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Hieronymous Alloy posted:You're sure this wasn't a bizarre dream? For years I'd been convinced it was, but the Goodreads thread would suggest otherwise! I'm never going to find this out though. The more I think about it, the more I'm sure it was part of a collection of stories - making it even harder to find 
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Jun 3, 2020 13:24
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Dell_Zincht posted:For years I'd been convinced it was, but the Goodreads thread would suggest otherwise! I have a vague memory of a story where a boy turns into a wheelbarrow and his teacher's really annoyed about it, but I'm damned if I remember who wrote it. Joan Aiken? Ray Bradbury? Ed: Wheelbarrow Boy by Richard Parker. Doesn't look as though he wrote any other short stories though. Runcible Cat fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Jun 3, 2020 |
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Jun 3, 2020 17:17
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Sci-fi from the 1970s. the Earth has gone through a "change", that made a 150 km band around the equator. A zone that cannot be crossed, and there is no way to communicate between the north and south spheres. In the north, civilisation is based around farming communities, arts, co-operation. In the south there is a meritocracy, where teenagers are taken from their families, sent to a boarding school where they are tested to see what caste they will live in as adults. Both halfs are extremely curious about the other half, but like I said, the Zone cannot be crossed, and something blocks all radio signals, telescopes, etc. If you stare into the Zone, you just see a shimmering ever changing colour, but it is unclear if everyone sees the same colour. The story switches back and forth between a young woman in the north, and a young man in the south. Also, the polar areas have changed, and become strange. While no one has survived going into the Zone, about 1 in 4 who venture into the polar areas come back alive. But changed. If you enter the North polar region, you come back extremely spiritual, and overly religious. If you come back from the South polar region you come back as a very aggressive warrior type. The whole thing was super trippy, in a very 1970s writing style.
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Jun 3, 2020 22:25
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Okay, I don't have a lot to go on, but this has been bothering me for ages. At some point between 1993-ish and 1998, I bought a book to read on a road trip to visit my grandparents, probably from a supermarket unless I'd got it on one of my very very rare trips to Barnes & Noble. It was a thick paperback book, with a glossy cover, all in shades of green. The cover was like an overgrown forest, but not dark green or shaded, but sort of a rich spring green. There may have been a little girl or wild child hiding in the trees or leaves. I don't remember much of the plot, because I never finished it. I was a pretty high level reader at the time, but I just didn't get it. The main character is a little girl, who seems a little wild/tomboyish, on a colonized planet (?) who is observing visitors to her parents place, and there are vehicles that they call 'thopters or ornithopters, can't remember which. There is also a mysterious character who is either a satyr, or Pan himself, or even Caliban who plays a chthonic harp, I remember that distinctly because I had to actually look it up in the dictionary, which was very rare for me, even back then. He was tricksterish, and probably a literary reference I didn't understand. The point at which I stopped is where the girl--I say little, but I think she was meant to be twelve or thirteen, which may have been the same age I was at the time, is...uh...deflowered, either by the Pan-figure or the visitors, and I -think- it was supposed to be some sort of metaphor for spring and the earth, or maybe the girl's awakening to adulthood (?!?), or fulfilling some sort of ritual. There was a very vegetal theme to the whole thing. By that point, I'd already read books like the Stand and IT, a Prayer for Owen Meany, the Joy Luck Club, so it's not like I hadn't been introduced to adult themes and ideas, but something about that book made me so uncomfortable, and I was so not understanding the book that I put it down and never picked it up again. I don't particularly want to read it again, but I -would- like to know what the hell it was about and what crack the author was smoking at the time. I've done a lot of Google searching and I can't find anything similar. It seemed less like sci-fi or fantasy, and more like one of those excruciatingly 'why look at me, I am a philosopher' literary type books that has trappings of genre. Then again, I was anywhere from 10-15 years old when I read it, I wasn't exactly a critical genius. Please tell me someone has an idea of what I'm talking about.
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Jun 4, 2020 00:23
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It’s a short story and it’s about a giant squid the military is training during the Cold War, and they bring this dude in to train it or diagnose a problem with it or something, and he’s like oh man you all hosed up, you taught this squid, who exists solipsistically, that other intelligences exist. I thought it was A Colder War, but that’s a different thing with a similar feel.
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Jun 4, 2020 17:53
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Captain Monkey posted:It’s a short story and it’s about a giant squid the military is training during the Cold War, and they bring this dude in to train it or diagnose a problem with it or something, and he’s like oh man you all hosed up, you taught this squid, who exists solipsistically, that other intelligences exist.
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Jun 4, 2020 18:07
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Less Fat Luke posted:So I read this weird I guess graphic novel when I was a kid (probably 80s) where a group of humans in space end up colonizing the Earth while humanity was still in caves. It starts with them trying to establish a colony isolated from the cave people but then eventually people start comingling, having families and such and there's some incident where a local gets blasted by a laser for some reason. Ring a bell to anybody? I could have sworn I posted that I thought this was LeGuin's Planet of Exile, but i didn't.
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Jun 4, 2020 18:24
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Tree Goat posted:I could have sworn I posted that I thought this was LeGuin's Planet of Exile, but i didn't. 
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Jun 4, 2020 18:38
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anilEhilated posted:Testimony Before an Emergency Session of The Naval Cephalopod Command by our very own General Battuta. Thanks!
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Jun 4, 2020 19:28
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BattyKiara posted:Sci-fi from the 1970s. the Earth has gone through a "change", that made a 150 km band around the equator. A zone that cannot be crossed, and there is no way to communicate between the north and south spheres. In the north, civilisation is based around farming communities, arts, co-operation. In the south there is a meritocracy, where teenagers are taken from their families, sent to a boarding school where they are tested to see what caste they will live in as adults. Both halfs are extremely curious about the other half, but like I said, the Zone cannot be crossed, and something blocks all radio signals, telescopes, etc. If you stare into the Zone, you just see a shimmering ever changing colour, but it is unclear if everyone sees the same colour. The story switches back and forth between a young woman in the north, and a young man in the south. Also, the polar areas have changed, and become strange. While no one has survived going into the Zone, about 1 in 4 who venture into the polar areas come back alive. But changed. If you enter the North polar region, you come back extremely spiritual, and overly religious. If you come back from the South polar region you come back as a very aggressive warrior type. This sounds dope, hope you find it. 
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Jun 4, 2020 20:01
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anilEhilated posted:Testimony Before an Emergency Session of The Naval Cephalopod Command by our very own General Battuta. Love this story
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Jun 4, 2020 21:23
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Here's a couple from the late 70s or early 80s: Sci-fi novel: Reptialian aliens come to earth. The main character is a female scientist (biologist, maybe?). Once scene has her being freaked out that they eat their own eggs. Short story: Dysptopian future where fundamentalist religion takes over. Even joking about something unnatural can get you into trouble. Example: a kid(?) makes the comment that his chores would be easier if he had a third arm.
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Jun 5, 2020 01:29
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Mister Kingdom posted:Here's a couple from the late 70s or early 80s: That second one is The Chrysalids by John Wyndham.
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Jun 5, 2020 04:01
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Mister Kingdom posted:Dysptopian future where fundamentalist religion takes over. Even joking about something unnatural can get you into trouble. Example: a kid(?) makes the comment that his chores would be easier if he had a third arm. This is indeed The Chrysalids, and you've remembered one very short exchange in the novel, so if you look up a description of the novel it'll probably sound totally different.
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Jun 5, 2020 04:03
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This is a short story or novella. It's told from the point of view of a guy in Romania, I think. Theres an alien invasion and mankind is being wiped out and splitting into small guerilla groups. The main character joins one of these groups, and the leader is this badass dude and they're doing all sorts of operations against the aliens. They end up getting onto one of the alien ships and it turns out the guerilla leader is Count Dracula, and they end up kicking the alien asses and maybe taking over the ship?
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Jun 5, 2020 18:18
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A Proper Uppercut posted:This is a short story or novella. It's told from the point of view of a guy in Romania, I think. Theres an alien invasion and mankind is being wiped out and splitting into small guerilla groups. The main character joins one of these groups, and the leader is this badass dude and they're doing all sorts of operations against the aliens. They end up getting onto one of the alien ships and it turns out the guerilla leader is Count Dracula, and they end up kicking the alien asses and maybe taking over the ship? The music video for "I'm Blue"?
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Jun 5, 2020 20:06
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A Proper Uppercut posted:This is a short story or novella. It's told from the point of view of a guy in Romania, I think. Theres an alien invasion and mankind is being wiped out and splitting into small guerilla groups. The main character joins one of these groups, and the leader is this badass dude and they're doing all sorts of operations against the aliens. They end up getting onto one of the alien ships and it turns out the guerilla leader is Count Dracula, and they end up kicking the alien asses and maybe taking over the ship? Out of the Dark by :hack, spit: David Weber?
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Jun 5, 2020 20:56
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Schadenboner posted:The music video for "I'm Blue"? 
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Jun 5, 2020 20:56
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Runcible Cat posted:Out of the Dark by :hack, spit: David Weber? Ha! Yes, that was it. I had that Warriors anthology it was in.
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Jun 5, 2020 21:45
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Ha! Yes, that was it. I had that Warriors anthology it was in. Cool. It's annoying me now, though, I know there's at least one other aliens-vs-vampires story out there but I can't remember title/author. An alien survey ship lands on a devastated Earth and finds a single survivor who turns out to be Guess What. I thought it was van Vogt's The Monster, but that's just another of his usual supermen. Maybe Richard Matheson? Eric Frank Russell? Anyone know?
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Jun 5, 2020 22:00
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Runcible Cat posted:Cool. It's annoying me now, though, I know there's at least one other aliens-vs-vampires story out there but I can't remember title/author. An alien survey ship lands on a devastated Earth and finds a single survivor who turns out to be Guess What. It sound vaguely familiar, but I'm probably thinking of the Zelazny short story where a Vampire robot is saved from being killed by other Robots by the last Vampire who's been dying for hundreds of years since his food source wiped themselves out...
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Jun 6, 2020 00:22
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BattyKiara posted:Sci-fi from the 1970s. the Earth has gone through a "change", that made a 150 km band around the equator. A zone that cannot be crossed, and there is no way to communicate between the north and south spheres. In the north, civilisation is based around farming communities, arts, co-operation. In the south there is a meritocracy, where teenagers are taken from their families, sent to a boarding school where they are tested to see what caste they will live in as adults. Both halfs are extremely curious about the other half, but like I said, the Zone cannot be crossed, and something blocks all radio signals, telescopes, etc. If you stare into the Zone, you just see a shimmering ever changing colour, but it is unclear if everyone sees the same colour. The story switches back and forth between a young woman in the north, and a young man in the south. Also, the polar areas have changed, and become strange. While no one has survived going into the Zone, about 1 in 4 who venture into the polar areas come back alive. But changed. If you enter the North polar region, you come back extremely spiritual, and overly religious. If you come back from the South polar region you come back as a very aggressive warrior type. Sounds a lot like a slightly misremembered Well World book from Jack Chalker. Very 70s, planet with different zones but iirc the southern hemisphere was for carbon based life and the north was silicon based and were essentially entirely incompatible with each other. I think the first or second book has two people who get split up into different zones in the south. The equator is another zone that has to be passed to travel from North to south. And each hemisphere has different zones, some are agricultural, some are war based, some inhabited by people, some by plant things, some by centaurs, etc.
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Jun 6, 2020 02:04
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regulargonzalez posted:Sounds a lot like a slightly misremembered Well World book from Jack Chalker. Very 70s, planet with different zones but iirc the southern hemisphere was for carbon based life and the north was silicon based and were essentially entirely incompatible with each other. I think the first or second book has two people who get split up into different zones in the south. The equator is another zone that has to be passed to travel from North to south. And each hemisphere has different zones, some are agricultural, some are war based, some inhabited by people, some by plant things, some by centaurs, etc. Can you have sex with the centaurs? Asking for a friend.
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Jun 6, 2020 03:51
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yaffle posted:Can you have sex with the centaurs? Asking for a friend. The protagonist of the first book becomes a donkey, and has sex with one of the others, who became a centaur. So yes.
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Jun 6, 2020 04:03
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Poor Mavra Chang. Jack Chalker hates the human form.
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Jun 6, 2020 04:25
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And women.
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Jun 6, 2020 06:02
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yaffle posted:Can you have sex with the centaurs? Asking for a friend. The answer to that in every Chalker book is “yes”
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Jun 6, 2020 06:28
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yaffle posted:Can you have sex with the centaurs? Asking for a friend. buddy,
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Jun 6, 2020 09:10
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yaffle posted:Can you have sex with the centaurs? Asking for a friend. What is this, Piers Anthony? What is this, Larry Niven? What is this, Alan Dean Foster?
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Jun 6, 2020 09:46
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regulargonzalez posted:Sounds a lot like a slightly misremembered Well World book from Jack Chalker. Very 70s, planet with different zones but iirc the southern hemisphere was for carbon based life and the north was silicon based and were essentially entirely incompatible with each other. I think the first or second book has two people who get split up into different zones in the south. The equator is another zone that has to be passed to travel from North to south. And each hemisphere has different zones, some are agricultural, some are war based, some inhabited by people, some by plant things, some by centaurs, etc. Looked it up, and no, not it. But I can see why you thought so. The whole "zone that cannot be crossed" was the main thing, and I don't think there were any centaurs. I do remember a lot of things like the North Woman wondering if, by some miracle, she was transported to the other half, could she still breathe there? And that South Man didn't mind that different casts got different rations? payments? well, some casts were really privileged, except the top leadership, who took pride in living as if they belonged to the bottom cast. So you could never be 100% sure if that raggedy looking man eating the cheapest possible food was a bottom cast or else a leader who could have you punished for treating him badly.
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Jun 6, 2020 12:09
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Hillary 2020 posted:What is this, Piers Anthony? You forgot Philip Jose Farmer...
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Jun 6, 2020 12:47
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froglet posted:That second one is The Chrysalids by John Wyndham. Thanks!
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Jun 6, 2020 13:29
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Something something John Varley's centaur sex chart
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Jun 6, 2020 17:31
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this came up in D&D, and I wonder if anyone here has insight, this is a book that existed in the mid-90s and I think may not go back much further than that but could conceivably date to the 70s.Cabbages and Kings posted:I cannot for the life of me find the name of it now, but when I was about 16 I read a book of shortstories that was modern authors' take on Hell. The two I remember were one that might have been called "One Way Ticket", about a guy so burned out on his life that he just buys a one-way ticket to hell, choosing some weird BDSM sex circle of hell where he will forever have sex with a demoness, and never orgasm. Cabbages and Kings posted:that [one way ticket] story was SUPER hosed up and messed with my teenage brain. One of the versions of hell, you were in a cage in BDSM wrap, attached to the body of some gigantic, amorphous demon that was also permanently bound in some BDSM matrix made out of the cages of the people Cabbages and VHS fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Jun 9, 2020 |
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Jun 9, 2020 18:45
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Runcible Cat posted:Cool. It's annoying me now, though, I know there's at least one other aliens-vs-vampires story out there but I can't remember title/author. An alien survey ship lands on a devastated Earth and finds a single survivor who turns out to be Guess What. The one that comes immediately to mind is The Madness Season by C.S. Friedman, but in that one earth is still populated (and under alien rule) and the vampire protagonist comes under suspicion when the aliens find out about his inhumanly long lifespan. VotGs posted:Okay, I don't have a lot to go on, but this has been bothering me for ages. This is tickling my brain and I wonder if I encountered the same book as a kid.
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Jun 9, 2020 19:16
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Cabbages and Kings posted:this came up in D&D, and I wonder if anyone here has insight, this is a book that existed in the mid-90s and I think may not go back much further than that but could conceivably date to the 70s. This reminds me of a shared universe series from the 80s called Heroes in Hell (think like Thieves World, Wild Cards). The conceit was differing authors wrote various short stories/novellas that examined historical figures in hell, and the.events of the stories overlapped. I don't know that I read all of them, and don't recall the BDSM stuff, but some of those shared universe writers got up to some racy stuff (see again, Wild Cards). Hitler was definitely a central character though.
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Jun 9, 2020 23:13
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Scaramouche posted:This reminds me of a shared universe series from the 80s called Heroes in Hell (think like Thieves World, Wild Cards). The conceit was differing authors wrote various short stories/novellas that examined historical figures in hell, and the.events of the stories overlapped. I don't know that I read all of them, and don't recall the BDSM stuff, but some of those shared universe writers got up to some racy stuff (see again, Wild Cards). Hitler was definitely a central character though. I am pretty sure this isn't it because I think the Hitler story was the only one about a historical figure.
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Jun 10, 2020 00:04
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I'm thinking I might have asked this very thing in these august threads before but: Planetary explorers that are investigating something like the Great Wall of China but it's naturally extruded and used as nest/mate attraction? I think it was compared to a bower constructed by the Also one of the characters had lights around she tiddies which, my being 12 at the time, is of course one of the things I would remember about it almost 30 years later? E: Goddamnit.  anilEhilated posted:Dunno about the wall but this sounds like Uncharted Territory by Connie Willis.
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Jun 10, 2020 14:40
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So here's one the internet has not been able to help me with thus far. A series of kid detective books (Encyclopedia Brown-style) with computer- or technology-themed mysteries. The only one that comes to mind is one where the local bullies are scamming kids on bets on who gets the high score on a video game by stealthily resetting the machine before their player puts their quarter in.
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Jun 14, 2020 06:37
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This rang a bell. I vaguely remember a book (possibly a series) about a boy detective named Chip that used his computer to solve mysteries. Google was no help in finding that, but it did lead me to a book called "The Secret of the Video Game Scores & other mysteries" from the series "Hawkeye Collins and Amy Adams" which sounds like it might be the one you're looking for?
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Jun 14, 2020 07:28
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