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Sheep-Goats posted:1) Postapocalyptic. Everyone has three letter names and all disputes are settled by one on one battle between fighters all of whom specialize in one single melee weapon, which is also party of their name. So like Bog the Club. They eat from these houses furnished with food overnight. Scientists live underground and are keeping the surface that way for some goddamn reason. One guy shows up who is a master of all weapon types, undefeatable in battle, eventually builds a coherent kind of society which the scientists disrupt through giving the protagonist some under the skin armor and kung fu training or some poo poo. Pretty sure it was a trilogy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Circle_%28novels%29
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Apr 30, 2013 18:12
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Sheep-Goats posted:I thought maybe I should put this in the scifi thread but it is a book ID so whatever. Could this be Arcade? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcade_%28film%29 Shoot, I just realized it's a book you were talking about. Arcade is the first thing I thought of, though. Murphys Law fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Apr 30, 2013 |
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Apr 30, 2013 18:14
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Murphys Law posted:Could this be Arcade? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcade_%28film%29 Not it. Pretty close though. That's it.
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Apr 30, 2013 18:41
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Sheep-Goats posted:Not it. Pretty close though. One more guess. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Demons http://www.librarything.com/work/598030
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Apr 30, 2013 18:59
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Murphys Law posted:One more guess. That is absolutely it. Remember the cover and everything.
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Apr 30, 2013 20:27
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That cover is pretty amazing. I love this thread for coming up with the most obscure poo poo that I then want to read.
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Apr 30, 2013 21:07
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Edit: Whoops, that wasn't the last page.
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Apr 30, 2013 21:26
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AreYouStillThere posted:That cover is pretty amazing. I love this thread for coming up with the most obscure poo poo that I then want to read. Haha none of these three items are on Kindle
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Apr 30, 2013 21:57
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Ok read this as a kid so maybe around 10 years ago. The world is covered in disease or poison or something, so these groups fight for territory with virtual wars and everyone lives indoors. A group of children are all kept separately in a facility while being trained to fight for their side who are trying to gain ownership of an island that us disease free due to the wind and currents. The main kid starts breaking out of his room at night and visiting the other kids. In training he has to push around small digital men who will be crushed if he pushes them to hard. The final battle ends up being this super realistic looking simulation with bombs going off and tiny virtual men getting legs blown off and such. That description wasn't very good, but I read it a long time ago and want to recommend it to a friends younger brother.
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May 1, 2013 03:13
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Here's a story I read when I was about 13 and spent the last year trying to remember the name of it. It involves a kid who's dad won a contest to put his name on a deep space satellite. One day he gets a package in the mail with his last name on it containing a stamp. The instructions says to put it on his forehead which he does but he is unable to remove it. Then a robot attacks his home until a bear with a bucket on his head and a talking kangaroo, who are from space, chase it off. Then he goes into space with them and I can't remember the rest. The only other thing I remember is late in the book they open these packets into glasses to make drinks at a diner or something. Anyone have an idea of what the name of this book is? Edit: Had to dig through the worldcat but I found it. The planetoid of amazement Sonel fucked around with this message at 22:29 on May 17, 2013 |
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May 1, 2013 04:24
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Atticus_1354 posted:Ok read this as a kid so maybe around 10 years ago. The world is covered in disease or poison or something, so these groups fight for territory with virtual wars and everyone lives indoors. A group of children are all kept separately in a facility while being trained to fight for their side who are trying to gain ownership of an island that us disease free due to the wind and currents. The main kid starts breaking out of his room at night and visiting the other kids. In training he has to push around small digital men who will be crushed if he pushes them to hard. The final battle ends up being this super realistic looking simulation with bombs going off and tiny virtual men getting legs blown off and such. That description wasn't very good, but I read it a long time ago and want to recommend it to a friends younger brother. I also read this a long time ago, and remembered enough to find it. It should be Virtual War: The Virtual War Chronologs by Gloria Skurzynski.
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May 1, 2013 04:50
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This one is an SF short story, I want to say from the 70s-80s but I'm not sure. Possibly by Asimov, though I haven't been able to tie it down. A boy lives in small community, with a sort of pre-industrial revolution technology level. Surrounding the community/village(?) is a huge wall too strong to cut through and too high to climb over. People in the community have psychic powers, such as telekinesis and so on, and some can levitate. It's reckoned that within a few generations, someone will be able to levitate themselves completely over the wall and see what's on the other side. The boy protagonist isn't very good at any psychic powers, but he does have ideas about using balloons and/or flying machines to get over the wall. These keep crashing and keep getting him in trouble. He's summoned to the headmaster after something happens at school, who finally reveals that the whole community, including the low tech level, is an experiment to isolate psychic powers, and that since the boy is far too persistent with trying technology he's going to be relocated to the other side of the wall to the regular technological civilization.
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May 2, 2013 07:57
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Hobnob posted:This one is an SF short story, I want to say from the 70s-80s but I'm not sure. Possibly by Asimov, though I haven't been able to tie it down.
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May 2, 2013 09:40
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Runcible Cat posted:The Wall Around the World, by Theodore Cogswell That's it! Much older than I was thinking it was, and I had some details wrong, but that's definitely the story. thank you.
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May 2, 2013 16:12
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Polka_Rapper posted:I also read this a long time ago, and remembered enough to find it. It should be Virtual War: The Virtual War Chronologs by Gloria Skurzynski. Yep. Thanks. Looks like I just read the first book.
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May 3, 2013 03:07
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This was a science fiction novel I checked out of the library like 10 years ago. The main character grew up on a planet that was in the middle of being terraformed, then some girl broke his heart so he became a space mercenary, or joined the space military or something. One scene that stands out to me was a flashback in which he remembers seeing a cloud for the first time and freaking out on the bus to school. Thanks in advance to anyone who can identify this one.
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May 3, 2013 04:48
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Poldarn posted:This was a science fiction novel I checked out of the library like 10 years ago. The main character grew up on a planet that was in the middle of being terraformed, then some girl broke his heart so he became a space mercenary, or joined the space military or something. One scene that stands out to me was a flashback in which he remembers seeing a cloud for the first time and freaking out on the bus to school. Thanks in advance to anyone who can identify this one. Was it Fallen Dragon, by Peter F. Hamilton?
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May 3, 2013 11:36
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Okay, this is going to be very vague, since I read this in the third grade (in the mid-late 90s or so). It was a young adults book (I think), about a tweenage or so girl (I think), who lived alone with her father, possibly because her mother was dead. Early on in the book the girl left a movie theater or something and saw a bunch of hookers outside (it was the first place I saw that word used), and her father was worried about some dude he called "looney toons" escaping from prison or something and killing the girl. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
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May 3, 2013 21:54
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Disappointing egg posted:Was it Fallen Dragon, by Peter F. Hamilton? Yes! Much obliged! 
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May 4, 2013 11:23
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Read this probably over a decade ago. Collection of short sci-fi stories, the one that's bothering me is when an alien race of squat humanoids with high melanoma take up orbit over earth, then demand all humans leave to the southern hemisphere so they can colonise the northern hemisphere. Leaders of the world all panic, one of the aides then broadcasts every single human war and a lot of fictional movie war scenes at the alien ships, basically telling them 'gently caress with us and we'll fight you to our dying breath.' Aliens revise their plan, saying they'll just take the population to work as slave soldiers due to a war they're fighting, and they won't colonise the planet after all as ..."we don't want to lose you." Aide is horrified, military bloke who worked with them is elated, story ends. There were also some other stories like another alien race helping the planet by disabling explosions so our weapons wouldn't work but it turns out it was part of their sinister plot to invade, and other generally warlike stories. Loved these stories when I was younger because gently caress yeah, aliens and war in one book, perfect. Wouldn't mind finding them again. Oh also there were a few illustrations, like one per story? I remember they showed the alien from the first story I mentioned.
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May 4, 2013 17:44
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A horror book published between 1993 and 2000. It involved people going into a huge black monolith style building that was designed by a mad millionare type. I think it had traps and stuff, but people definitely died in nasty ways. The cover was jet black, but with embossed cogs or somesuch. I think the authors first name was Stephen or Steven. Edit: Found it, it was Daemoniac by Stephen Laws. zombieman fucked around with this message at 21:02 on May 4, 2013 |
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May 4, 2013 20:51
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Korgan posted:Read this probably over a decade ago. Collection of short sci-fi stories, the one that's bothering me is when an alien race of squat humanoids with high melanoma take up orbit over earth, then demand all humans leave to the southern hemisphere so they can colonise the northern hemisphere. Leaders of the world all panic, one of the aides then broadcasts every single human war and a lot of fictional movie war scenes at the alien ships, basically telling them 'gently caress with us and we'll fight you to our dying breath.' Aliens revise their plan, saying they'll just take the population to work as slave soldiers due to a war they're fighting, and they won't colonise the planet after all as ..."we don't want to lose you." Aide is horrified, military bloke who worked with them is elated, story ends.
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May 5, 2013 02:25
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I remember this series of fantasy books I read as a kid ~whereby~ -The main conceit was that there was a dream world parallel to our own and accessed when sleeping -This dream world featured a spiral staircase covered in shells, for some reason -One of the villains was draining some sort of energy from something or other, and was defeated by the protagonists waiting and doing nothing until he overloaded himself and blew up. I think this had been prophesied? -One of the villains (may or may not have been the same guy, whatever) was enslaving kids from our world via false awakenings; if you realized you were dreaming in time you'd escape, but if you didn't he'd get you. IIRC one of the kids realized he was dreaming when he saw the moon in the sky as he was walking to school during the day
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May 5, 2013 11:13
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I'm wondering if anyone knows this one, it's been driving me nuts for years. I'm sure it's about spys or a brotherhood of some sort and Hitler. At the end you find out that they have Hitlers' head on ice in a box. That's it, sorry there is no more I can remember, I only read it once and then lost the book, I've been looking for it for years but have never found it.
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May 5, 2013 12:40
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Action Jacktion posted:The first story is "Earth Surrenders" by Barbara Paul, the second is "To Serve Man" by Damon Knight. The book must be The Young Oxford Book of Aliens. Thank you very much!
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May 6, 2013 05:56
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shapeshifter. posted:I'm wondering if anyone knows this one, it's been driving me nuts for years. The Day After Tomorrow. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After_Tomorrow_(novel) Edit for book, not crappy film. Gambrinus fucked around with this message at 09:14 on May 7, 2013 |
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May 7, 2013 06:45
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Sheep-Goats posted:That is absolutely it. Remember the cover and everything. Holy gently caress I never knew that was a trilogy!
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May 7, 2013 07:02
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Gambrinus posted:The Day After Tomorrow. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After_Tomorrow_(novel) Thanks but definitely isn't.
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May 7, 2013 08:27
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This may be impossibly vague. I read this book about 15 years ago, but have no idea when it was published. The premise is that a world has been invaded by aliens which are either brain slugs or vampire slugs, something along those lines. The people of this world were completely helpless so they created a bunch of little pocket solar systems through gravity? shenanigans. These solar systems ran faster than their world and they hoped that someone could discover a way to destroy these aliens. The actual story follows a girl who is in charge of one of these pocket systems as she seeds it and fast forwards through its history with her spaceship, which may or may not be like a big mech. Woo, sorry about this one. This could all be just jumbled childhood memories, but it has been bothering me for months.
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May 14, 2013 22:25
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I was just talking with a collegue, and she was explaining that when she was 12, she read a short story by Asimov. (Now, some of these details may be unreliable, but I'm passing on here what she told me!) The general idea seems to be that dinosaurs made themselves extinct in wars in which they used weapons - dinos with guns, missiles, etc - and that while the bones of the dinosaurs were fossilised, the remains of the weapons that they used simply rusted away, and there remains no evidence that the dinos had technology at all. That all sounds a bit  for Asimov, and she's never found the story since. What do you think, BB Goons - does it exist or is it a fever dream?
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May 16, 2013 06:26
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Teach posted:I was just talking with a collegue, and she was explaining that when she was 12, she read a short story by Asimov. (Now, some of these details may be unreliable, but I'm passing on here what she told me!) Sounds like Big Game by Asimov. It was included in the anthology Before The Golden Age. Edit: The story was also published as "Day of the Hunters" in the collection Buy Jupiter. morestuff fucked around with this message at 06:50 on May 16, 2013 |
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May 16, 2013 06:48
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22 minutes. Unbelievable. You're all better than the goons identifying porn actresses in PYF. Thanks a lot!
Teach fucked around with this message at 07:24 on May 16, 2013 |
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May 16, 2013 07:19
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Here's one that has been bugging my mother. Copy/pasting her description to me:Vil's mom posted:I'm trying to remember the title and author of a science fiction story
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May 17, 2013 16:46
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Couple of sci-fi short stories I'm trying to remember. I think both are relatively well-known; not Hugo winners, but Hugo nominee type of deal. 1) Want to say this one is from the 80s. Humans make first contact with aliens somewhere in outer space, our rocket finds their rocket or w/e. Communication is achieved via first principles of math and going from there. Everyone likes everyone and seems to have the best intentions, but neither side can be 100% certain what will happen afterwards; while the other side seems friendly, maybe one side will track the other side back to their homeworld so they can eventually invade it or w/e. But do like and trust each other but not enough to risk their species. The solution is: They disable anything that could track the other ship in their own ship, and then swap ships. They're still taking a risk that the other side doesn't make their own ship blow up, but at least they're only risking themself and not their entire species Probably makes no sense due to all the 'them' and 'themselves' but you'll know it if you've read it I'm sure. 2) 80s or maybe 70s. Humans exploring a planet, there is life on it! Maybe intelligent?! (Think this may be humans first contact as well). I think it's described as being a big bird looking thing, at least I always pictured it as something like a weird emu. Anyway the creature is clearly intelligent but the problem is that the species not only can't understand each other, they can't even comprehend what the other one is doing. So the human is holding up his hands in a gesture of peace or something, the alien-bird thing is doing stuff like jumping 100 meters in one direction and then another and both sides seem confused that their intentions aren't immediately clear to the other side.
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May 17, 2013 17:53
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regulargonzalez posted:Couple of sci-fi short stories I'm trying to remember. I think both are relatively well-known; not Hugo winners, but Hugo nominee type of deal. It's not the '80s. It's Murray Leinster's 1945 novella "First Contact."
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May 17, 2013 18:18
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regulargonzalez posted:Couple of sci-fi short stories I'm trying to remember. I think both are relatively well-known; not Hugo winners, but Hugo nominee type of deal. First Contact by Murray Leinster. 1945, so predates the Hugo, but is in a lot of short story collections. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Contact_(novelette) quote:
Haha, this one is reaching back A Martian Oddyssey by Stanley Weinbaum, 1934. Both of these short stories are in the collection The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. 1, which is a collection of the best SF short stories written prior to the beginning of the Hugo Awards, as voted on by the SFWA. You should buy it if you like this kind of thing.
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May 17, 2013 18:21
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Selachian posted:It's not the '80s. It's Murray Leinster's 1945 novella "First Contact." Hieronymous Alloy posted:First Contact by Murray Leinster. 1945, so predates the Hugo, but is in a lot of short story collections. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Contact_(novelette) Thanks!! regulargonzalez fucked around with this message at 20:58 on May 17, 2013 |
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May 17, 2013 20:49
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Helping a friend. There isn't much that's really searchable but I'm hoping someone has read it.friend posted:I read this book sometime in 2012. I know for sure that I read it before October. The book is young adult romance. It's about this senior high school girl and this guy that already graduated from high school. They knew each other from past experiences (I don't remember how they know each other but I think it's because the girl's brother knows the guy). Anyways, they meet at a local coffee shop. She's adamant that it's not Nicholas Sparks and was definitely a teen novel. I'm not so sure about that. She read it in 2012 and she thinks that it was fairly new. Anything? Thanks for the help!
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May 17, 2013 21:31
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Wapole Languray posted:When I was a kid, I had a book about these really stupid fake dinosaurs. Like, it was about a fictional dinosaur-like species that liven on a fake not-Pangaea called Thingamajiga or something. They were all horribly designed fake dinosaurs and were like, all stupid puns and jokes. It was written like an introductory children's science book, walking through the evolution of the fake-dinosaur things. Some of them I remember was a T-Rex thing that was a big dinosaur with a tiny head giving a piggyback ride to a tiny dinosaur with a giant head. One was a Duodiplodicus, which had tails on both ends. The Triceratops analogue had the horns and crest on its butt instead of its head. I can't find it because the name was a silly pun, and I can't remember it. Dodosaurs
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May 18, 2013 01:37
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This one is going to be really tricky. I was talking with a friend, and we got into the subject "books that creeped you the gently caress out!". Her contribution was a (probably) German novel from the very early 90s. The story as she remembers it: A truck carrying toxic chemical waste crashes with a train carrying nuclear waste. The accident happens inside a tiny town in Germany. The area gets horribly contaminated. Soon the entire area is quaranteened, and armed forces deployed to make sure noone escapes. Slowly the inhabitants understand that they are going to die from radiation poisoning, and that noone is going to help them. Very detailed descriptions of the sympthoms as people start geting sick and dying. The mayor tries to make some sort of bribe/deal so his family can get contamination suits. A heavily pregnant woman is taken away to have a forced c-section. Her last words while being strapped down to an operating table is "Please! Let my baby grow up!" Ends with the surviving villagers trying to force their way through a barricade and the order being given to shoot to kill. Does anyone know this novel that gave my friend nightmares?
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May 19, 2013 18:16
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