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A UK young adults' puzzle book (as in, 15+), where the pictures are made by cutting up photos, pasting them together, and photocopying them. It was published in either the 70s or the 80s. The puzzles are all pretty macabre and disturbing - for example: --- Note: this is me paraphrasing the puzzle, not the exact wording "Each of these lovely people has baked you a cake. Which one should you eat?" *displays photos of four people and four cakes* ME: *picks person C because their cake looks the nicest* ANSWER: "You should have picked person B, because the other people are all convicted poisoners, whereas person B was acquitted!" --- Yeah. It pains me that I can't remember the book's title (in my defence, I read it once in the late 90s), but I want to find this book just so I know it wasn't all a fever dream.
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May 19, 2013 22:57
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When I was back in school, there was a series of books that I was really into, but haven't been able to pinpoint since. The only book in the series I can vaguely remember was a paperback that had a viking ship on the cover. The story (or at least the beginning of the story) had something to do with some sort of device that brought a viking ship from the past into the present, and the people operating it captured the vikings. The only thing I remember clearly was one of the modern folk going through a series of gestural insults to one of the vikings they captured, finally getting a reaction with the "up yours" bras d'honneur gesture- I think that's how I figured out it wasn't a book for kids. It was definitely some sort of sci-fi comedy series if I remember correctly, although I'm not sure that that book specifically fit with the others as a sequel/prequel or if it was just a bunch of books by a particular author playing on a theme.
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May 21, 2013 23:01
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In the '80s, I had a large text+pictures children's book about Victorian mice living in a huge tree, where the illustrations are fantastically detailed. It opens with them dragging a Yule log through the snow. It was the sort of thing found on bookshelves right next to David the Gnome and so on. I want to own it again, and give copies to my friends' kids as they get old enough to read.
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May 22, 2013 03:53
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Cornwind Evil posted:Okay, there was this book I read in college for a class. It's one of those 'found documents except not' books like The Princess Bride (where the author claims he is editing a previously written document but in reality is making it all up). Poor Things by Alasdair Gray.
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May 23, 2013 20:25
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GunnarHelmudsson posted:When I was back in school, there was a series of books that I was really into, but haven't been able to pinpoint since. The only book in the series I can vaguely remember was a paperback that had a viking ship on the cover. The story (or at least the beginning of the story) had something to do with some sort of device that brought a viking ship from the past into the present, and the people operating it captured the vikings. The only thing I remember clearly was one of the modern folk going through a series of gestural insults to one of the vikings they captured, finally getting a reaction with the "up yours" bras d'honneur gesture- I think that's how I figured out it wasn't a book for kids. It was definitely some sort of sci-fi comedy series if I remember correctly, although I'm not sure that that book specifically fit with the others as a sequel/prequel or if it was just a bunch of books by a particular author playing on a theme. Some of the details are wrong, but this:  - is from 'The Technicolor Time Machine' by Harry Harrison.
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May 24, 2013 16:07
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There was this SF short story where aliens had invaded or something, and subjected humans to a dreamlike state where their subconscious minds made changes upon the real world. All I remember really is that one of the characters had cut off one of their own thumbs and planted it in a pot where it was growing.
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May 24, 2013 16:54
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CherryCat posted:I'm not sure I have enough details to find this but you never know. I'm looking for a childrens book, most likely from the early 90's with an almost Celtic art style. All I remember of the story is that there was a girl who I think was called Oona, a tower on a cliff and something to do with stars. I've been looking for this for years since I remember loving the illustrations as a kid. This is a huge long shot and probably wrong but was it maybe Stardust by Neil Gaiman?
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May 25, 2013 06:20
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So this book is at least 25 years old. A witch has three servants captive - an animal, a bird, and a human girl. They've all got some sort of gem crammed into their body somehow. I think for the bird it was in its mouth and for the girl, it was stuck in her belly button, which made her stooped over and hunched. I believe they get rescued and the gems removed and over time, her spine straightens up and she's a pretty girl again. But that's all I remember!
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May 25, 2013 09:30
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Unkempt posted:'The Technicolor Time Machine' by Harry Harrison. Most of the details were entirely wrong, reading the wikipedia description, but I'm pretty sure that's exactly what it was! Many thanks!
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May 25, 2013 13:26
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Was Taters posted:So this book is at least 25 years old. A witch has three servants captive - an animal, a bird, and a human girl. They've all got some sort of gem crammed into their body somehow. I think for the bird it was in its mouth and for the girl, it was stuck in her belly button, which made her stooped over and hunched. I believe they get rescued and the gems removed and over time, her spine straightens up and she's a pretty girl again. But that's all I remember! The Unlikely Ones by Mary Brown.
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May 25, 2013 17:11
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Zola posted:The Unlikely Ones by Mary Brown. YESSS. Thanks! And wow, the original cover is so much better than the modern one.
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May 27, 2013 12:32
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I'm trying to remember the name of a short story that I think is by Ray Bradbury. There is a little boy who saves his dad from being electrocuted and the story tracks the little boy's understanding that lets him take the right action for totally unrelated reasons.
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May 27, 2013 17:47
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Zola posted:I'm trying to remember the name of a short story that I think is by Ray Bradbury.
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May 27, 2013 19:18
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Runcible Cat posted:Poppa Needs Shorts by Leigh and Walt Richmond. In these anthologies, or on Project Gutenberg. Fantastic! I was telling someone about this because he's the father of young children. I thought it really captured how very... alien a child's thought process can be.
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May 27, 2013 22:43
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I'm crossposting this from the PYF "Lost before the internet" thread because it fits here as well: This was a cover article in a magazine sometime in the 90s - it was a long-form fiction piece about a plague in the near future that starts in Hong Kong and spreads globally. Society does not completely collapse, but quarantine is the only effective treatment so nation-states dissolve into local fiefdoms. There was a last-ditch global meeting of scientists dedicated to finding a cure that was wiped out when one of them is unknowingly infected. Then, a cure is found by surviving scientists collaborating over the internet - something about redesigning the human immune system via an artificial virus. If I remember correctly, the cure is distributed globally via fast food companies. Also, I remember one of the photos showed the US Capitol being sacked by rebels that use either the Swiss flag or the Swatch logo as a symbol. I wanted to say that this was in Wired, but I looked through the back issues online and I couldn't find it. Any clues? Edit: Someone helped me find it on another discussion board - this was published in a special 1995 edition of Wired called Scenarios. It wasn't on their regular list of past issues so that's why I didn't find it before. I still don't know the author, but at least it's cheap to get a copy on eBay. Wax Dynasty fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Jun 5, 2013 |
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May 28, 2013 15:46
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I have several, here. I am not certain if I've posted any of them in this thread, before. The first story is about a guy with pyrokinetic powers (I think), who tries to blackmail the military (I think) into paying him off for not setting random citizens and cities aflame. The other characters probe the bad guy for what other powers he might have, such as seeing the future, but the guy has no other powers. So, a dude hides behind a door and caves the bad guy's head in with a hammer - because the bad guy couldn't see the future. Secondly, I read a story about an office building, or other building full of people, that came under attack from a nutjob who walked around gunning down everyone in sight. The whacko finally corners some character, and gives a crazy speech about how much he hates liars but also hates to be told things he doesn't want to hear, or something to that effect, and offers to let the character go if the character answers just one question completely honestly: "Do you think I'm crazy?" The third story is actually a series of stories that showed up in a new (I think) science fiction magazine about twenty years ago. I don't think the magazine lasted very long, but just about every (maybe every) issue had a story featuring these two ne'er-do-well space-trading schlubs. They always had big plans for getting rich, and they always failed in comically tragic (as in, Shakespearean tragedy - undone by their own faults) ways. It was as if they were Harcourt Fenton Mudd and his twin brother. Finally (I think I've posted this one, before), I used to have a book with a story in it about some guy who is seriously dreading going to work. He hates it, but he's talking himself into going, rationalizing his work to himself, and so on - a real internal struggle. So, he gets to work, shuts himself in a room, closes his eyes, and watches people die. The man is some kind of psychic who is hired by media outlets to predict the death tolls over big holiday weekends and whatnot. He fudges the numbers a bit, so he isn't dead (hah) on, then heads home until he is needed, again. Help! Thanks. Centripetal Horse fucked around with this message at 05:55 on May 29, 2013 |
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May 29, 2013 05:53
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Centripetal Horse posted:Secondly, I read a story about an office building, or other building full of people, that came under attack from a nutjob who walked around gunning down everyone in sight. The whacko finally corners some character, and gives a crazy speech about how much he hates liars but also hates to be told things he doesn't want to hear, or something to that effect, and offers to let the character go if the character answers just one question completely honestly: "Do you think I'm crazy?" Not a story but a novel, could this be Joshua Ferris's Then We Came to the End?
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May 29, 2013 06:44
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Centripetal Horse posted:Finally (I think I've posted this one, before), I used to have a book with a story in it about some guy who is seriously dreading going to work. He hates it, but he's talking himself into going, rationalizing his work to himself, and so on - a real internal struggle. So, he gets to work, shuts himself in a room, closes his eyes, and watches people die. The man is some kind of psychic who is hired by media outlets to predict the death tolls over big holiday weekends and whatnot. He fudges the numbers a bit, so he isn't dead (hah) on, then heads home until he is needed, again. It's in these collections: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?72802
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May 29, 2013 10:54
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elbow posted:Not a story but a novel, could this be Joshua Ferris's Then We Came to the End? This was definitely a short story, but thanks for the suggestion. Runcible Cat posted:That's Richard Matheson's The Holiday Man. Thaaat's the one, thanks! I even see the exact collection I got the story from.
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May 29, 2013 18:29
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Somebody described a book to me yesterday. "A vicar(?)s daughter has a nervous breakdown and wakes up somewhere else with a new name unable to remember how to find her way home. She becomes a teacher and becomes awesome, as opposed to how she was before. Eventually finds her way home again, a changed woman." They couldn't give me an author or a title, but said it wasn't a modern book. 
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Jun 1, 2013 14:29
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Nettle Soup posted:Somebody described a book to me yesterday. "A vicar(?)s daughter has a nervous breakdown and wakes up somewhere else with a new name unable to remember how to find her way home. She becomes a teacher and becomes awesome, as opposed to how she was before. Eventually finds her way home again, a changed woman." That sounds rather like A Clergyman's Daughter by Mr. George Orwell.
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Jun 1, 2013 15:20
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Thanks  I tried googling it before but nothing was coming up, that looks like it!
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Jun 1, 2013 16:44
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That vaguely reminds me of a short story I read, can anyone help find it? A girl runs away from home, changes her name, starts her own life. Her parents keep searching for her. After several years, she decides to return home. She meets up with her former best friend, and from there goes home to her family. The family rejects her, saying that they "know" she's not really their daughter. They'd put out a reward and the best friend had previously found a girl that looked a bit like the protagonist, given her a briefing on family/childhood experiences so that she could play the part, and presented the imposter to the family. They'd been tricked for a few days, and written off any changes as a result of the years that had passed. In the end, the protagonist, who is actually their daughter, goes away again because they won't believe her. miryei fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Jun 1, 2013 |
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Jun 1, 2013 20:08
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I need help. All I remember is this: - fantasy - main character female - she's some kind of priest and a magic user, exiled from her temple - there is an evil living wooden doll in the book
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Jun 3, 2013 12:18
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Barbe Rouge posted:I need help. All I remember is this: Sounds vaguely like Priestess of the White, by Trudi Canavan, or one of its sequels.
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Jun 3, 2013 12:29
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sorry, that's not it. I've never read Canavan. thanks for trying, though.
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Jun 3, 2013 12:32
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Barbe Rouge posted:I need help. All I remember is this: Maybe The Bone Doll's Twin? This also popped into my head but I don't think it's justified.
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Jun 3, 2013 20:15
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Barbe Rouge posted:I need help. All I remember is this: Wheel of the Infinite, Martha Wells?
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Jun 3, 2013 20:48
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fritz posted:Wheel of the Infinite, Martha Wells? That's it! Thanks a lot.
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Jun 4, 2013 04:47
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A fantasy thing, I want to say the paperback version I read was purple. The main character is some sort of good witch/fairy godmother sort, and has to deal with a classical fairytale three brothers set out to do a thing, two fail (one i think gets lost, one is a jerk to witch-in-disguise along the way and gets magicked into iirc a donkey), one makes it sort of situation. Main character ends up attempting to teach rear end in a top hat-brother-that-got-turned-into-a-donkey the error of his ways, eventually succeeds and he turns into a love interest. I think.
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Jun 4, 2013 06:13
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miryei posted:That vaguely reminds me of a short story I read, can anyone help find it? Depending on how long ago you read y yours and how well you remember it, it could be the same thing. No idea of author/title though.
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Jun 4, 2013 10:31
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mirthdefect posted:When I was in primary school about twenty years ago, on of my teachers told us a story about two girls evacuated from London in the Blitz. They swapped places because one wanted to go to a particular area and long story short the protagonist was delayed several years getting home. When she arrived her friend (whose own parents died in the course of the war) had single white female'd her and the parents or the differences down to a traumatic time in the country. Thanks, but it's not the same story. Mine was set in the US (I think the protagonist ran away to Chicago) and the best friend had gotten a stranger to pose as the runaway, versus doing it herself. Another detail I remember is that the parents were running ads in the newspaper to try to find their missing daughter. After the protagonist tries to go home and is turned away, she still continued to see those ads from time to time but never responded to them again. e: I think I read this 10 years ago in English class, but the story is older than that. When the girl runs away, she's 15, but lies and says she's 18 so that she can get a job as a waitress, and I remember wondering why no-one bothered asking her for ID at any point. Also, all the travel is by bus/train. miryei fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Jun 4, 2013 |
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Jun 4, 2013 14:19
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Zeth posted:A fantasy thing, I want to say the paperback version I read was purple. The main character is some sort of good witch/fairy godmother sort, and has to deal with a classical fairytale three brothers set out to do a thing, two fail (one i think gets lost, one is a jerk to witch-in-disguise along the way and gets magicked into iirc a donkey), one makes it sort of situation. Main character ends up attempting to teach rear end in a top hat-brother-that-got-turned-into-a-donkey the error of his ways, eventually succeeds and he turns into a love interest. I think. This sounds like The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey, although the cover is mostly blue rather than purple.
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Jun 4, 2013 18:36
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Yep, that's it. Was even thinking it might have been Lackey.
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Jun 4, 2013 20:16
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mirthdefect posted:When I was in primary school about twenty years ago, on of my teachers told us a story about two girls evacuated from London in the Blitz. They swapped places because one wanted to go to a particular area and long story short the protagonist was delayed several years getting home. When she arrived her friend (whose own parents died in the course of the war) had single white female'd her and the parents or the differences down to a traumatic time in the country. In case anyone is curious, I think this book is Searching for Shona by Margaret Anderson.
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Jun 6, 2013 01:39
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Looking for a book I read I think roughly 10 years ago. It was about a group of children who became thieves. I think at least one of the children was actually from a rich family or a noble or something, and had to hide it from the others. Also, I think it was set in the past or a fantasy world or something like that, but not 100% sure. Anybody got any ideas?
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Jun 7, 2013 17:56
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Illegal Move posted:Looking for a book I read I think roughly 10 years ago. It was about a group of children who became thieves. I think at least one of the children was actually from a rich family or a noble or something, and had to hide it from the others. Also, I think it was set in the past or a fantasy world or something like that, but not 100% sure. Anybody got any ideas? The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke?
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Jun 7, 2013 18:06
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Polka_Rapper posted:The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke? Yeah! Thank you.
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Jun 7, 2013 18:14
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I'm looking for a book I read and enjoyed when I was younger that'd I like to find and reread, and maybe give to my daughter. I got it from the library when I was about 8 (I am 32), and while I remember a *lot* of specifics, I can't find any sign of what the title might be. It was about dragons, which means there's a lot of static on any kind of search. The basic plot was a traditional 'three brothers compete for the hand of a princess' plot except it was gender-swapped. Three princesses try to slay a dragon to win a prince---only the court magician is evil, and sends the first two to be eaten by giving them bad information. At least once princess is told to return a baby dragon to its' parent, not knowing that dragons don't give a poo poo about their young since they're lizards. The dragons lay emerald eggs that become finer when the dragons have had their fill of princess blood. It was illustrated, and quite nicely so, I think pen and ink. The dragons were blue at the front and faded to red at the tails. I think the third princess wins by tying a mop of her hair to the dragon's tail, and the dragon eats itself to death, since its teeth are curved backwards and it can't let go. It was definitely a chapter book---in the opening a prince has to turn the whole ocean red in order to win a princess, and does so by switching the definition of red and blue in all the dictionaries in the kingdom.
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Jun 9, 2013 03:02
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Hey folks, I was (poorly) describing this to my wife earlier. At a guess, I'd have read it in the mid-90s. It may have been a short story. The plot as I remember it: Near modern day. Life is hard, stressful, complex. The physical evolution of humankind has mostly stopped. At a young age, some children are displaying unusual symptoms (moving patterns on their faces? unsure). They're being quarantined, or hunted down, or somehow being kept down. People/The Man/Governments are afraid. The story follows one mother (?) trying to unite her child with another. Or maybe just escape. Eventually her child meets another. Wondrous things happen. The children communicate in an entirely new manner. Something related to the aforementioned flickering patterns. Ultimately it's realised this latest stage of evolution was due to stress, the overload of information input and complexity of life.
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Jun 11, 2013 22:23
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