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Wolfechu posted:One for myself rather than a customer: Been looking for a scifi short story I read in my teens (so mid-1980s), and I believe it was in a collection of stories published by either Hamlyn or Collins, a thick hardbound block of a book I've never been able to find online either. Bright orange cover with some suitably SF painting on the front, called something along the lines of "The [Publisher name] compendium of science fiction". The bright orange cover made me think of Penguin --could it be this? Edit: that was apparently a paperback, so probably not.
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# ? Aug 17, 2013 17:24 |
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# ? May 12, 2024 15:44 |
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Wolfechu posted:One for myself rather than a customer: Been looking for a scifi short story I read in my teens (so mid-1980s), and I believe it was in a collection of stories published by either Hamlyn or Collins, a thick hardbound block of a book I've never been able to find online either. Bright orange cover with some suitably SF painting on the front, called something along the lines of "The [Publisher name] compendium of science fiction". With all of love.
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# ? Aug 17, 2013 17:32 |
That sounds really promising, thanks, both of you! I like Blish's stuff, but at the time of reading I wasn't inclined to even notice who wrote the stories
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# ? Aug 17, 2013 18:12 |
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This was a fairly short science fiction novel I read about a decade ago. The premise was that aliens make first contact and let Earth into their galactic business corporate thing. Earth agrees but because the aliens are so technologically advanced we can't really make anything high-tech or valuable, so like China we make super cheap consumer goods. The main character is of south Asian descent and had the idea of making these lanyard clips so peoples drink globes don't float away in zero-gravity. Aliens love the idea and buy tons. This makes him like the richest person on Earth but still small potatoes in the rest of the galaxy. I pretty much remember everything about this book but the name and the author.
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# ? Aug 18, 2013 03:19 |
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Poldarn posted:This was a fairly short science fiction novel I read about a decade ago. The premise was that aliens make first contact and let Earth into their galactic business corporate thing. Earth agrees but because the aliens are so technologically advanced we can't really make anything high-tech or valuable, so like China we make super cheap consumer goods. The main character is of south Asian descent and had the idea of making these lanyard clips so peoples drink globes don't float away in zero-gravity. Aliens love the idea and buy tons. This makes him like the richest person on Earth but still small potatoes in the rest of the galaxy. "First Contract" by Greg Costikyan
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# ? Aug 18, 2013 23:16 |
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miryei posted:"First Contract" by Greg Costikyan You're awesome
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# ? Aug 19, 2013 04:32 |
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Trying to find a science fiction short story I read a few years ago. Basically a first contact story with the aliens being incredibly weird and non human-like. The main plot of the story involves trying to decode the alien language, and the effect that understanding the language has on the protagonist (a woman), who basically begins to experience time non sequentially. With the implication the the language was some sort of memetic virus spreading throughout the universe. I think this was in some kind of anthology, so I'm not sure if it was part of a larger work.
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# ? Aug 20, 2013 03:40 |
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That's "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. It can be found in the author's anthology Story of Your Life and Others . VV BlueFlowerRedSky fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Aug 20, 2013 |
# ? Aug 20, 2013 04:00 |
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hal c encandenza posted:Trying to find a science fiction short story I read a few years ago. Basically a first contact story with the aliens being incredibly weird and non human-like. The main plot of the story involves trying to decode the alien language, and the effect that understanding the language has on the protagonist (a woman), who basically begins to experience time non sequentially. With the implication the the language was some sort of memetic virus spreading throughout the universe. I think this was in some kind of anthology, so I'm not sure if it was part of a larger work. Ted Chiang, Story of Your Life (if you like weird alien languages, try Embassytown next!)
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# ? Aug 20, 2013 04:00 |
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Thanks guys, can't wait to be able to read it again and I'll definitely check out Embassytown.
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# ? Aug 20, 2013 04:33 |
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Gyre posted:A kid's book I think. Two children meet this old lady and she educates them about life and such. I remember specifically one of the kids telling their parent(?) that they were studying "the Flora and Fauna of Central Park" In the end she dies, and since no one cares about her but them, the kids bury her in a construction ditch in Central Park per her wishes. Quoting myself since I still haven't figured out what this book is. Not sure if it's kosher to do so, but google still isn't giving me answers.
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# ? Aug 24, 2013 04:42 |
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Short story I read online somewhere. Guy lives on top of this giant, city-sized-or-bigger cathedral, his job is to keep his section of the roof in good repair and clear of ghosts and such. he runs into a ghost he needs help with so he calls a necromancer, and they find a dragon egg. The tone is a lot more bleak than it sounds.
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# ? Aug 26, 2013 12:41 |
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Wolfechu posted:One for myself rather than a customer: Been looking for a scifi short story I read in my teens (so mid-1980s), and I believe it was in a collection of stories published by either Hamlyn or Collins, a thick hardbound block of a book I've never been able to find online either. Bright orange cover with some suitably SF painting on the front, called something along the lines of "The [Publisher name] compendium of science fiction".
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# ? Aug 26, 2013 13:09 |
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One I just can't track down - a short story in one of the 'Mammoth Book of' collections (either a fantasy/sci-fi one or ghost story). It was ghost-related and featured some kind of institute for psychics (which burned down? It's very Hellboy to the point where I get confused). Ghosts are mental imprints from psychics or something.
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# ? Aug 26, 2013 15:08 |
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Splicer posted:Was it that his brain was running on earth time while everything else was experiencing relativistic effects so a second was taking minutes or hours? And at one point he sits up and it's incredibly painful because it takes about 30 minutes subjective time, and he realises all the people who'd gone this fast before had died because they'd tried to get up and do stuff and gone mad?
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# ? Aug 26, 2013 19:04 |
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Okay children's book search time. Written in the late-60s early 70s. Had anthropomorphic animals and a general store in a rural community, more prose than illustration (aimed at 8-11 year olds i seem to remember). Lead character and family arrive one winter's night at a general store. That's all I got. Anybody have any ideas?
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# ? Aug 26, 2013 19:37 |
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My mom said there's a book where a woman touches the sky and tells people about it, but I can't find it online. I was wondering if anyone had heard of something like that? She told me about it around the time the Matrix came out.
DrHerpington fucked around with this message at 10:07 on Aug 27, 2013 |
# ? Aug 27, 2013 10:03 |
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Reposting this in case anyone has read/heard of it:miryei posted:I read this as a child, 10-15 years ago, but am not sure if it is a children's book. I think it had some illustrations in it. Edit: Finaly found it! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_City_in_Winter miryei fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Aug 28, 2013 |
# ? Aug 27, 2013 22:49 |
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Gonna try this again maybe someone will recognize it. Read a book ages ago, around the early 90s. Family moves to new planet because the dad was either an ambassador or got a new job the. City where they live has robot servants and nanotechnology. There ends up being an uprising and all the robots quit and the nanotechnology doors stop working. Family ends up negotiating truce between humans and robots. Only really specific things I remember are a scene when they are entering the city the elevator the are on is described as being like a cell in a tree/plant, and another scene the young child of the family is in a daycare and is given a translator/learning toy that I think was in the shape of a duck, that he somehow with his friend use to open the nanodoors and specifically when they point it at one door the door says its side hurts. After they get caught outside the daycare they tell the nanny/teacher robot what the door said. The duck gets taken away and when it's returned it is basically at a factory reset and they can't get it to translate for the doors any more but they do see the door that said it was sore getting repaired. Any help at all in finding this book would be fantastic as I've been looking for a long time now.
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# ? Aug 28, 2013 06:51 |
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Book with (I'm pretty sure) a three-word title like "Gun says bang" or "Sounds of violence" - something agressive/combative. It was recommended to me by someone who was into China Mieville so it's probably by a similar author. The only details I can recall are that the protagonist is some kind of investigator and he ends up (unbeknownst to him) investigating a ex-friend from his past who made some shady deals and now is some kind of spiritual guru/martial arts guru. Maybe Chicago is mentioned? A lighthouse?
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# ? Sep 1, 2013 05:36 |
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mirthdefect posted:Book with (I'm pretty sure) a three-word title like "Gun says bang" or "Sounds of violence" - something agressive/combative. Long shot: Gun with occasional music ?
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# ? Sep 1, 2013 08:01 |
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fritz posted:Long shot: Gun with occasional music ? No, but definitely going in the to-read list.
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# ? Sep 1, 2013 08:46 |
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Trying to remember a short story I read in some horror anthology years ago. It starts with a guy talking how he goes to parties and after getting to know someone for a while, asking if they know how it feels to kill someone - and how he's surprised by how many have. I also think his wife was either killed by a doctor on purpose during a medical procedure or he has the insane idea she was, and he was obsessed about how he could never prove it - but that might have been a different story in the same anthology. edit: also, another story I just remembered from the anthology was about a criminal being interrogated in an insane asylum by a young doctor who thinks he can cure him, and at the end the criminal escapes by switching their identities somehow and signing the doctor up for a lobotomy. Basically I guess I just want to find this book of stories - I remember they were all grisly and pretty great. Popular Human fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Sep 2, 2013 |
# ? Sep 2, 2013 20:04 |
Popular Human posted:Basically I guess I just want to find this book of stories - I remember they were all grisly and pretty great. I'm taking a shot in the dark because I've never read the anthology, but you might be talking about Intensive Scare edited by Karl Edward Wagner. That link has the TOC, but there are no reviews posted anywhere online apparently, so I couldn't say if any of those stories match the two you described.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 22:11 |
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I'm looking for a Winnie the pooh book that contains this quote:quote:"How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye hard" Everyone attributes it to AA Milne but I'm unsure which book its from, would love the help!
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# ? Sep 4, 2013 23:08 |
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mirthdefect posted:Book with (I'm pretty sure) a three-word title like "Gun says bang" or "Sounds of violence" - something agressive/combative. Maybe Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem?
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# ? Sep 4, 2013 23:19 |
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Pigsfeet on Rye posted:Maybe Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem? That's it. I guess I read the "Gun, with Occasional Music" off the back cover or something and conflated the two. Many thanks.
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# ? Sep 4, 2013 23:26 |
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Pigsfeet on Rye posted:Maybe Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem?
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# ? Sep 5, 2013 00:19 |
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Sri.Theo posted:I'm looking for a Winnie the pooh book that contains this quote: There are only two Winnie the Pooh books, Winnie the Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928), but searching through the full texts of both, neither seem to contain your quote. It may be a misattribution or a paraphrase, or it might come from some attendant writings rather from one of the 20 Pooh stories from the books.
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# ? Sep 5, 2013 14:25 |
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This post goes so well with your avatar.
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# ? Sep 6, 2013 07:24 |
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Fantasy trilogy, I read the first 2 books. It's about a young man who becomes a squire, if I remember correctly, to a knight whom he admires. He falls in love with a girl and later realizes that she's his lord's (intended) wife. The 2nd book deals with a tournament the squire, his lord and his retinue go to. There is magic in the books - monsters, necromancers etc. Anyone? edit: David Keck - In the eye of Heaven & In a time of treason. It wasn't a trilogy, it was a duology. Doktor Avalanche fucked around with this message at 12:22 on Sep 6, 2013 |
# ? Sep 6, 2013 11:48 |
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I'm trying to remember a fantasy story where they're in a modern day setting, but they travel through some portal (I want to think?) and end up in a magical-focused fantasy world. I remember there were two or three main characters, all fencers, two guys and a girl, one was dating the girl and the other's last name was Silverstein. The one who was dating the girl's dad was a famous duelist/fencer and there were like Baronies of Fire and maybe some other elements, but I couldn't tell you if they were Classical elements or Eastern ones. Also they meet Freya? And, because I read it when I was young, I remember the dude who isn't Silverstein ends up loving his girlfriend in the bath, but they had to keep it a secret so people thought they were fighting (I was young and goony so that idea sticks out)? Also the guy named Silverstein gets called 'Silverstone' a lot, and he uses the epee, so he 'always goes for the kill' or whatever and that lets him win in a fight with some fire-demon who had taken over the Fire Barony which made him King Jew or something. I don't remember. I think it was the first in a series, or a book that was to be made into a series (I have no idea if it was ever made into said series.) edit: Also, was the series any good if someone has read them? I read the book AGES ago, like mid 90's so around 20 years ago. Yngwie Mangosteen fucked around with this message at 12:52 on Sep 6, 2013 |
# ? Sep 6, 2013 12:50 |
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nucleicmaxid posted:I'm trying to remember a fantasy story where they're in a modern day setting, but they travel through some portal (I want to think?) and end up in a magical-focused fantasy world. I remember there were two or three main characters, all fencers, two guys and a girl, one was dating the girl and the other's last name was Silverstein. The one who was dating the girl's dad was a famous duelist/fencer and there were like Baronies of Fire and maybe some other elements, but I couldn't tell you if they were Classical elements or Eastern ones. The Hidden Ways series by Joel Rosenberg. As to quality, I shan't say. I thought they were boss when I was a teenager.
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# ? Sep 6, 2013 13:59 |
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I'm trying to remember some odd story/novel I read ages ago. I have no idea what it was about anymore, but one chain of events I remember is like, tons of weird slimy globs falling to earth from space and just sitting around being gross until people burn them, which I guess makes aliens mad and they quarantine/embargo the solar system in some way. I do not think humanity had space travel/was aware of intelligent aliens before these events, but I can't be certain.
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# ? Sep 6, 2013 19:04 |
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This piece of a memory popped into my head tonight.I think it was a tween book with a few illustrations, or a short story in a book. It was around fourth or fifth grade, late 80s early 90s when I read this. Some kids found a giant Easter egg (I think) and wanted to find out what was inside. Each time they chipped away a layer of eggshell there was another shell underneath. Each layer was colored differently. They chip and chip away and the egg gets smaller and smaller, but the only thing it seems to contain are more layers of eggshell. They leave it to come back later. Another kid shows up and thinks it's a jawbreaker and eats it. When the first kids show back up, the kid who ate it is still there but he's encased in layers and layers of shell and they have to break him out. Any ideas?
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# ? Sep 8, 2013 14:37 |
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Another fantasy request... I can remember only one part of the book, in which some mages/wizards/magic-users fight as mercenaries for an army against invaders who have mages of their own that they put in a huge box of some kind which shields them from attacks. The mages we're reading about manage to defeat these strangers (surprise surprise). I think it is a newer release (last 2-3 years). Thanks.
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# ? Sep 8, 2013 17:38 |
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Fatkraken posted:There are only two Winnie the Pooh books, Winnie the Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928), but searching through the full texts of both, neither seem to contain your quote. It may be a misattribution or a paraphrase, or it might come from some attendant writings rather from one of the 20 Pooh stories from the books. Thanks very much. I wonder why the internet decided to attribute it to A.A. Milne of all people, I thought that was George Orwell/ Mark Twain's job.
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# ? Sep 9, 2013 11:20 |
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I’ve got three stories, and I think they were all short stories that have been bothering me for years trying to remember where the hell I read them as they are disturbing as all hell. They also make me wonder what on earth I reading when I was a kid • For the first one, some guy ends up in a town he’s never been before where everyone wears these skin tight suits that are so thin they are invisible. The protagonist has sex with a woman, and after they’re done she stands up, and the suit sort of spits his semen out into a tissue she holds between her legs for that purpose. I distinctly remember him being somewhat offended by this, as if she had rejected a part of him. • The second one is about the last white dude on the planet. Governments around the world for some reason or another dictated that people could only marry people of other races. They force same race couples to split apart, and over time with forced interracial breeding everyone is tan and dark haired. I think I remember the guy just reminiscing about how it all came to be while some of the ‘new world’ children stared at him because he was white. I really don’t know if this story was trying to be anti-racist and or racist, I would really like to give it another read as an adult to see what’s up. • This had to have been in a horror anthology, it starts off with I believe a mobster getting buried alive in a coffin by other mobsters for some reason or another, and as he is lying in the grave freaking the gently caress out, he hears digging. Immediately relieved, he figures they were just trying to scare him, burying him alive and that they’re digging him out now. Then he realizes that the digging is coming from below… (and this has given me the heeby jeeby for years now)
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# ? Sep 15, 2013 23:53 |
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leftover posted:I’ve got three stories, and I think they were all short stories that have been bothering me for years trying to remember where the hell I read them as they are disturbing as all hell. They also make me wonder what on earth I reading when I was a kid The first is called Up Schist Creek. It's from Anthonology by SA's favorite literary perv, Piers Anthony.
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 03:37 |
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# ? May 12, 2024 15:44 |
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In an iTunes U course for the Aeneid, Susanna Braund references a novel about a class of adult students reading the Aeneid together. For the life of me I can't find a single thing about it on the internet. Does this ring any bells for anyone?
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# ? Sep 16, 2013 04:19 |