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Kevin DuBrow posted:This isn't much, I know. But I read a passage in a book, and this is literally everything I remember: Someone wants someone else to eat rice, but the person doesn't want any. So the rice-giver offers him pickled plums or cucumbers or something, which "makes the Japanese palette cry out for rice". It's from Hiroshima. Great book. Horrifying, but great.
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Feb 21, 2013 04:57
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So, I'm reading Stephen King's Misery right now (good book, btw) and I could swear that I've read another story just like it, I think it might've even been written by King or appeared in a horror anthology with one of his stories in it. It's not the Misery-esque story asked about earlier in the thread. I remember there's a guy and he's had some kind of accident (I think one of his feet were broken) and this guy had him prisoner in his house. The guy is slowly starving him and forcing him to watch religious programming 24/7 in order to "convert" him, after which the protagonist figures he'll be killed. He eventually manages to get out of the room and limp down the stairs, but he gets overpowered by the guy. I remember it ended with the guy telling him something like "you've been bad, now you have to go to Hell," and throwing open his cellar door and pushing the guy in there, implying that some really awful poo poo is going to happen to him down there. Jog anyone's memory?
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Feb 21, 2013 14:07
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I think this was a short story, but it might possibly be a long joke or campfire story. It is definitely horror with a comedic bent. There is a husband/wife and they find a hole/well in their basement/barn/woods. Through some circumstances I can't remember, they start sending food down the well to feed whatever is down there and in return they get baskets/buckets of money/gold/treasure. Then...something happens and the husband falls down the well and the things down there send up a lot of money and a note asking for more ham. This has been driving me nuts since it randomly popped into my memory last week and all my googling has been in vain, so any help would be much appreciated.
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Feb 22, 2013 02:26
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Beachcomber posted:I think this was a short story, but it might possibly be a long joke or campfire story. It is definitely horror with a comedic bent. There is a husband/wife and they find a hole/well in their basement/barn/woods. Through some circumstances I can't remember, they start sending food down the well to feed whatever is down there and in return they get baskets/buckets of money/gold/treasure. Then...something happens and the husband falls down the well and the things down there send up a lot of money and a note asking for more ham. This has been driving me nuts since it randomly popped into my memory last week and all my googling has been in vain, so any help would be much appreciated. Based on this link, it could be the "Thanksgiving" story from Spielberg's "Amazing Stories" series. Or else the story you're thinking of was the basis for it. Edit: Here is another link with more info. The original story was by Harold Rolseth. ZoeDomingo fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Feb 22, 2013 |
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Feb 22, 2013 02:57
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pkticker posted:Based on this link, it could be the "Thanksgiving" story from Spielberg's "Amazing Stories" series. Or else the story you're thinking of was the basis for it.
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Feb 22, 2013 07:58
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Well that was much faster than I had any right to expect. Thank you very, very much! :D
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Feb 22, 2013 20:40
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This was a western, possibly by Louis L'Amour. A young woman is being chased by a bunch of bad guys through the wilderness. One of them finally corners her, and sneers because she's grabbed a tree branch to defend herself with. But rather than swinging it like a club, which she knows he's expecting, she stabs him in the gut with it. That scene made a big impression on me when I read it as a kid, but I've never been able to figure out what book it was in. I've read a handful of L'Amours since, but I haven't come across it. It's not the book about Echo Sackett.
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Feb 23, 2013 06:34
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So I heard this story on college radio a while back - some spoken word/comedy piece - about a guy who moves into an apartment and discovers a hole in his basement, and realizes it peers into an adult theatre, and he repairs the hole and then more holes just keep appearing with him eventually moving into the basement. It was funny. This is a long shot, but anyone have any idea what this is?
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Mar 3, 2013 05:48
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I'm looking for the title of a SciFi book that involved tapping and consuming the cerebrospinal fluid of ?prisoners? I have vague memories of a priesthood and wolves being involved. Read it maybe 20 years ago or so, and it may have been a bit old at that point.
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Mar 3, 2013 17:38
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Here goes a long shot... Pulp horror story from the mid-90s that was in paperback in 94-96. Cover was dark purple with a house silhouette on it. Basic story is that a family moves to an old, small town/country house in New England. The husband and wife have two daughters and a son. Once they move to the house, the son wants to live in the basement. Over time, he spends most of his days down there going from normal teen to dark and brooding. He paints all the walls and windows black. Climax happens when the dad bursts into the room and discovers somehow the son has opened a portal-to-hell. Dad interrupts some ritual red robed figures are performing on the son. It has a very Clive Barker feel, but isn't by him.
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Mar 5, 2013 20:18
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The House by Bentley Little?
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Mar 5, 2013 22:50
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I'm trying to remember the name of this short story I read probably about 10 years ago. It may have been an excerpt from a novel, but if it was it seemed to be self-contained enough to work as a short. I read it as a photocopied handout in a writing class, and I'm not sure if it came from a book or a journal/magazine. I don't remember a ton about it, so this may be a long shot, but it was about two brothers and narrated by the younger brother. I believe either the older brother or one of the older brother's friends was nicknamed "Frisco." Or maybe this was the older brother's name for the younger one? It was kind of a quiet family story about the older brother growing up/away from his younger brother and I think he may have been getting into trouble. At the end, there is a party being held at their house and someone (I think the older brother) crashes through a plate glass door leading into the room where they are having the party. I think he was hurt pretty badly and it was kind of ambiguous what the outcome would be. I know this is basically no information but for some reason I think about this story a lot and would love to read it again. EDIT: Annnnd minutes after posting this I figured out what the story was. I swear I've googled it a million times and never found it but I guess I must have used a different combination of words. It's "White Angel" by Michael Cunningham. Mystery solved! squeegee fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Mar 12, 2013 |
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Mar 12, 2013 18:13
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:The House by Bentley Little? Nope, but thanks for the reply. The cover is almost spot on!
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Mar 12, 2013 18:29
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Durette posted:Here goes a long shot... i'd look over the titles of John Saul to see if anything rings a bell. Pretty much every one of his stories is about a family with kids moving to a house and ghosts and stuff screw everything up, but that particular plot isn't ringing a bell, especially with his mid-90's stuff, and every goddamned one of his books is pretty much a house and a title.
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Mar 13, 2013 01:49
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Roydrowsy posted:i'd look over the titles of John Saul to see if anything rings a bell. Pretty much every one of his stories is about a family with kids moving to a house and ghosts and stuff screw everything up, but that particular plot isn't ringing a bell, especially with his mid-90's stuff, and every goddamned one of his books is pretty much a house and a title. Operating on the possibility it is John Saul, I looked at one of the later books that I had not already read (I read pretty much all of his stuff before a certain point). So by the process of elimination by Saul books I haven't read: The Right Hand of Evil, maybe? edit: doesn't fit your '96 time range, though, sorry. Or New England. They all kind of meld into a single vague memory where kids suffer or do evil and die. 
Liebfraumilch fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Mar 13, 2013 |
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Mar 13, 2013 02:30
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Roydrowsy posted:i'd look over the titles of John Saul to see if anything rings a bell. Pretty much every one of his stories is about a family with kids moving to a house and ghosts and stuff screw everything up, but that particular plot isn't ringing a bell, especially with his mid-90's stuff, and every goddamned one of his books is pretty much a house and a title. Liebfraumilch posted:Operating on the possibility it is John Saul, I looked at one of the later books that I had not already read (I read pretty much all of his stuff before a certain point). So by the process of elimination by Saul books I haven't read: The Right Hand of Evil, maybe? It was very John Saul, but it wasn't him... it totally was someone cashing in on the horror trend in the 90s. So not one of the big names around that time. I really appreciate the efforts - sorry it's such a hazy memory.
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Mar 13, 2013 14:15
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Book for older children, posibly from the 90s. A large book about goblins. Written as a scientific work, by someone who studied goblins. It had annotations by goblins in red ink.
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Mar 14, 2013 19:15
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BattyKiara posted:Book for older children, posibly from the 90s. A large book about goblins. Written as a scientific work, by someone who studied goblins. It had annotations by goblins in red ink. Brian Froud's The Goblins of the Labyrinth, also known as The Goblin Companion: A Field Guide to Goblins. It's actually a tie-in to the movie Labyrinth.
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Mar 14, 2013 20:01
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I'm looking for a book that I think was called something like "The Inner Life" (boy, those are two keywords that unleash a lot of crap on Amazon). While I don't clearly remember the title or the author's name, I remember it was about a housewife who started having very detailed daydreams about a medieval-type fantasy world. (I remember the main character in the daydreams was some sort of Important Lady whose handmaiden was named Marianella, and the real-world main character was like, "Huh, I wonder where that name came from.") Because of these daydreams, the housewife then decided to do stuff like check out the SCA, which in turn inspired her to research real-world medieval history and start sewing (she made herself some sort of silk dress that made her feel awesome and accomplished), which in turn led her to be generally very proactive about her life and to reconnect with her husband and kids. Despite having a really painfully '90s-paperback-fantasy cover, it was probably the only book I've read that managed to have a character use their escapism to branch out and improve their life rather than retreat from it.  Any ideas?
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Mar 21, 2013 05:29
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I'm looking for a book that I am pretty sure is for young adults, I read a description of it a while ago but now cannot find it. It is a book about ghosts, but where ghost hunters are the villains and are generally trying to capture the spirits of dead famous people to sell or keep for bragging rights (I might be remembering some of this wrong). The main character either ends up a ghost or has to protect one. Any one know what I might be looking for?
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Mar 21, 2013 08:13
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dogfutt posted:I'm looking for a book that I am pretty sure is for young adults, I read a description of it a while ago but now cannot find it. It is a book about ghosts, but where ghost hunters are the villains and are generally trying to capture the spirits of dead famous people to sell or keep for bragging rights (I might be remembering some of this wrong). The main character either ends up a ghost or has to protect one.
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Mar 21, 2013 08:21
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Non Krampus Mentis posted:I'm looking for a book that I think was called something like "The Inner Life" "The Interior Life", Dorothy Heydt writing as "Katharine Blake",
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Mar 21, 2013 21:32
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fritz posted:"The Interior Life", Dorothy Heydt writing as "Katharine Blake", Awesome, thank you! 
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Mar 22, 2013 02:40
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Action Jacktion posted:Brian Froud's The Goblins of the Labyrinth, also known as The Goblin Companion: A Field Guide to Goblins. It's actually a tie-in to the movie Labyrinth. Thank you!
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Mar 22, 2013 16:45
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Trying to find a bit of historical fiction I read, I think it was a short story and not a novel. The narrator is on an Allied radio station in Antarctica during World War II, and he realizes there's a Nazi base in the same area of Antarctica, so he sets off to attack it. It was largely about the crushing loneliness of the narrator's situation and how he ended up being alone in Antarctica. Can anyone help me find this?
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Mar 26, 2013 08:17
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Those events happen in 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay'. Novel though, and a long one.
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Mar 26, 2013 12:39
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Lot 49 posted:Those events happen in 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay'. You're right, thank you! I've read the novel, and I must have remembered it as a short story because that's a subplot in a book with a lot things going on. I should read it again.
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Mar 26, 2013 17:11
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So, with GOT season 3 about to start, I'm reminded that when I first read the books last year, I actually thought I'd already read the first two about a decade before - because I was confusing them with some other series of fantasy novels. This has been bothering me, so I'd like to find out what it actually was that I was remembering and/or hallucinating. Things it had in common with Song of Ice and Fire: sort of dark quasi-medieval politicking fantasy, long seasons, winter coming. But the deal was that it had basically centuries-long macroseasons due to some sort of binary star arrangement, and instead of scary ice elfs the big cold threat was moose people; and occasionally there were these weird asides about how the action was taking place on a planet in the same universe as Earth, where utopian future humanity had nothing better to do than get really invested in watching the drama unfold in real time thanks to space probes. I don't remember it being that good, but it's really annoying me that I can't remember what it was, since it's gotten mixed up with GRRM's books in my head and I convinced myself I recognized many of the names when I started reading the latter. This would have been in the late 90s, and I'm pretty sure they were German translations of some international author's stuff, so I guess I can't necessarily exclude the possibility that I was in fact reading a really confused liberties-taking translation of A Game of Thrones or something.
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Mar 27, 2013 15:38
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Sounds like Brian Aldiss' Helliconia trilogy.
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Mar 27, 2013 16:01
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Yeah, that's definitely it. Thanks!
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Mar 27, 2013 16:45
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I remember seeing a fantasy collection of short stories that all existed/took place in the same fictional city/world written collaboratively, I think, by many different authors. The title contained the word "Cat" somehow (It's not Catfantastic)and is was not from the 90s or 00s, based on the make of the book. That is all I can remember and this is driving me crazy.
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Mar 29, 2013 05:11
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I remember reading a short story about a city that on the outside seems perfect, but in order to maintain this, they have to keep a mentally disabled child in a cell for her whole life. I don't remember the name, but it could have been by Le Guin.
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Mar 29, 2013 05:26
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Tovarisch Rafa posted:I remember reading a short story about a city that on the outside seems perfect, but in order to maintain this, they have to keep a mentally disabled child in a cell for her whole life. I don't remember the name, but it could have been by Le Guin. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas? Avshalom fucked around with this message at 07:27 on Mar 29, 2013 |
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Mar 29, 2013 07:21
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Demon of the East posted:I remember seeing a fantasy collection of short stories that all existed/took place in the same fictional city/world written collaboratively, I think, by many different authors. The title contained the word "Cat" somehow (It's not Catfantastic)and is was not from the 90s or 00s, based on the make of the book. That is all I can remember and this is driving me crazy. Could it be the Liavek series?
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Mar 29, 2013 18:13
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Demon of the East posted:I remember seeing a fantasy collection of short stories that all existed/took place in the same fictional city/world written collaboratively, I think, by many different authors. The title contained the word "Cat" somehow (It's not Catfantastic)and is was not from the 90s or 00s, based on the make of the book. That is all I can remember and this is driving me crazy. Could it be this one?
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Mar 29, 2013 19:09
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Thanks thats it.
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Mar 29, 2013 23:08
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No, but a good guess at it. Thank you.
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Mar 30, 2013 02:12
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Demon of the East posted:No, but a good guess at it. Thank you. I spotted this one as well (although technically it doesn't have cat in the title) Also, check this list on Goodreads, maybe one of the names/titles will ring a bell.
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Mar 30, 2013 14:15
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None of those are it, and I've been doing some scanning of my own and can find nothing. Am I making it up in my head? I don't think so, but I can't find anything on this anywhere. Thank you again. You're a great help.
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Apr 1, 2013 05:24
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The Man-Kzin Wars? I think the Kzin were giant cats or something like that.
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Apr 1, 2013 17:50
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