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al-azad posted:I've only heard about this in passing. It's a Southern gothic short story part of a larger collection about a family traveling through the American south. Their car breaks down and the grandmother tells a story about a murdering highwayman I believe? They bump into the highwayman and his gang who goes by some given name like "the kid", invites the family to stay with him, and then takes the family one by one into the woods to murder them. Basically all I can remember about this! This could be Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find through s few layers of telephone--name of the killer would be The Misfit, if that rings any bells.
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Jul 23, 2017 07:52
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Yes. Such a strange story. Makes me feel nostalgic for when my hometown was a gravel road and a church.
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Jul 23, 2017 08:36
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al-azad posted:I've only heard about this in passing. It's a Southern gothic short story part of a larger collection about a family traveling through the American south. Their car breaks down and the grandmother tells a story about a murdering highwayman I believe? They bump into the highwayman and his gang who goes by some given name like "the kid", invites the family to stay with him, and then takes the family one by one into the woods to murder them. Basically all I can remember about this! A good man is hard to find by Flannery O Connor.
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Jul 24, 2017 02:16
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Trying to ID an audiobook I listened to around 2004, but who knows when it was written. The details are slim, but it's a stuffy British murder mystery that takes place during a dinner at a stately manor, and I think the killer was a member of the waitstaff who poisoned the tomatoes. One thing about the author's style: instead of "saying" things, women were always "cooing." I think the phrase "'Blah blah blah,' she cooed" is used about once per page.
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Jul 25, 2017 18:37
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Lester Shy posted:Trying to ID an audiobook I listened to around 2004, but who knows when it was written. The details are slim, but it's a stuffy British murder mystery that takes place during a dinner at a stately manor, and I think the killer was a member of the waitstaff who poisoned the tomatoes. One thing about the author's style: instead of "saying" things, women were always "cooing." I think the phrase "'Blah blah blah,' she cooed" is used about once per page. Are you sure they were not anthropomorphic pigeons?
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Jul 26, 2017 02:05
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A little while back, someone told me about a science fiction book about a personified version of San Francisco or one of its districts. I don't really have any other details, and Google isn't helping much. Does this ring any bells? Thanks.
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Jul 27, 2017 04:06
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yourdadsbestfriend posted:A little while back, someone told me about a science fiction book about a personified version of San Francisco or one of its districts. I don't really have any other details, and Google isn't helping much. Does this ring any bells? Thanks. John Shirley's City Come A-Walkin' perhaps?
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Jul 27, 2017 14:14
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Selachian posted:John Shirley's City Come A-Walkin' perhaps? Yep, I'm pretty sure that's it! Thanks!
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Jul 27, 2017 16:01
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I'm looking for one of those weird conservative Facebook parables, like that one where the Marine beats up the college professor who says God doesn't exist. In this one, some kid goes off to college, then goes back home to show his farmer parents what he's learned. He spins some bullshit rhetoric about how eggs don't really exist, or how two eggs are actually more than three, or something like that. Then his father takes all the eggs away in disgust and says "then you won't mind this. Good night, son," and turns the light off behind him. It's the same premise as Erasmus Montanus, but Americanized. Has anyone seen this?
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Jul 28, 2017 10:03
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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. This is a repost from a few years ago, Anybody have any ideas?
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Jul 28, 2017 15:03
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I can't help anyone out unfortunately but there's a book that's been stuck in my head for a decade that I've never been able to remember. Read it in the '90s, young adult sci-fi starring this kid who had no parents for some reason and was living in a futuristic compound. The one moment that's stuck in my head is that he brings a girl over and the lock on the door to the compound asks him questions to check his identity before opening. It went something like:  : "blah blah blah what rock band had a hit song from such and such album?" : "Uh I dunno, I'm dumb":bigtran: (whispering): "U2" : "me too?" : "welcome home mr. protagonist" : "the answer doesn't actually matter, it just recognizes my voice"There were also monofilament whips and vibroblades that "cut through concrete like butter" I think...but I was also reading a lot of Gibson and trashy Star Wars novels at the time so there might be cross-contamination.
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Jul 29, 2017 09:32
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Humbug Scoolbus posted: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. It's not one of Walter Brooks's "Freddy" books, is it? (I assume if it's for 8-11, it would be a chapter book?)
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Jul 29, 2017 18:30
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Selachian posted:It's not one of Walter Brooks's "Freddy" books, is it? (I assume if it's for 8-11, it would be a chapter book?) Nope. Great art and heavily illustrated. It is a chapter book.
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Jul 29, 2017 21:35
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I've had one that's been bothering me for a little bit now, but I can remember so terribly little that searching isn't helpful. It's a military science-fiction series about space-paratroopers, more or less. 80s-as-hell book covers, all I can remember really is that the soldiers in the books used guns that clipped off tiny bits of wire and shot them, the last book was on a volcanic planet and ended with the protagonist losing some bits of his body in a not-so-pleasant way. Were these just a fever dream?
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Aug 1, 2017 08:33
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Book 1: Hunting a golden age (1940's-60's, at a guess) short story written similarly to Asimov, Clifford D Simak etc. Story centres on the pilot of a one-man Scout ship sent to explore a dust nebulae. Continual ships are sent out by humanity exploring space, however once people reach a certain distance from home they experience a psychological pull (a rubber-band) drawing them back to human space, either returning or going insane. In this story, the pilot is last in a long line of explorers who journey out into the unmappable dust cloud, looking for planets/suns etc. He proudly explains that he makes it up to xx days of outward-bound flight (much better than the other Joe Schmoes back at base!) before the jitteriness and paranoia of the homeward-pulling elastic band starts to kick in. Right where it starts getting terrible, he finds a planet and descends to land. He uses his trader computer systems to survey the planet, and lands in an open field. Quickly an alien ambles up and they start trying to talk - the human using a translation function on his hand held PC to build a vocabulary, with the alien handing over a small carved figurine. The alien displays a ridiculous intelligence by overhearing the discussion between the human and the PC and starts becoming fluent in English over the course of the communication. The PC alerts the trader human that the carved figurine is x.x billion years old, and this is an insanely advanced species. Story ends with the trader losing consciousness and waking up back in his ship with no memory (or electronic record) of the planet, but with a MASSIVELY increased pull towards home (the aliens want to be left alone by the jerky out-of-cloud crass humans). Book 2: The Goblin Reservation, Clifford D Simak (thank you xiw!) 60's novel again, suspect by Clifford D Simak, Sturgeon etc. Humanity exists in a loose coalition of races in the galaxy - friendly orcs, little spherical/egg-shaped aliens, and even a unique race (wheelers?) that is noted to be the only known species in the galaxy who, being shaped like a while, has the blood stay stationary at the bottom of the wheel while the whole body circulates (instead of the standard). Protagonist is involved in the art world, intrigues and painting trading lead to him finding an ancient/pre-historic painting that shows proto-humans being used as slaves, lorded over by the tyrannical egg-shaped aliens (weilding whips, etc). Turned out they were a malevolent species through all of galactic history, and merely pretended to altruism once species reached a certain technological/cultural level. Book 3: Tacky (modern style, so 80's at a guess? - I read this at the same time as Starhammer by Christopher Rowley, and both books were similarly grimdark Big Dumb Object stories) space opera in a utopian Human society involving an amnesiac young lady (possibly found in hibernation) and her large warship of unknown origins. The protagonist of the book goes on an adventure with her running from mysteriously exploding/destroyed pacifist utopian star systems, somehow staying ahead of the anonymous threat. At the end of the story, the young lady gets her memory back. Turns out that long ago in history, a dickish human government had basically operated a eugenics project, taking all violent/unusual/criminal humans and cramming them on 'scout' ships to the Lesser Megallanic Cloud. One of the ships had survived, and a civilisation had arisen there obsessed with revenge. All focus singly on developing the technology and infrastructure to start churning out advanced gently caress-you ships with a single occupant program ship to send in one after another into the human galaxy, destroying as much as possible as they went. The twist at the end of the story was that the Megallanic lady was the only known individual to ever be found (and she'd been in stasis for tens of thousands of years), so she had a background/off-screen existential crisis wondering what had happened to her culture back home, what had befallen them (shades of the WHAT THREAT IS OUT THERE like in the extended Dune universe with the Honored Matres). I've been searching for these three for about fifteen years, so any help would be appreciated! Isolationist fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Aug 2, 2017 |
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Aug 2, 2017 07:11
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Isolationist posted:Book 2: 60's novel again, suspect by Clifford D Simak, Sturgeon etc. Humanity exists in a loose coalition of races in the galaxy - friendly orcs, little spherical/egg-shaped aliens, and even a unique race (wheelers?) that is noted to be the only known species in the galaxy who, being shaped like a while, has the blood stay stationary at the bottom of the wheel while the whole body circulates (instead of the standard). Protagonist is involved in the art world, intrigues and painting trading lead to him finding an ancient/pre-historic painting that shows proto-humans being used as slaves, lorded over by the tyrannical egg-shaped aliens (weilding whips, etc). Turned out they were a malevolent species through all of galactic history, and merely pretended to altruism once species reached a certain technological/cultural level. I can almost do 2 - one of James White's Sector General books has aliens that roll to circulate their blood, and he remarks that another writer came up with the same idea simultaneously, but I can't go rooting around in my spare room to find out who until this evening.
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Aug 2, 2017 08:25
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For #1, I remember the story - 80% sure it was called The Push or something like that, with the protagonist idly wondering why the well-known force pulling people home was called The Push and not The Pull. I'll have a look. For #2, the roller was a Drambon, so I'm guessing this was a bob shaw story: Here's James White talking about them:  But actually this is probably Simak's The Goblin Reservation and nothing to do with Drambons at all. I lost my copy of that years ago though.
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Aug 2, 2017 11:14
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This is a super long shot, but I'm not sure where else to ask. I have vague memory of some kind of sci-fi book or movie or TV show that used "smoothies" as a derogatory term for a fictional minority. Does that ring a bell for anyone?
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Aug 2, 2017 20:02
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The Fallout series has ghouls call normal humans "smooth skins", but that's all I got. Their wikia says they use the term "smoothie" as well but that must have been one of the games I didn't play.
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Aug 2, 2017 21:09
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Poldarn posted:The Fallout series has ghouls call normal humans "smooth skins", but that's all I got. Their wikia says they use the term "smoothie" as well but that must have been one of the games I didn't play. The Moreau books by S Andrew Swan had the uplifted animals calling humans "pinks" but I seem to recall them saying smooth or smoothie as an insult too.
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Aug 2, 2017 21:34
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Guy Goodbody posted:This is a super long shot, but I'm not sure where else to ask. I have vague memory of some kind of sci-fi book or movie or TV show that used "smoothies" as a derogatory term for a fictional minority. Does that ring a bell for anyone? The Amtrak Wars. Post apocalyptic, totalitarian US remnant colony of normal humans decides that the background radiation has dropped to a level where they can expand back out onto the surface, killing all the filthy tribal mutants (with skin malformations and bumps). Scout plane crashes, pilot (smoothskin ) is taken in by the muties. Seven book series.
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Aug 2, 2017 22:26
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It was specifically smoothies, not anything else. And I'm starting to be more sure that it was a movie or TV show than a book. Sorry, I just found out there's a CineD version of this thread I should've posted it in
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Aug 2, 2017 22:52
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A colleague and I both remember a book with a female character who will only have anal sex, claiming that in her youth she masturbated with a glass bottle which shattered and left her with terrible scars. It transpires she's actually transgender and I think had botched surgery. Don't think this was a key element of the plot, just an aspect we both remember. Edit: we think it's probably Acid House by Irvine Welsh. Sanford fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Aug 3, 2017 |
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Aug 3, 2017 16:46
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Sanford posted:A colleague and I both remember a book with a female character who will only have anal sex, claiming that in her youth she masturbated with a glass bottle which shattered and left her with terrible scars. It transpires she's actually transgender and I think had botched surgery. Don't think this was a key element of the plot, just an aspect we both remember. What a compelling sounding book
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Aug 4, 2017 03:19
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Sanford posted:A colleague and I both remember a book with a female character who will only have anal sex, claiming that in her youth she masturbated with a glass bottle which shattered and left her with terrible scars. It transpires she's actually transgender and I think had botched surgery. Don't think this was a key element of the plot, just an aspect we both remember. that's the kind of stuff i talk about at work too
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Aug 4, 2017 04:46
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Sanford posted:A colleague and I both remember a book with a female character who will only have anal sex, claiming that in her youth she masturbated with a glass bottle which shattered and left her with terrible scars. It transpires she's actually transgender and I think had botched surgery. Don't think this was a key element of the plot, just an aspect we both remember. 
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Aug 4, 2017 09:17
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Weird longshot about a probably short story but maybe book during a discussion in the car with the wife - child, unsure of gender, falls into a mathemagical world (not a typo, magical math stuff) and ends up eating 'subtraction soup' that makes them hungrier but they were too dumb to realize it and ate a ton and were starving. Mostly just want to know if I imagined it or not.
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Aug 4, 2017 14:20
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Captain Monkey posted:Weird longshot about a probably short story but maybe book during a discussion in the car with the wife - child, unsure of gender, falls into a mathemagical world (not a typo, magical math stuff) and ends up eating 'subtraction soup' that makes them hungrier but they were too dumb to realize it and ate a ton and were starving. Mostly just want to know if I imagined it or not. Phantom Tollbooth?
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Aug 4, 2017 14:23
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Sanford posted:Phantom Tollbooth? Yes.
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Aug 4, 2017 22:04
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Yep, thanks goons!
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Aug 7, 2017 10:54
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I'm looking for a sci-fi book that I think recently came out, I read a preview of it and then forgot the title. The premise was that there was an outer space expedition and the POV character was some kind of killbot around to protect the scientists and who had hacked its typical 3-laws programming, but also wanted to just do its job and protect the humans, only out of free will. I remember it spending its free time downloading movies to watch, and also getting partway melted while saving people and shrugging it off because it could fix itself easily.
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Aug 9, 2017 19:29
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Alopex posted:I'm looking for a sci-fi book that I think recently came out, I read a preview of it and then forgot the title. Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
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Aug 9, 2017 20:17
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navyjack posted:Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells First chapter or so here: http://www.marthawells.com/murderbot1.htm
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Aug 9, 2017 20:51
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need help Book was written by a history professor? I think. It was historical fiction and was about some Beaudoin guy who was like a liar and whatnot and went all over the world even banged some Kings wife and stuff. People with eyes in the center of their chest.
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Aug 10, 2017 05:41
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verbal enema posted:need help Possibly "Baudolino" by Umberto Eco?
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Aug 10, 2017 06:19
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Section 9 posted:Possibly "Baudolino" by Umberto Eco? Thanks you so much. I kept getting "Urbino" in my head and I'm like idk what that is except a place in EU4
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Aug 10, 2017 06:51
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navyjack posted:Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells That's the one! Thanks, y'all!
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Aug 10, 2017 21:28
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So here's a short story that should be pretty easy to identify by plot description, and good thing too since I can't recall any names associated with it. So the story is presented as someone's personal recollection of an apocalyptic event where any and all people who are any sort of close proximity (e.g. in a line, in a crowd, etc.) become bonded together by an invisible force. If someone tries hard enough to break the bond, they die and then everyone else is still stuck together, but with a dead body in their midst. Predictably, human society breaks down pretty much immediately, and the crowd-people quickly start to behave less like crowds of people and more like animalistic superorganisms, chasing down any single humans they see and adding them to the collective. After a while, the bond begins to manifest in a fleshy, physical form, completing the transformation from human to post-human monstrosity. By this point, the crowd-creatures no longer have any use for single humans, simply killing any they can catch, and begin to leave the ruined remnants of human civilization behind for the wilderness, where the narrator observes them doing things like eating, singing, mating, and even constructing primitive clothing for protection, and speculates on what the future has in store for this bizarre new species. While I can't remember any names, I can remember that the story was in some sort of science fiction anthology, had a dark sense of humor to it, and was almost certainly translated, as were some other stories in the same collection, like a similarly inexplicable tale about a guy seeing dinosaurs roaming the land, except he's the only one who can or something weird like that.
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Aug 11, 2017 13:24
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Doctor Bishop posted:So here's a short story that should be pretty easy to identify by plot description, and good thing too since I can't recall any names associated with it. The New Prehistory by Rene Rebetez-Cortes ?
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Aug 11, 2017 13:31
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Attention Deficit posted:The New Prehistory by Rene Rebetez-Cortes ? Bingo, that's the one. Thanks so much.
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Aug 12, 2017 03:10
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