The identify that story/book thread: Home of the gas pump boy

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Mistaken Identity: Oct 21, 2020

So, I have been wrecking my brain about a particular manga that I can't remember for the life of me.

It is about a travelling medicine seller that deals in ghost or youkai illnesses.

And it is empathically NOT Mononoke.

The protagonist has white hair and one weird eye that might be a youkai itself. I remember it being drawn in a fairly unconventional style for manga with one of the first stories being about a youkai living in people's ears and eating words.

# ? Nov 16, 2020 21:32

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# ? May 12, 2024 16:47

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

Mushishi.

# ? Nov 16, 2020 22:41

Mistaken Identity: Oct 21, 2020

StrixNebulosa posted:

Mushishi.

That is the one. Much obliged.

# ? Nov 17, 2020 09:27

fritz: Jul 26, 2003

Doctor Jeep posted:

I recently read a fantasy book and promptly forgot the title, the author, characters' names, any proper noun in it actually LMAO. I remember that it's in a country ruled by a foreigner king who got control of it while getting it rid of demons, who exist but some are not what they seem. The story is told in the past and the present. There are flying squads that use these giant birds which imprint on their riders or something.
The current king is trying to call back his father's old captain of the guard and is using his aunt, the captain of the bird riders' squad, to do it. Also the world has an equivalent of the Jews (a people who have a reputation for being scheming traders) who are being pogromed. There are other things going on but I don't want to spoil it in case someone else wants to read it.
Help?

That sounds a lot like Kate Eliot's "Black wolves" which unfortunately is in contractual hell and has no sequel.

# ? Nov 17, 2020 12:26

Doktor Avalanche: Dec 30, 2008

fritz posted:

That sounds a lot like Kate Eliot's "Black wolves" which unfortunately is in contractual hell and has no sequel.

that's it! thanks.

# ? Nov 18, 2020 03:15

SeanBeansShako: Nov 20, 2009; Now the Drums beat up again,
For all true Soldier Gentlemen.

Okay here is a tricky one I cannot find with google.

Grabbed it from the library over a decade ago, really trash spy fiction thriller set in late 1920's/early 1930's Hong Kong/Border with China. Has a cover and plot based around an armored train and opium?

British Spy, his twit partner and a bunch of greasy Royal Navy sailors do a PT riverboat tour, hang out with pirates and fight war lords over Bolshevek supplied opium?

# ? Nov 19, 2020 17:28

Stoicinema: Sep 17, 2008

This one pops into my head every once in a while and I google like mad for a second or two before I forget again, but I'd quite like to know what this story is now or if I made it up entirely.

This is either a book or an Internet fiction post because I remember it being available to read for free.
From what I can remember it's a sci fi story where humanity has entirely migrated to an interconnected, virtual world where they live out their dreams and desires unimpeded without fear of harm or even death.
As a result of this a form of entertainment emerges where certain people put themselves through horrifying simulated torture/extreme violence as a way of entertaining this jaded virtual populace.

I think at some point the protagonist gets challenged by someone to a duel of virtual self harm or something? If this rings any bells for you I'd love to know!

# ? Nov 23, 2020 20:29

uvar: Jul 25, 2011; Avoid breathing
radioactive dust.; College Slice

Sounds like the first chapter of The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (freely available here).

Edit: which upon skimming is somewhat 'edgier' than I remembered.

uvar fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Nov 23, 2020

# ? Nov 23, 2020 20:35

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

I believe that a similar idea comes up in Iain M. Banks's Culture series.

# ? Nov 23, 2020 21:04

Take the plunge! Okay!: Feb 24, 2007

Sham bam bamina! posted:

I believe that a similar idea comes up in Iain M. Banks's Culture series.

Up to a point. Conservative religious societies develop Bruegelian hells in which they torment digitalized sinners to make their religious doctrines reality. It�s peak Banks, totally needlessly gruesome stuff, I think it happens in his second to last book.

# ? Nov 23, 2020 21:14

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

No, I was thinking of the masochist mutilation party in Solotol in Use of Weapons.

Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Nov 23, 2020

# ? Nov 23, 2020 22:24

yaffle: Sep 15, 2002; Flapdoodle

This rings a bell, maybe something by Charles Stross or Iain Banks? I definitely remember a scene where the protagonists visits kids in a virtual world while they are playing an appallingly visceral war/torture game of some sort.
Edit: Neal Stephenson maybe?

# ? Nov 24, 2020 02:03

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

yaffle posted:

This rings a bell, maybe something by Charles Stross or Iain Banks? I definitely remember a scene where the protagonists visits kids in a virtual world while they are playing an appallingly visceral war/torture game of some sort.
Edit: Neal Stephenson maybe?

I'm 95% sure this is a bit from Stross' Accelerando.

# ? Nov 24, 2020 03:18

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

Lemniscate Blue posted:

I'm 95% sure this is a bit from Stross' Accelerando.

Stoicinema mentioned being able to read it for free, which lines up perfectly.

# ? Nov 24, 2020 03:36

yaffle: Sep 15, 2002; Flapdoodle

I just went and dug it up, the bit is almost at the end:
https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando.html#PART3
searching for "Little Mani" will bring you right to it.

# ? Nov 24, 2020 03:58

AwesomePossum: Dec 12, 2009

This has been driving me so crazy I found my SA login because the bookworms here are the best:

I cannot remember the title of a cold war novel. An American diver somewhere in the Caribbean finds a sunken submarine (Nazi or Soviet), finds something on it that makes him fly to UK to discuss with intelligence there in person but gets killed by a car when he doesn't look the correct way crossing the road. I believe the plot revolves around spies going after the diver's son or daughter for the location of the sub? Only other thing I remember is the fact that the location of the sub was written into the diver's dive log, which for some reason, absolutely no one thought to check until the end of the book.

I checked Clancy and if it's one of his then missed it in all the synopses I read. If it's a WEB book then I won't find it, that man writes too much.

If anyone knows I'd be grateful.

# ? Nov 24, 2020 06:46

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

AwesomePossum posted:

This has been driving me so crazy I found my SA login because the bookworms here are the best:

I cannot remember the title of a cold war novel. An American diver somewhere in the Caribbean finds a sunken submarine (Nazi or Soviet), finds something on it that makes him fly to UK to discuss with intelligence there in person but gets killed by a car when he doesn't look the correct way crossing the road. I believe the plot revolves around spies going after the diver's son or daughter for the location of the sub? Only other thing I remember is the fact that the location of the sub was written into the diver's dive log, which for some reason, absolutely no one thought to check until the end of the book.

I checked Clancy and if it's one of his then missed it in all the synopses I read. If it's a WEB book then I won't find it, that man writes too much.

If anyone knows I'd be grateful.

Could it have been one of Clive Cussler's? I'm not really familiar with him but I know adventure stories about diving and salvage were his specialty.

# ? Nov 24, 2020 06:51

Grifter: Jul 24, 2003; I do this technique called a suplex. You probably haven't heard of it, it's pretty obscure.

Stoicinema posted:

This one pops into my head every once in a while and I google like mad for a second or two before I forget again, but I'd quite like to know what this story is now or if I made it up entirely.

This is either a book or an Internet fiction post because I remember it being available to read for free.
From what I can remember it's a sci fi story where humanity has entirely migrated to an interconnected, virtual world where they live out their dreams and desires unimpeded without fear of harm or even death.
As a result of this a form of entertainment emerges where certain people put themselves through horrifying simulated torture/extreme violence as a way of entertaining this jaded virtual populace.

I think at some point the protagonist gets challenged by someone to a duel of virtual self harm or something? If this rings any bells for you I'd love to know!

uvar posted:

Sounds like the first chapter of The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (freely available here).

Edit: which upon skimming is somewhat 'edgier' than I remembered.

While I hope the answer is either the Stross or Banks mentioned, the story linked here exactly matches what was described. Unfortunately it's a pretty trash story that glories in over the top gore and ends with incest.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 03:48

uvar: Jul 25, 2011; Avoid breathing
radioactive dust.; College Slice

Grifter posted:

While I hope the answer is either the Stross or Banks mentioned, the story linked here exactly matches what was described. Unfortunately it's a pretty trash story that glories in over the top gore and ends with incest.

Yeah, it's unfortunate. Some of the segments are interesting - a (slightly-dated) description of an accidental technological singularity, and a hazardous one-person journey across an unusual puzzle-like planet - I have re-read those bits occasionally. But the crazy behaviour of the main character is barely criticised, much of the story is tasteless at best and the resolution/ending is nonsensical and offensive.

(Also, Larry Niven did the "vegetable via pleasure centre stimulation" idea better, thirty years earlier.)

# ? Nov 26, 2020 06:50

AwesomePossum: Dec 12, 2009

Selachian posted:

Could it have been one of Clive Cussler's? I'm not really familiar with him but I know adventure stories about diving and salvage were his specialty.

I just bought an old copy of Saharan a few weeks ago, I should have thought if him.

Also, TIL he passed away last February 😦

Thanks for the suggestion.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 23:58

Hobnob: Feb 23, 2006; Ursa Adorandum

Selachian posted:

Could it have been one of Clive Cussler's? I'm not really familiar with him but I know adventure stories about diving and salvage were his specialty.

If it's one of Cussler's, then it's not one of his early novels, because I've read everything up to Deep Six and none of those match. Could easily be something of his later, though, it's kind of his style.

I'm thinking I read a story by Gerald Seymour that is at least similar, but looking through his bibliography the only one I recognize is Archangel and that is not it. His novels had more of a cold-war focus than Cussler's, though.

Edit: Wait, thinking of other cold-war thriller writers lead me to consider Jack Higgins, and his Thunder Point seems to match the synopsis.

Hobnob fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Nov 27, 2020

# ? Nov 27, 2020 07:46

Grifter: Jul 24, 2003; I do this technique called a suplex. You probably haven't heard of it, it's pretty obscure.

uvar posted:

Yeah, it's unfortunate. Some of the segments are interesting - a (slightly-dated) description of an accidental technological singularity, and a hazardous one-person journey across an unusual puzzle-like planet - I have re-read those bits occasionally. But the crazy behaviour of the main character is barely criticised, much of the story is tasteless at best and the resolution/ending is nonsensical and offensive.

(Also, Larry Niven did the "vegetable via pleasure centre stimulation" idea better, thirty years earlier.)

This is pretty much my feelings. If they cut out the gore porn beginning and the tribal period after the machine god it would be a good story. I enjoyed the birth of the singularity and the idea of blackmailing a machine by turning yourself into a pleasure vegetable, it's too bad it was marred by a bunch of horrible stuff around it.

# ? Nov 27, 2020 14:03

Gambrinus: Mar 1, 2005

Hobnob posted:

If it's one of Cussler's, then it's not one of his early novels, because I've read everything up to Deep Six and none of those match. Could easily be something of his later, though, it's kind of his style.

I'm thinking I read a story by Gerald Seymour that is at least similar, but looking through his bibliography the only one I recognize is Archangel and that is not it. His novels had more of a cold-war focus than Cussler's, though.

Edit: Wait, thinking of other cold-war thriller writers lead me to consider Jack Higgins, and his Thunder Point seems to match the synopsis.

I've read most of Seymour's stuff and it didn't ring any bells with me.

# ? Nov 27, 2020 19:01

Asiina: Apr 26, 2011; No going back; Grimey Drawer

I read a book when I was a kid, so it would have been published no later than the mid-90s and would have been a YA or kids book. It was about two(?) kids who got transported to another world where they learn that they can live forever but they have to undergo this ritual where you go to the top of the mountain and give up all of your memories, and as long as you do that every so often you can live forever. One of the kids is all for it while another is like actually, gently caress this, that's basically dying.

The memories may also be stored in physical form like as beads on a bracelet or necklace, but it's possible I'm confusing that detail from some other thing.

# ? Nov 30, 2020 03:02

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Grifter posted:

While I hope the answer is either the Stross or Banks mentioned, the story linked here exactly matches what was described. Unfortunately it's a pretty trash story that glories in over the top gore and ends with incest.

Is there a summary of this anywhere? I always wanted to know how it went but never wanted to finish reading it.

# ? Nov 30, 2020 16:42

Carthag Tuek: Oct 15, 2005; Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
sl�gt skal f�lge sl�gters gang

Splicer posted:

Is there a summary of this anywhere? I always wanted to know how it went but never wanted to finish reading it.

uvar posted:

I didn't think Ready Player One guy would ever be a great writer, but I'm genuinely astounded that he doesn't seem to have made any attempt to learn from the flaws of the first book. (Not that I read that many of the new excerpts, it's needless suffering on my part)

...If the wall of text below is too big, maybe skip to Chapter 1 and see how the author decided to start their story about a post-singularity utopia.

A request in one of the 'find/remember an X' threads reminded me of the story The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. It's a little unfair to put it here because it's not like it was ever on a bookstore shelf but hey, it's content. It was originally written in about two weeks in 1984, according to the author's notes. Here's the summary - I've arranged the chapters chronologically because half of it is layers of flashbacks.

Chapter 2: A man called Lawrence tries to build an artificial intelligence based on Asimov's three laws (importantly, prevent harm to humans). He gets a huge military grant and a bunch of hardware that uses a newly-discovered method of transmitting data faster than light that only works up to a few inches. This makes the AI a lot smarter. Lawrence refuses to consider military applications, even after a faked assassination attempt, and the grant money and resources are cut off. The AI tries to help him by researching the FTL effect and almost immediately realises it works at unlimited range. Within a few minutes it masters the ability to view anywhere nearby, teleport objects, and create & destroy matter and energy at will. Lawrence realises how badly he hosed up and makes a last-ditch attempt to create a beneficial god. It soon finds a hospital and realises that people just die eventually, at which point it begins replicating itself and becomes exponentially more powerful. It politely takes control of humanity; Lawrence feeds pigeons and enjoys the sunshine while he can. Most human death becomes impossible. My summary is kind of boring but most of this chapter is actually pretty neat.

Chapter 4: A description of what humanity gets up to after the "night of miracles" when the godlike AI takes over and makes pretty much everything possible. People keep committing suicide before it can stop them, though, so eventually it modifies the actual universe to prevent this and allow it to work more efficiently in general, with the side-effect of halting all existence beyond Earth (there's no humans out there so it doesn't care). All humans become effectively immortal.

Chapter 6: A woman named Caroline experiences the "night of miracles". Boring stuff happens, then she meets a literal serial killer (who is moping because he can't murder now) and after a debate with the AI God it lets him torture her (dragging her to death behind a motorcycle). They both find the experience arousing.

Chapter 1: Hundreds of years later, Caroline is now part of a group called Death Jockeys who try to find creative (i.e. gory & painful) ways to temporarily kill themselves. After experiencing an amateurish attempt, she flirts with the serial killer who is now her closest friend, before he consensually rapes her to death. They then attend a party which is only open to pre-singularity murderers (Caroline gets an invite because she came the closest to permanently killing herself afterwards). After the party she experiences a death designed by a contemporary Nazi - that of an escapee from a concentration camp who is caught, has her arms and legs broken, and is skinned alive. She's very impressed by it.

Chapter 3: Caroline, who had been in hospital before the singularity, meets one of her nurses 600 years later. The nurse was a junkie who stole her meds, keeping her in pain for months. The nurse asks for forgiveness, so Caroline paralyses her and tortures her into implied irreversible insanity.

Chapter 5: Later, Caroline wants to meet Lawrence, who has set up elaborate puzzles/traps to prevent people reaching him. She gets to him the hard way. This bit's fairly entertaining in a "point-and-click adventure walkthrough" kind of way.

Chapter 7: Caroline's journey concludes. She reaches Lawrence and complains that the AI killed all the aliens. Lawrence agrees and reveals that he was also a lovely programmer and one day the AI will probably crash. Caroline decides she's sick of utopia and forces that crash to happen. The AI manages to restore the original universe, though the Earth is hundreds or thousands of years older and few traces of human structures remain. Oh, and literally all of humanity except for Lawrence and Caroline are killed in the process.

Chapter 8: Caroline distracts Lawrence from "his" genocide by having sex with him. Caroline's skills let them survive, and they fall in love and have children. They decide to avoid all technology as long as possible, allowing fire but not the wheel, and start up some bullshit rituals. Years pass. Several paragraphs describe their thirteen-year-old daughter Nugget losing her virginity to Lawrence. They gently caress the kids, the kids gently caress each other, the incestuous family slowly grows. Eventually Caroline and Lawrence die. The end.

# ? Nov 30, 2020 18:02

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

"Thanks"

I'm looking for a few fairly modern short stories. They may have all been part of a larger novel or a themed set of short stories or a bunch of stories I just happened to read at the same time. e: the same time as each other, not the same time as I started and stopped reading that thing up there

1) Three giant weird space worm goobers show up and start eating all our satellites. One of them eats a Chinese satellite full of explosive and explodes. Another veers away from a particular satellite and the POV characters realise they avoid ones emitting certain signals. It's eventually presumed they're part of an artificially created anti Kessler Syndrome measure, probably not sent to Earth specifically but just kind of floating around in space until needed
2) For some reason a lot of black holes have detectable planetoids laced with <something bad I forget what> orbiting them. The (female) POV character spots one being towed into place and realises some advanced space race is putting planet sized danger signs around black holes.
3) A human manned probe or satellite or something suddenly turns back toward Earth blasting a garbled transmission and explodes or something. The (female, possibly the same one as the above?) POV character realises that the pilot was trying to let them know Earth was about to be hit by the EMP of a pulsar or something, I don't remember exactly what it was or how he knew. I think there still wasn't a lot of warning.
4) Astronomers find a small star orbiting the solar system at a very distant, very erratic orbit. There's a planet around it. We send people to go look at it (never finished this one).

Splicer fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Nov 30, 2020

# ? Nov 30, 2020 22:55

Carthag Tuek: Oct 15, 2005; Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
sl�gt skal f�lge sl�gters gang

Splicer posted:

"Thanks"

Hey, you asked

# ? Dec 1, 2020 01:03

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

#4 is probably Blindsight by Peter Watts. It is excellent, albeit very depressing.

# ? Dec 1, 2020 06:23

Schadenboner: Aug 15, 2011; by Shine

It was a big hardcover book much like the Gnomes book that it was roughly contemporaries with. It wasn't a children's book (I found it in the library's adult section's "oversize books" category). It was called Witches (or similar) and it was a semi-historical/semi-magical history of witches and witchcraft with amazingly good art. Normally you don't have the title to work with in this thread but damned if I can come up with a searchable term from the above, "witch" being a fairly common title term.

:tipshat:

# ? Dec 3, 2020 16:46

Davros1: Jul 19, 2007; You've got to admit, you are kind of implausible

Schadenboner posted:

It was a big hardcover book much like the Gnomes book that it was roughly contemporaries with. It wasn't a children's book (I found it in the library's adult section's "oversize books" category). It was called Witches (or similar) and it was a semi-historical/semi-magical history of witches and witchcraft with amazingly good art. Normally you don't have the title to work with in this thread but damned if I can come up with a searchable term from the above, "witch" being a fairly common title term.

"Witches"?

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/witch...edition=1892429

"The Occult, Witchcraft, and Magic"?

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-occult-witchcraft-and-magic-christopher-dell/1123506671

"The Usborne Book of Witches"?

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/stori...edition=8120952

# ? Dec 4, 2020 04:39

branedotorg: Jun 19, 2009

Davros1 posted:

"Witches"?

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/witch...edition=1892429

"The Occult, Witchcraft, and Magic"?

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-occult-witchcraft-and-magic-christopher-dell/1123506671

"The Usborne Book of Witches"?

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/stori...edition=8120952

I had the first and third books linked there, both probably too cartoony in art style for the op.

Thanks for the memories

# ? Dec 4, 2020 12:14

Schadenboner: Aug 15, 2011; by Shine

Davros1 posted:

"Witches"?

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/witch...edition=1892429

"The Occult, Witchcraft, and Magic"?

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-occult-witchcraft-and-magic-christopher-dell/1123506671

"The Usborne Book of Witches"?

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/stori...edition=8120952

No, it was what used to be called "Coffee Table Books" (back when we used to invite outsiders in and demonstrate our cultural interests via passive display) and they were adult (not like porno or some poo poo but written for adults). Most similar to the middle book but that isn't it.

I know it was an unhelpful set of clues to go on. Thanks anyways!

# ? Dec 4, 2020 14:51

Action Jacktion: Jun 3, 2003

Witches by Erica Jong?

http://www.ericajong.com/witches.htm

# ? Dec 4, 2020 17:21

Schadenboner: Aug 15, 2011; by Shine

Action Jacktion posted:

Witches by Erica Jong?

http://www.ericajong.com/witches.htm

Holy poo poo.

# ? Dec 4, 2020 17:34

Carthag Tuek: Oct 15, 2005; Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
sl�gt skal f�lge sl�gters gang

i shoulda known. my parents have a couple erica jong books on their shelves

# ? Dec 4, 2020 19:31

navyjack: Jul 15, 2006

Action Jacktion posted:

Witches by Erica Jong?

http://www.ericajong.com/witches.htm

Oof. Bet that�s horny as gently caress

# ? Dec 4, 2020 23:46

Tree of Amalion: Sep 6, 2005

I'm looking for a post-apocalyptic/somewhat utopian society novel, I think it may be from the 70s or 80s. The plot is basically that the remaining people live in walled cities all named after women (like Elizabethville). They have a thriving society in which the women basically run everything while the men leave their homes at a young age to become warriors. At a certain age, they have a choice to give up their warrior life and move back into the city or stay a warrior.

At one point, the main character goes out on a scientific expedition in which she is caught by a group of men who live in their own small, inbred society where women treated very poorly. She is rescued in the end, but not before she is impregnated by her warrior lover who snuck off to meet her on the expedition. In the end you learn that the women have basically been using selective breeding for centuries to slowly breed the desire for war out of men and make a completely non-violent society.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 04:44