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froglet posted:That sounds a lot like the last of The Immortals series by Tamora Pierce (Realms of the Gods). Beat me to it.
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Jul 3, 2019 07:44
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Lemniscate Blue posted:Beat me to it. I'm glad that it wasn't just me that remembers it as being super weird. Like I kinda blasted through all the series as a kid, and I wasn't too bothered by it because "hey if it's available at the library it must be okay", but as an adult my reaction is more "what the actual gently caress". I mentioned this book at a panel discussion I was on a few years back because "we'd all be up in arms if there were a book out there set in the real world where a 16 year old and her teacher fall in love and everyone - including the girl's parents - is cool with it. Meanwhile, The Immortals series is still quite popular now and kids can borrow it from the library". froglet fucked around with this message at 08:12 on Jul 3, 2019 |
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Jul 3, 2019 08:03
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Sci-fi eco novel. There are earthquakes and other natural disasters all over the planet. Several survivors report hearing strange chanting or eerie music before the catastrophes happen. Over time weird humming, or not quite singing is reported, the centres of these hotspots forming a kind of grid pattern, all leading towards the middle of Australia. Turns out Songlines and Dreamtime are real. Australian Aboriginal tribes end up saving the Earth by walking, while singing, ancient paths and patterns.
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Jul 10, 2019 21:31
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Action Jacktion posted:This is from Time Cat by Lloyd Alexander but I don't think the rest of that description is, unless you're wildly misremembering it. Time Cat does have chapters in Egypt and Japan but those events don't happen. I just looked it up, and apparently there is a part in Time Cat about the Isle of Man. I guess that is it. The cover is familiar. Thanks!
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Jul 11, 2019 04:02
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Short story where someone starts uncontrollably "falling" upward, as if gravity had reversed or failed for them alone. I recall them grabbing onto the highest branch of a tree, only to lose their grip. I don't remember how the story ended, though it might have been "all just a dream." And I'm pretty sure I'm not thinking of Shel Silverstein's poem "Falling Up"; this was a prose story.
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Jul 15, 2019 00:35
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Thomas Olde Heuvelt's "The Day the World Turned Upside Down" (although in that case it's not only the protagonist who's affected)?
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Jul 15, 2019 00:47
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I don't think that's it, but that story looks interesting; thank you for the link!
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Jul 15, 2019 01:09
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Does anyone know a sci-fi (short?) story where a galaxy-wide alien civilization discovers the Earth is the only source of pot in the universe and the interplanetary weed trade quickly becomes the sole business of the planet because it’s otherwise completely unremarkable? I’m pretty sure weed is what the story was about, but possibly it could have been some other random thing that was unique to earth and someone just made a joke to me about what if it was weed.
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Jul 15, 2019 20:19
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skasion posted:Does anyone know a sci-fi (short?) story where a galaxy-wide alien civilization discovers the Earth is the only source of pot in the universe and the interplanetary weed trade quickly becomes the sole business of the planet because it’s otherwise completely unremarkable? One of the Baen right wing authors had a world where it was maple syrup that got one of the other major galactic races high and that was the key to earth wealth or something like that.
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Jul 15, 2019 20:44
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Hughlander posted:One of the Baen right wing authors had a world where it was maple syrup that got one of the other major galactic races high and that was the key to earth wealth or something like that. IIRC Joe Haldeman's All the Universe in a Mason Jar is that with moonshine.
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Jul 15, 2019 21:22
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Read a short story a while ago about a kid who buys a used VCR from a second hand store from a shopkeeper who looks out of it. The VCR works fine, but when testing it the kid records live TV and when rewatching realizes he can keep fast forwarding past the present time. At first he uses this to impress classmates with NBA predictions, but one night when fast forwarding he gets annoyed that the expected game in a few weeks was being preempted by news coverage, and as he continues fast forwarding the coverage gets worse before the recording is of dead air. As he’s just a kid he has limited options and goes back to the store and the owner is like “you watched it too, huh?”
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Jul 15, 2019 23:16
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Hyrax Attack! posted:Read a short story a while ago about a kid who buys a used VCR from a second hand store from a shopkeeper who looks out of it. Holy gently caress.
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Jul 16, 2019 03:54
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Hyrax Attack! posted:Read a short story a while ago about a kid who buys a used VCR from a second hand store from a shopkeeper who looks out of it. also curious what this is ^^ Help identifying: kids go to a summer camp and get small gems that you can do magic with. Main character gets some super special one with a division in it. The instructors weren't gonna put it out (or thought they didn't and it magically showed up?). There's a kid who rolls pancakes up and can eat a ton of food but is still skinny (nothing magical, just high metabolism/being a teenager).
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Jul 16, 2019 12:12
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Kid goes to a boarding school for... vampires and warlocks and that? One by one his classmates get "accepted" by the school which they show by wearing a special ring. Once this happens, they are weird and distant and there is a definite "us against them" mentality. Right at the end the protagonist has gone through whatever ceremony was needed and now he's got the ring, and he sees everything clearly and it's all cool and good. I remember reading it and thinking "ah right he just got it wrong, turns out it was fine" but I'd like to have another look and see if it comes off as more nuanced 30 years on.
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Jul 16, 2019 12:38
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Hyrax Attack! posted:Read a short story a while ago about a kid who buys a used VCR from a second hand store from a shopkeeper who looks out of it. "Otherwise Pandemonium" by Nick Hornby. Is Scribd  ? https://www.scribd.com/document/203567149/Otherwise-Pandemonium
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Jul 16, 2019 13:02
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Hyrax Attack! posted:Read a short story a while ago about a kid who buys a used VCR from a second hand store from a shopkeeper who looks out of it. This is a better telling of the story than the actual story, drat.
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Jul 16, 2019 13:57
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Resident Idiot posted:"Otherwise Pandemonium" by Nick Hornby. This is terrible, he uses his knowledge of the upcoming Armageddon to pressure a 14 year old girl into sex
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Jul 16, 2019 14:49
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:This is terrible, he uses his knowledge of the upcoming Armageddon to pressure a 14 year old girl into sex If that's not a classic sf trope idk what is.
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Jul 16, 2019 15:45
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StrixNebulosa posted:This is a better telling of the story than the actual story, drat. I also got teased by The Tale of the Gray Dick
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Jul 16, 2019 15:56
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Splicer posted:Yeah that was... disappointing That got incorporated into Dark Tower V, FYI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Tower_V:_Wolves_of_the_Calla
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Jul 16, 2019 19:25
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Resident Idiot posted:"Otherwise Pandemonium" by Nick Hornby. Whoa! thanks for finding that, that was significantly different than I remembered. I thought the main character was younger, and I totally forgot the teen sex aspect. Glad I recalled he used it for NBA games. This is fun! I need to vaguely recall more stuff, the forum has like an 80% hit rate. I gave sketchy info on a Mac shareware game in another thread and someone instantly knew which French developed caveman it was.
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Jul 16, 2019 23:52
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Science fiction novel published within the last 10 years or so, either the prologue or the opening chapter began with two humanoids (maybe of different species, one possibly human) are walking along a trail towards a transport station, chatting about something or the other (maybe a war?). They reach the transport station and at least one of the humanoids climbs into something like a hot air balloon or maybe something like a cable car. Really wish I could remember more than that. Probably just downloaded a sample of something after Googling for "top sci-fi novels of year xxxx" and then forgot all about it following it up.
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Jul 18, 2019 07:15
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There's a cable car scene in Iain M. Banks' Look to Windward, it's from 2000 tho. I think also in his Against a Dark Background (1993).
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Jul 18, 2019 09:55
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Krankenstyle posted:There's a cable car scene in Iain M. Banks' Look to Windward, it's from 2000 tho.
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Jul 18, 2019 17:17
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lol nice
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Jul 18, 2019 17:26
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Request from a friend:quote:Female centric society. Alien invaders.
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Aug 6, 2019 14:31
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ToxicFrog posted:Request from a friend: I saw this posted somewhere else and my immediate thought was Darkchild by Sydney van Scyoc (1st in the Daughters of the Sunstone trilogy). But it's been a looong time since I read it so all I really remember is alien boy + matriarchal society.
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Aug 7, 2019 05:08
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I have another short story from when I was a kid and I think it might have been part of the collection no-one knew before so I'm not hopeful, so we'll see. A boy gets bullied by some bigger boys. They kill a swan with an air rifle, and tear its wings off and tie them to him saying they're going to make him fly. He ends up on some train tracks and he lies inbetween as a train zooms above him. He's uninjured, I think. Can't remember anything else.
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Aug 7, 2019 09:09
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Sanford posted:I have another short story from when I was a kid and I think it might have been part of the collection no-one knew before so I'm not hopeful, so we'll see. This is a Roald Dahl story. It’s in the same collection as the story about the guy who can see through cards. It’s in here: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More https://www.amazon.com/dp/1606867857/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_9IOsDbEPE62JA navyjack fucked around with this message at 09:16 on Aug 7, 2019 |
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Aug 7, 2019 09:13
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navyjack posted:This is a Roald Dahl story. It’s in the same collection as the story about the guy who can see through cards. Ah nice one thank you, my copy had a picture of a boy hugging a turtle on the front. So not the other book I was thinking of, but still happy to have an answer. Thank you!
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Aug 7, 2019 09:33
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Sanford posted:Ah nice one thank you, my copy had a picture of a boy hugging a turtle on the front. So not the other book I was thinking of, but still happy to have an answer. Thank you! The turtle story is in that collection as well
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Aug 7, 2019 09:38
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Yes sorry, wasn't clear. My copy of Henry Sugar had turtle boy on the front - it was this one. But there is another collection of stories I read when I was a kid and I though the swan story might have been from the same book. Just to try again on the other book, I remember a couple of stories: - a boy goes with his grandfather to visit the graves of family members who were very tall. The boy rides on grandad's shoulders at one point. The grandfather is very proud of how tall his ancestors were. - a boy somehow ends up responsible for a day for his neighbour, a girl much younger than him. She either walks in nettles or is scared of nettles, so he gives her his jumper to wear upside-down on her legs. Later they get on a bus and the bus driver makes fun of them, asking if the upside-down jumper is a new style. I thought I had more but looking into it, several stores I remember also turn our to be Roald Dahl. One thing I do remember is the book was very northern, althought that might be because it was an audiobook and the narrator was from yorkshire or something. I thought it might be Michael Rosen, but can't see anything that matches what I remember.
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Aug 7, 2019 10:30
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Ok so here goes one from the Mrs: A little boy who's parents were concerned about aeroplane crashes to the extent they took separate flights to avoid leaving the boy an orphan. They took separate flights and lo and behold both crashed leaving the boy an orphan. Read by my wife about 1997 but she recalls no other details I'm afraid. Help me goons, you're my only hope.
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Aug 17, 2019 00:03
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Insane insane necro quote, but I just happened to look at what I posted in here in 2010.....eating only apples posted:That's the first in the Wind on Fire trilogy by William Nicholson, called The Wind Singer. The second book is Slaves of the Mastery, and the third is Firesong. The twins are Kestrel and Bowman, the city is Aramanth and the tank fort was a giant desert boat God drat, that was the book. Clearly didn't check back and see that.
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Aug 17, 2019 07:25
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Good books, I still read them sometimes.
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This may be a short story, or a full-book but I'm only recalling a section of it, but I have never been able to find it. In the fourth grade I remember a narrative that went something like this... Two boys are told explicitly NOT to go to a diving hole or river, something of that kind. Boys go to it anyway, and one drowns. From what I recall the boy who drowns is the one that was somewhat pressured into going by the other, or at least wanted to back out at the end. A larger portion of the narrative is focused on after the drowning when police and the like show up. The ending culminates in a sort of hash truth told by the father when the surviving child is talking in their room with him. The boy is telling the father about how he can't get the smell out of his nose of the water when his friend was drowning -- some sort of olfactory trauma response I guess. The father replies that he may never get rid of that. This is coming from the 4th grade teacher who is now, and i suspect was at the time a bit of a lush, and would almost weekly read books like a Child Called It and The Tell-Tale Heart to her class.
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Aug 17, 2019 20:55
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On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer.
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Aug 18, 2019 03:05
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There's a book I've been thinking about on and off for years now. I would've read it either in the late 80s or early 90s. The main characters are a boy and his younger brother who are spending the summer away from home. I dont remember if it's at their grandparents house or whatever. The older boy is overweight and shy. I think there's a big mystery regarding a lake or pond? There is a girl the same age as the older boy and I think he likes her but is too shy. The one thing I really remember for sure is that at some point the girl wants to give the older boy a gift so she decides to give him a belt which I think she makes herself. But she doesnt know what his measurements are, so she finds a tree that looks about as big as he is around and wraps the leather or whatever around it to help her gauge.
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Aug 27, 2019 01:31
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SerialKilldeer posted:I don't think that's it, but that story looks interesting; thank you for the link! It really isn't.
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Aug 27, 2019 05:07
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SerialKilldeer posted:Short story where someone starts uncontrollably "falling" upward, as if gravity had reversed or failed for them alone. I recall them grabbing onto the highest branch of a tree, only to lose their grip. I don't remember how the story ended, though it might have been "all just a dream." Upside Down Harry? Although that was a whole book. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Upside-Down-Harry-Hippo-fantasy/dp/0590133446 Nettle Soup fucked around with this message at 12:10 on Aug 27, 2019 |
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Aug 27, 2019 12:06
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SerialKilldeer posted:Short story where someone starts uncontrollably "falling" upward, as if gravity had reversed or failed for them alone. I recall them grabbing onto the highest branch of a tree, only to lose their grip. I don't remember how the story ended, though it might have been "all just a dream." Robert Arthur's short story The Wonderful Day has this happen to someone.
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Aug 27, 2019 15:35
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