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zimboe posted:this has been bugging me for years. Try Manly Wade Wellman
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Aug 3, 2012 14:33
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zimboe posted:this has been bugging me for years.
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Aug 3, 2012 20:27
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Runcible Cat posted:Those're Henry Kuttner's stories about the Hogben family. you are correct! knew it was a K. finally found it in a collection at Baen e-books-but-BUT! (in small print) it sez that "the estate of Henry Kuttner does not allow his works in electronic form, so they have been removed from this collection." whatwhatwhat! this is just so unfair. i almost never use tree-flesh media anymore, since i found the kindle. i work overseas- travel a lot- cant lug text on dense, laminar-wood modules all over the place. might as well be written on paving bricks. imagine if we still used scrolls for print. or stone tablets. or bricks. although, at least books can be used for fuel. aargh! i feel cheated. now i gotta fricken WAIT till i get back to Murka to ship hardcopy to the book filled shallow pit that serves as my home. such outrageous fuckery. baen ebooks is a good source for a lot of sf, though. they got most of Cordwainer Smith's stuff. loved Mark Elf. it describes the origin of the Instrumentality Of Man. idea! maybe I'll scan the book myself, so i can carry it as a massless PDF. kindle can read pdf, right? i think these tales would be worth that labor. does anyone else scan their own? software? i have many texts that i cant carry with me, but would like to. gonna google some more- (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Aug 4, 2012 02:28
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This is an odd one, as I already know the book (or think I do) but I think it's a different version from what I've read. When I was a kid in the early 80s my dad had a copy of When Harlie Was One that I used to read. It was a bit beyond my reading level, so I mostly just skipped to the sex scenes and the conversations between the main character and the computer. I remember there was a relationship developing between the main character and a woman that he talked to the computer about a lot, and Harlie at first was jealous, then more helpful and supportive. There was also a conversation about mortality, and Harlie asked the main character how long humans live, and he said that we were made out of protoplasm, which is indestructible. At the end, Harlie is going to be shut down, and before he is he prints up hundreds of pages of love poems as a gift for the protagonist, with a note saying they were to be anniversary presents for his wife, and he was sorry he only made enough for the first 500 years. Anyway, this was when I was 9 or 10, so probably around 81 or 82. Many years later, I re-read the book (and I THOUGHT it was the same physical copy I read when I was a kid) and it was largely as I remembered it, but the thing about humans being indestructible wasn't in it, and Harlie didn't die in the end and there was no giant printout of love poetry (though Harlie does compose poetry). I checked the version history and there has been one revision, but it doesn't mention any major plot changes and I can't find anything about alternate endings online. I'm beginning to think I merged two stories in my memory, and now I'm wondering what the other story was.
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Aug 4, 2012 04:17
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Popular Human posted:Short story, probably written between 1940-1950, I feel like it was not written by an American. Story involves a woman wandering around a ruined village, trying to remember who she is and how she got there. I remember the village is specifically described in a way that it was near the site of an atomic bomb explosion. The woman thinks that if she can just find a mirror or something so that she can see her face, it'll jog her memory and she'll remember everything. At the end, she finds a house that's pretty much still standing, goes upstairs and there's a mirror at the end of the hall. She looks in it, and...there's some kind of horrible realization I don't remember. Anyone? Sounds like The Outsider by H.P Lovecraft
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Aug 4, 2012 11:09
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zimboe posted:you are correct! knew it was a K. I'm all in favour of creator rights, but second-husband-of-the-creator's-wife-who's-a-twat-to-boot is pushing it I reckon. Anyway, to help with googling, the first line of the story you want is "Old Yancey was just about the meanest man in the world."
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Aug 4, 2012 12:04
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ClearAirTurbulence posted:This is an odd one, as I already know the book (or think I do) but I think it's a different version from what I've read. Action Jacktion fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Aug 4, 2012 |
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Aug 4, 2012 16:49
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Action Jacktion posted:The story about a computer printing out 500 years' worth of poetry is EPICAC by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Thanks! That really shows how unreliable my childhood memories are.
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Aug 4, 2012 18:53
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Another childhood read that I can't remember the title or author of. I think I read it in a horror anthology. It can't have been very long because I remember transcribing it when I was learning how to type (on a typewriter no less). It's about a wealthy man who falls in love with a young, pretty girl who is either engaged or already married to another man. Instead of walking away from the whole thing, the wealthy man kills the husband/fiance and stuffs his body into a sinkhole outside of town. When he returns to town to console the pretty girl, he finds her thin and pale and unattractive from grief and loses interest. It's a little fuzzy from there, but the ghost of the husband/fiance visits the girl one night and tells who killed him and the wealthy man is eventually caught and the body recovered. It takes place sometime pre-1920, but I can't remember exactly the time period or location was, though part of me wants to say it took place like Virginia in the late 1800s or very early 1900s.
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Aug 5, 2012 04:49
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pixelbaron posted:Sounds like The Outsider by H.P Lovecraft
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Aug 6, 2012 03:29
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I read an article once that talked about a batshit gothic anti-hero novel. All I remember distinctly is that one chapter has the eponymous narrator walking along a cliff, angrily thinking about life or something, when he sees a shipwreck in the waters below, with sailors crying for help, and among them, devouring them, an enormous, mindless shark, for which he suddenly conceives a glorious passion. The chapter ends with him diving into the ocean to be fully united with his true love. I guess it's possible that it was made up, but Fantomas turned out to be real, so I'm holding out hope. E: prepositions! Doc Hawkins fucked around with this message at 06:43 on Aug 6, 2012 |
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Aug 6, 2012 04:08
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I remembered another book I'd like to know the name of. It was a pretty generic fantasy that was very reminiscent of Lord of the Rings - I think the main storyline even involved a bunch of stereotypical dwarves teamed up with a hobbit-like humanoid. I know there's a ton of stuff like that, so here's the only detail I can remember. The main characters are in an old underground dungeon-type place, and are being menaced by hordes of goblin-type creatures. They are cornered in a small room, maybe a tomb, and the goblins, after several failed assaults, start pouring oil into the room to burn the protagonists out. Then the hobbit-like character realizes that a magic sword can be used as a key to open a secret passage they use to escape. I read this around 1991 or 1992. I'm not sure when the books were written, but I remember the art style of the book cover made me think it was 70s or early 80s.
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Aug 6, 2012 06:36
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Doc Hawkins posted:I read an article once that talked about a batshit gothic anti-hero novel. All I remember distinctly is that one chapter has the eponymous narrator walking along a cliff, angrily thinking about life or something, when he sees a shipwreck in the waters below, with sailors crying for help, and among them, devouring them, an enormous, mindless shark, for which he suddenly conceives a glorious passion. The chapter ends with him diving into the ocean to be fully united with his true love.
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Aug 6, 2012 07:43
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Runcible Cat posted:It exists! Les Chants du Maldoror, by Comte de Lautreamont. Bless you a thousand times!
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Aug 6, 2012 19:36
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I'm looking for a book I have seen recommended on these threads. It's about contemporary Japanese youth, in particular disaffected youth/teenage killers/hikikomori. Basically, how screwed up it is. I'm pretty sure it's not "Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation." Any leads? It's a fairly recent book, and I seem to recall the author lived there for years.
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Aug 7, 2012 15:46
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When I was younger I started to read a dective/cop novel. I remember it was about a couple corrupt cops and the devil. Sadly this is all I remember.
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Aug 8, 2012 00:14
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A short story I read in a collection of horror stories I had awhile back. I don't remember a whole lot, but there's these I think college-age kids that are friends, and one of them gets a new girlfriend. The guy's friend doesn't like this girl, but doesn't know why. Eventually he comes into the bedroom where his friend and the girl are, only to find that the girl is actually some giant leech creature that is draining his friend, so he kills it. The friend might have been some hotshot football player on the college team, and the guy may or may not have been gay and harboring feelings for him, which might have contributed to his dislike of the girl. Also, there's a book that I've seen recommended a few times, a sci-fi novel that gets described as being pretty creepy. I feel like maybe it's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, but I'm not sure.
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Aug 9, 2012 01:48
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I think I remember something like that first one. It was on a honeymoon, and the jock guy killed the wife (I think), but ended up having a giant snake in his belly or something to that effect. It was something about how he had stomach cramps all his life, etc and it turns out he had swallowed some kinda snake embryo thingie when he went camping, and it finally got either alive enough or pissed enough to decide to pop out during his honeymoon.
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Aug 9, 2012 21:20
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Detective Thompson posted:Also, there's a book that I've seen recommended a few times, a sci-fi novel that gets described as being pretty creepy. I feel like maybe it's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, but I'm not sure. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress isn't a particularly creepy book, but most of the late Heinlein novels are. Time Enough For Love, maybe?
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Aug 10, 2012 15:53
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shadok posted:The Moon is a Harsh Mistress isn't a particularly creepy book, but most of the late Heinlein novels are. Time Enough For Love, maybe? Maybe. I seem to remember it being a Heinlein book, so it might be that one.
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Aug 11, 2012 01:22
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Detective Thompson posted:Maybe. I seem to remember it being a Heinlein book, so it might be that one. There's also I Will Fear No Evil which features the transplant of the old man main character's brain into the body of his young female secretary as a main plot element. I tried reading this once but couldn't get through it because by then I was aware that the main character in most any Heinlein book was just him and I couldn't stop thinking "you dirty dirty bastard". Honestly though, it's just a little dull. One of my favorite books by him, though, is Farnham's Freehold which features some great examples of Heinlein's most loved and hated themes writ large. It's not one of his best but it's a lot of fun and a quick read. Essentially most of Robert Heinlein's books can be described as creepy to some degree, especially in this day and age.
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Aug 11, 2012 18:22
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Phillip K. Dork posted:There's also I Will Fear No Evil which features the transplant of the old man main character's brain into the body of his young female secretary as a main plot element. Ah. Farnham's Freehold. Where the POV character's daughter asks him which she should do, miscegenation or incest...and he has to THINK about it before telling her that, while it's distasteful, she should bang the darkie. Priceless.
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Aug 11, 2012 18:32
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navyjack posted:Ah. Farnham's Freehold. Where the POV character's daughter asks him which she should do, miscegenation or incest...and he has to THINK about it before telling her that, while it's distasteful, she should bang the darkie. Priceless. It's Heinlein at his highest concentration level, and in spite of it's (and his) flaws is a very fun light read.
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Aug 11, 2012 19:30
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Rollersnake posted:I vaguely remember reading a short story several years ago where the narrator was an obsessive Scrabble player. A Google search has only turned up "Death by Scrabble," by Charlie Fish, which I'm quite sure isn't it. I remember the narrator being female, and the triple-triple being significant to the story somehow, but I remember nothing else about it. https://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/craziest I never read it but I remember hearing about this book that was like 2 books in one. The pages alternated between stories and the idea was that it was 2 people's perspectives of the same event. The crazy part is that I think it was designed to make sense backwards or forwards and either alternating or straight through. Anyone have any idea what I'm talking about? Dr_Amazing fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Aug 14, 2012 |
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Aug 14, 2012 03:54
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Dr_Amazing posted:This made me think of this flash video which I assume was taken from that short story. Only Revolutions by Mark Danielewski (the dude who wrote House Of Leaves)
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Aug 14, 2012 04:41
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On behalf of a friend, during a discussion on horror literature and movies:quote:The discussion of evolutionary fear brought to mind an old, pulp piece I read in my early teens. I can't recall the title or author, but it was a sci-fi piece in which humanity is at war with an alien race. Both sides are so far from the other that they rely entirely upon long-distance psychic weapons that use fear to break their opponents' minds... but with no common evolutionary or cultural landmarks to guide their attacks, both sides find it difficult to actually instill fear in the other. I'll always remember the main character being repeatedly assaulted by intense, overwhelming, and only occasionally fear-inducing sensations... such as that of cats dragging him down, down deep into the mud... which is really kind of cute depending on the type of cat you choose to visualize Anyone recognize the story?
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Aug 17, 2012 08:48
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Yeah, that was an episode of Space: Above and Beyond. "Hear me, marines! Abe Lincoln is dead! The Chicago Cubs suck!"
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Aug 18, 2012 05:19
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I've asked about these books before, and possibly in this thread, but I don't remember that either book was identified. A children's book that I got from the Bookmobile around 1976-1977. It was a large format book with maybe 15-20 pages. The style was simple colorful drawings, like Clifford, but it wasn't a Clifford book. If I remember correctly, there were no words at all - the whole story was told in pictures. As best as I can remember, it was about a boy and a dog that go out into the woods. While they were out in the woods, a storm rolled in and it was very scary. Maybe the lightning was making scary silhouettes from the tree branches. Eventually, they got home and everything was fine. The boy's mother might have made some hot chocolate for him at the end. The other story was something I read around 1983-1985. It was a short story about a kid who could see how poo poo worked. Like really see it. He looked at a plant and saw it draw the nutrients from the ground and saw it photosynthesize the light to grow. Like he had X-Ray eyeballs. Some adult pissed him off and he saw into the adults chest and saw his circulatory system and saw how it worked. Either by choice or coincidence, the adult keeled over from a heart attack and the child could see the heart constricting and the blood not flowing.
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Aug 24, 2012 17:03
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A book about a chinese farmer who eventually becomes a major landholder. He does this by slowly accumulating land in bits and pieces. He tells his kids to never sell the land at the end when he's extremely old, but they ignore him. Has multiple concubines over his life, the first one was really hot but then become a fat opium addict over time. His wife was plain and kinda stupid, but a good worker. Read it when I was in midde school. Anyone know what the name of it was?
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Aug 28, 2012 23:20
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The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
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Aug 28, 2012 23:26
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innocent_deadly posted:The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck Goddamnit. I know who Pearl S. Buck is and I STILL couldn't figure that out. It won a Pulitzer too! My googlefu is lacking sorely.
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Aug 28, 2012 23:28
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A boy lives alone with his mother because his father is a solider and is away fighting. The boy becomes overly attached to the mother because that's who he spends all his time with. Father returns from fighting and has post-traumatic stress disorder. He spends a lot of time in bed and gets angry at the loud noise the boy makes playing etc. Because the mother spends most of her time with the father now the boy gets jealous and tries to sabotage their relationship. At the end the mother gets pregnant again and has another baby. Now she spends all her time with that and the father and son are both jealous together and start to bond. It was a short story. Pretty sure it was set in Britain and by a British writer. The war was either WWI or WW2. I can remember the plot exactly but have no idea who wrote it.
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Aug 29, 2012 12:49
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From my wife: "I have been trying to find this series, I remember at least 3 books. It was about a boy (may be called Toby?) who was secretly a piano virtuoso, but scared of being seen as a dork he hid that side of him and embraced being a lad (sporty and all). Until he meets a girl, the series ends with them as a couple and him playing concerts. I'm pretty sure they were set in the UK. I would have read them in 90-93 so may have been late 80's to early 90's. The titles may have had the lads name in them (e.g. Tuckers challenge). OK, that's what I remember. Any suggestions would be cool as I am stumped on this one. Thanks. "
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Aug 30, 2012 14:50
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A guy meets a mentally challenged girl who ends up being the incarnation of the Mother Goddess. For some reason he ends up in this fairy tale world and meets the three bears. Also he has sex with an angel dude but it's cool, that doesn't mean he's gay or anything because all angels are irresistibly smokin' hot. This was the best awful book I've ever read. I found it in a used bookstore when I was a kid and lent it to a friend who never returned it. There might have been a rainbow and/or a unicorn on the cover.
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Sep 6, 2012 06:07
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I totally remember that book, and yeah, there was a unicorn on the cover. Now I'm going to be frantically trying to remember the title.
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Sep 6, 2012 06:17
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There's couple of books I read 20 years ago which amused my teenage self but would probably not be so good now. I'd like to find out what they were anyway: The first book was about a group of people who got transported from a dungeons and dragons game they were playing to a fantasy world where the wizard blew up all their magic items on the first day and the thief got executed for stealing, and they managed to stay alive by using their knowledge of how to make gunpowder to make guns and carve out a kingdom for themselves. The second book is another fantasy one but I can only remember that the heroes were hunting for a black and white amulet that altered chance around it so everyone was always incredibly lucky or unlucky as it saw fit. Any ideas?
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Sep 8, 2012 11:15
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brainfizz posted:There's couple of books I read 20 years ago which amused my teenage self but would probably not be so good now. I'd like to find out what they were anyway: OOH! I get to win one! The first one is the Guardians of the Flame by Joel Rosenberg
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Sep 8, 2012 11:22
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navyjack posted:OOH! I get to win one! The first one is the Guardians of the Flame by Joel Rosenberg Awesome, thank you!
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Sep 8, 2012 11:28
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bumhug posted:A guy meets a mentally challenged girl who ends up being the incarnation of the Mother Goddess. For some reason he ends up in this fairy tale world and meets the three bears. Also he has sex with an angel dude but it's cool, that doesn't mean he's gay or anything because all angels are irresistibly smokin' hot. This sounds like Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light by Tanya Huff. There is a unicorn on the cover, but no rainbow. Also I could swear it was some kind of fairy woman or something the guy slept with but didn't really care much for it and decided he WAS gay or something. But it's been so long that I don't really remember exactly myself.
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Sep 8, 2012 21:36
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That's it, Zeth! Thanks. 
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Sep 8, 2012 22:27
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