have to wear tinted goggles outdoors. There's also a big gently caress-off ancient alien space battleship found in a coal mine, and one of the space mercs has had illegal surgical modifications so he has blades under his nails. Reading this it sounds really dumb, but it's been bugging me on and off for years, can anyone put me out of my misery and tell me what the hell it is?
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Nov 2, 2009 23:57
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nothing is real posted:It's 'Gianni' by Robert Silverberg, in 'The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party'. Goddamn, goons know everything! Thanks
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Nov 3, 2009 03:46
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I read this book in the 90s. I remember none of the plot or characters whatsoever. All I remember is that it was a fantasy-style book that in the end you learn is actually all sci-fi, maybe. There are magic (crystals? vials?) that contain (nanobots?) that give people powers when they use them, but a body can only handle like one or two kinds at once before getting overloaded and dying. I remember that at one point, one of the main characters is near a rack full of these (crystals/vials?), and he breaks them all and falls into the resulting mess, cutting himself up and getting all of this (nanobot?) crap in him but because there were so many of them they all balance out and he survives and gets super-immense magic powers. He may have done this on purpose. I think there may have been a spaceship involved, that was the source of or somehow related to the crystal/nanobot things and it wakes up or powers on near the end. edit: Just thought of another one. It had crystals that people bonded with (?) that gave them psychic powers. It was set on a different planet, with maybe a feudal social structure. I think the cover had a tower on it, with someone holding a crystal up. I keep thinking it was Anne McCaffery's Crystal Singer series but it wasn't. I think there was more than one book, but I'm not sure. edit: This second one was the Darkover Series by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I think specifically it was the book Stormqueen! but it could've been a number of them, based on what I've read on Wikipedia. drat, I have magic crystals on the brain today. nightchild12 fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Nov 3, 2009 |
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Nov 3, 2009 20:45
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nightchild12 posted:I read this book in the 90s. I remember none of the plot or characters whatsoever. All I remember is that it was a fantasy-style book that in the end you learn is actually all sci-fi, maybe. There are magic (crystals? vials?) that contain (nanobots?) that give people powers when they use them, but a body can only handle like one or two kinds at once before getting overloaded and dying. I remember that at one point, one of the main characters is near a rack full of these (crystals/vials?), and he breaks them all and falls into the resulting mess, cutting himself up and getting all of this (nanobot?) crap in him but because there were so many of them they all balance out and he survives and gets super-immense magic powers. Sounds like the novelisation of the rather marvellous Lucasarts game, The Dig, which was written by Alan Dean Foster.
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Nov 3, 2009 21:17
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nightchild12 posted:edit: Just thought of another one. It had crystals that people bonded with (?) that gave them psychic powers. It was set on a different planet, with maybe a feudal social structure. I think the cover had a tower on it, with someone holding a crystal up. I keep thinking it was Anne McCaffery's Crystal Singer series but it wasn't. I think there was more than one book, but I'm not sure. Not the Jerusalem Man series by David Gemmell is it?
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Nov 3, 2009 21:18
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Captain Birdseye posted:Sounds like the novelisation of the rather marvellous Lucasarts game, The Dig, which was written by Alan Dean Foster. Sadly, no. It was a whole world with more than 3 characters, and I don't think there were creepy alien ruins. Of course, I haven't read the novelisation of The Dig, just seen the game, but unless it's radically different, that's not it. LGBT War Machine posted:Not the Jerusalem Man series by David Gemmell is it? I don't think so. I'm pretty sure I remember them mentioning spaceships and there was less apocalype. I wish I could remember more, but I only read like 1/4 of the drat thing and then lost it. edit: It was the Darkover Series by Marion Zimmer Bradley. I think specifically it was the book Stormqueen! but it could've been a number of them, based on what I've read on Wikipedia. nightchild12 fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Nov 3, 2009 |
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Nov 3, 2009 22:23
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What's the short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez where a rich lady and her servant go to the beach, then after a long discussion about class they switch clothes, and in the end the servant starts acting like the rich bitch and the ACTUAL rich bitch gets dragged away? Preferably the Spanish title, if anyone knows.
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Nov 4, 2009 04:23
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Pianist On Strike posted:What's the short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez where a rich lady and her servant go to the beach, then after a long discussion about class they switch clothes, and in the end the servant starts acting like the rich bitch and the ACTUAL rich bitch gets dragged away? Preferably the Spanish title, if anyone knows. It isn't in Erendira, do you remember which collection of short stories it's in?
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Nov 4, 2009 14:00
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No idea, sorry. We read it for class several years ago and it was just printed in a packet. Actually come to think of it, maybe it wasn't Marquez... crap.
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Nov 4, 2009 15:25
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Isn't something like that in the Count of Monte Christo?
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Nov 4, 2009 18:57
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I might be mixing more than one story up here: A boy (young teens) lives in a castle, a tinkerer arrives at the castle and it is revealed that the boy has the potential to be a spell-slinger. The boy leaves the castle to train at some academy, where one of the first things he sees is a duel between powerful mages. During his training, a portal of fire opens over the sea and all sorts of nonsense starts pouring out of it. The boy is, of course, the key to saving the world. He embarks on some sort of quest into a desert with some companions, and there is a part where he summons a globe of light to help him see into a pyramid or something. That's all I remember. I'm certain that this novel was part of a very famous series, but I can't seem to remember which.
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Nov 4, 2009 19:21
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Pianist On Strike posted:What's the short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez where a rich lady and her servant go to the beach, then after a long discussion about class they switch clothes, and in the end the servant starts acting like the rich bitch and the ACTUAL rich bitch gets dragged away? Preferably the Spanish title, if anyone knows.
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Nov 4, 2009 19:22
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inktvis posted:Sounds like Cortazar's The Distances with some details slightly muddled. I looked it up, and that's not it, although the plot is similar. In the one I'm thinking of, they were definitely on the beach. Maybe I'll e-mail my old Spanish teacher and ask her. EDIT: Nevermind, I got it. "El Delantal Blanco" by Sergio Vodanovic. Woohoo! cats fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Nov 5, 2009 |
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Nov 4, 2009 20:36
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Johnny Aztec posted:Quoting myself for the next page. I will give a 10 dollar forum gift cert to anyone who finds this.
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Nov 5, 2009 06:53
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Alright, I read this book in Middle School. All I can remember is that part of the book is told from the perspective of an Indian boy who I think is getting ready for his first battle. The rest of it is told from the perspective of a modern day boy, and somehow he and a teacher (who I think likes bugs a lot or something) go on some anthropological trip and the boy ends up finding the skull of the Indian kid with a bullet hole in it. I really want to find this book because I remember it being pretty poignant for a Middle School level book, hopefully someone can help me figure this out.
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Nov 5, 2009 14:48
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AbdominalSnowman posted:Alright, I read this book in Middle School. All I can remember is that part of the book is told from the perspective of an Indian boy who I think is getting ready for his first battle. The rest of it is told from the perspective of a modern day boy, and somehow he and a teacher (who I think likes bugs a lot or something) go on some anthropological trip and the boy ends up finding the skull of the Indian kid with a bullet hole in it. I really want to find this book because I remember it being pretty poignant for a Middle School level book, hopefully someone can help me figure this out. Canyons by Gary Paulsen.
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Nov 5, 2009 22:51
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farraday posted:Canyons by Gary Paulsen. Wow, thank you very much. I had no idea that was Paulsen, he wrote so many awesome books when I was in middle school.
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Nov 6, 2009 01:55
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nightchild12 posted:I read this book in the 90s. I remember none of the plot or characters whatsoever. All I remember is that it was a fantasy-style book that in the end you learn is actually all sci-fi, maybe. There are magic (crystals? vials?) that contain (nanobots?) that give people powers when they use them, but a body can only handle like one or two kinds at once before getting overloaded and dying. I remember that at one point, one of the main characters is near a rack full of these (crystals/vials?), and he breaks them all and falls into the resulting mess, cutting himself up and getting all of this (nanobot?) crap in him but because there were so many of them they all balance out and he survives and gets super-immense magic powers. He may have done this on purpose. Could it be Janny Wurts' Cycle of Fire trilogy: Stormwarden http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stormwarden-Cycle-Fire-Janny-Wurts/dp/0586204830 Keeper of the Keys http://www.amazon.co.uk/Keeper-Keys-Book-Cycle-Fire/dp/0586204849/ref=pd_sim_b_1/278-6315132-8514960 Shadowfane http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shadowfane-cycle-fire-Janny-Wurts/dp/0586204857/ref=pd_sim_b_1 You find out fairly early that the entire planet's population is the descendants of a spaceship that crashed due to engine failure, and all the demons are just aliens from the ship.
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Nov 6, 2009 10:23
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Elohssa Gib posted:Could it be Janny Wurts' Cycle of Fire trilogy: Holy poo poo yes this is it. I had the collection all in one book - specifically http://www.amazon.com/Cycle-Fire-Trilogy-Janny-Wurts/dp/0061073555 I remember the cover now. Thank you so much, this has been bugging me for months.
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Nov 6, 2009 19:39
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That70sHeidi posted:OK, I have two good ones... Last night as I was on the verge of sleep (thank you Ambien) and completely out of nowhere I thought "Maybe it was Seven SPELLS to Sunday... oh darn, I'll never remember this in the morningzzzzzz" Sure enough it is. Andre Norton, no less. Still looking for the cats who pass through walls though
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Nov 6, 2009 21:06
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That70sHeidi posted:Still looking for the cats who pass through walls though You mean Heinlein's The Cat Who Could Walk Through Walls? Edit: No, I'm just not able to read. nevermind. fahrvergnugen fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Nov 6, 2009 |
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Nov 6, 2009 21:16
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That70sHeidi posted:Book 2: About large cats who walk through walls. Technically it's about something else, but I remember the girl involved lives in this super technologically-advanced world and would go to school for something like 8 days and then have 3 days off, and her mother would let her ride the hovertrain or some such to visit friends, which happened to be this giant cat couple who were professors or something. They had the ability to merge with solid mass then pass through it, slowly. They taught the girl how to do it too, and describes in detail how it felt. I remember being captivated at the thought and actually trying it too. Could this be the Starcats series by Phyllis Gotlieb? http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/g/phyllis-gotlieb/ Or maybe James Schmitz' Telzey stories, which also included giant cats: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/s/james-schmitz/
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Nov 6, 2009 21:21
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I just remembered a short story I absolutely loved. It was about this gnome or dwarf, one of the small tinkering fantastic races, that wakes up/comes out of hibernation in "modern" times, and tries to make a living tinkering. He starts off going door-to-door repairing kitchenware, but his tinkering powers only work on copper, not this newfangled enamelware and stainless steel. I think he fixes part of a bicycle in there somewhere, and eventually starts working at a garage fixing radiators. While he's fixing the radiators, he thinks about how these cars are making GBS threads up the planet, and I think he rationalizes that if the humans poo poo up the planet so bad they can't live there, then his magical friends can come back and fix everything with their magical powers when the humans are gone. The only line I can remember verbatim is "I could only fix the honest copper", probably said with some kind of accent.
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Nov 9, 2009 12:50
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A few years back I was told about a book I "absolutely had to read". The plot involves all of the smart people in the world packing up and either living underground or at one of the poles (the fellow who suggested it couldn't remember which). These smart people were also having children at a slower rate (or not at all) compared to the stupid folks back on the main land/above ground. I don't have more than that to go on, as the man who insisted I read it has passed away. It's probably an older book (at least 30 years old I reckon). I'd love to read it but I haven't a clue on how to locate this mysterious book. Hopefully it rings a bell with someone and I'll get lucky!
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Nov 9, 2009 14:07
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Rylen posted:A few years back I was told about a book I "absolutely had to read". The plot involves all of the smart people in the world packing up and either living underground or at one of the poles (the fellow who suggested it couldn't remember which). This might be The Marching Morons by C.M. Kornbluth, which isn't really a whole book but just a novella. In that story, the smart people have a secret base in Antarctica.
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Nov 9, 2009 14:11
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Dareon posted:I just remembered a short story I absolutely loved. It was about this gnome or dwarf, one of the small tinkering fantastic races, that wakes up/comes out of hibernation in "modern" times, and tries to make a living tinkering. He starts off going door-to-door repairing kitchenware, but his tinkering powers only work on copper, not this newfangled enamelware and stainless steel. I think he fixes part of a bicycle in there somewhere, and eventually starts working at a garage fixing radiators. While he's fixing the radiators, he thinks about how these cars are making GBS threads up the planet, and I think he rationalizes that if the humans poo poo up the planet so bad they can't live there, then his magical friends can come back and fix everything with their magical powers when the humans are gone. 'The Coppersmith', Lester Del Rey. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?52350 edit: ^^^ that's definitely The Marching Morons. Unkempt fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Nov 9, 2009 |
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Nov 9, 2009 14:15
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Rylen posted:A few years back I was told about a book I "absolutely had to read". The plot involves all of the smart people in the world packing up and either living underground or at one of the poles (the fellow who suggested it couldn't remember which). I haven't read it, but could it be Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand? (Here I have to add in something an LF poster said recently: Who cleans Galt's john?)
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Nov 9, 2009 14:39
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