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Jazz Marimba posted:this sounds cool as hell and i’m saving it for later TA: rape as plot device in this one
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# ? Jun 8, 2021 13:23 |
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# ? May 10, 2024 01:02 |
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:TA: rape as plot device in this one Yeah, that was unfortunate but the rest was pretty decent.
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# ? Jun 8, 2021 18:07 |
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Beef Hardcheese posted:Watching the lovely preview for "The Tomorrow War" reminded me of this story I've been meaning to find and re-read forever. Tony Daniel wrote some trash and at least one decent Space Opera called Metaplanetary I own a copy of it and read it about 10 years back but don't remember much FWIW
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# ? Jun 9, 2021 04:54 |
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Hillary 2024 posted:I've probably mixed up my memories now but I remember reading a sci-fi book about a dude who gets conscripted into a space war as some sort of armored trooper, catch is that the humans have been enslaved by some sort of alien race which uses them as cannon fodder. It ends with the alien entity controlling his particular ship being killed in a battle and the remaining human troops on the ship mutiny and kill their officer corps who turn out to have been some sort of alien-human hybrid anyway. Then the troops decide to take the ship and head out to go colonize a planet somewhere out of the way. I can't remember what it was called or who the author might have been. Humbug Scoolbus posted:I've read that book, but the only line I remember clearly is, 'You need to make friends with your suit'. I was thinking Christopher Anvil was the author maybe? Looks like this might have been "Their Master's War" by Mick Farren.
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# ? Jun 9, 2021 06:10 |
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Trying to find a SF short from the 60s/70s that popped back into my head involving people living in a city and under heavy conditioning because the city was basically uninhabitable without it - from the outside it just looked like a furnace of light or similar.
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# ? Jun 14, 2021 07:51 |
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A short story in which one's status in the afterlife is determined by whether anyone alive remembers their name. As long as your name is remembered on Earth, you stay in some kind of limbo, but once it's finally forgotten you can "move on" (something that might not have been explained in detail). I think the story focused on one guy from ancient Sumeria who wanted to move on, but couldn't because there was a stone tablet bearing his name in a museum somewhere.
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# ? Jun 21, 2021 00:07 |
Ah yes, that one’s called “my brain”
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# ? Jun 21, 2021 00:17 |
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ScienceSeagull posted:A short story in which one's status in the afterlife is determined by whether anyone alive remembers their name. As long as your name is remembered on Earth, you stay in some kind of limbo, but once it's finally forgotten you can "move on" (something that might not have been explained in detail). I think the story focused on one guy from ancient Sumeria who wanted to move on, but couldn't because there was a stone tablet bearing his name in a museum somewhere. Poor Ea-Nasir.
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# ? Jun 21, 2021 00:23 |
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Hey, if he didn't wanna be famous maybe he shouldn't have been selling poo poo copper for premium prices.
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# ? Jun 21, 2021 00:49 |
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Lemniscate Blue posted:Poor Ea-Nasir. Haha, I don't think the ancient guy was named in the story, but I was definitely reminded of that when I remembered it.
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# ? Jun 21, 2021 02:08 |
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A Russian sci-fi novel. Five cosmonauts are on their way back to Earth, after visiting a planet with humanoid aliens who never made it out of the middle ages. As in they live in primitive, egalitarian farming communities. The cosmonauts find their space ship to be utterly claustrophobic, and start having hallucinations. They start accusing each others of being impersonators, and set traps for each other, trying to expose each other as not real humans.
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# ? Jun 21, 2021 11:05 |
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ScienceSeagull posted:A short story in which one's status in the afterlife is determined by whether anyone alive remembers their name. As long as your name is remembered on Earth, you stay in some kind of limbo, but once it's finally forgotten you can "move on" (something that might not have been explained in detail). I think the story focused on one guy from ancient Sumeria who wanted to move on, but couldn't because there was a stone tablet bearing his name in a museum somewhere. I don't really know the author for certain, but this sounds like something Jorge Luis Borges could've written
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# ? Jun 21, 2021 13:13 |
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Pretty sure that one is Hard to Be a God by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. There was a film version a few years ago that I heard was excellent, but I haven't seen it. Edited to add that I am talking about the book BattyKiara is looking for. BrownPepper fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Jun 22, 2021 |
# ? Jun 21, 2021 20:00 |
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I found my story! It happens to be featured as a preview on the author's site: https://eagleman.com/excerpt/
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# ? Jun 21, 2021 22:31 |
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happyhippy posted:Scifi book I once read at random in the 90s from local library. Very good book, Alien Influences by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
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# ? Jun 27, 2021 13:25 |
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Trying to remember a book I read a few years back. I think the main character is a professor. He gets on a plane to go to some conference and falls asleep, there's some issue and the plane has to make an emergency landing in a fictional country he can't identify and where he doesn't speak the language. Eventually he just goes on living and integrates with society. Does that ring any bells? It was on the shorter side, definitely big-L Literature. I'm almost positive it's not originally an English-language book.
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# ? Jul 2, 2021 15:43 |
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Skrill.exe posted:Trying to remember a book I read a few years back. I think the main character is a professor. He gets on a plane to go to some conference and falls asleep, there's some issue and the plane has to make an emergency landing in a fictional country he can't identify and where he doesn't speak the language. Eventually he just goes on living and integrates with society. Does that ring any bells? It was on the shorter side, definitely big-L Literature. I'm almost positive it's not originally an English-language book. I want to read that, but I have no idea what it is. Maybe try searching through https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_countries, like ctrl/cmd-f for "novel" (42 hits), etc
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# ? Jul 2, 2021 15:59 |
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Skrill.exe posted:Trying to remember a book I read a few years back. I think the main character is a professor. He gets on a plane to go to some conference and falls asleep, there's some issue and the plane has to make an emergency landing in a fictional country he can't identify and where he doesn't speak the language. Eventually he just goes on living and integrates with society. Does that ring any bells? It was on the shorter side, definitely big-L Literature. I'm almost positive it's not originally an English-language book. E: or Murakami
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# ? Jul 2, 2021 19:31 |
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whoever wrote it definitely read saramago and borges
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# ? Jul 2, 2021 19:47 |
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Sadly it wasn't listed on that wiki page (I don't believe the country was ever named) and I'm sure it's not Murakami or Saramago. Really been vexing me. Found it: Metropole by Ferenc Karinthy Skrill.exe fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Jul 2, 2021 |
# ? Jul 2, 2021 22:28 |
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I wrote this up for the white whale thread, so I thought I'd cross post here. The book that I'm looking for is one I read in the late 90s/early 00s, also a collection of scary short stories. I remember it looking kind of cheap - the cover was a brightly-colored illustration, not the kind I see on most of the ones I'm looking at that are dark and gothic. I don't think it had any notable names attached (i.e. Bruce Coville). I think it had 7-10 stories in it. The ones I remember are: - The scariest one, that kept me up that night. Two siblings buy some kind of silly-putty type stuff, with a packet of directions. They read the directions backwards for some reason, and the goo expands to fill up their whole house. I remember the ending was their parents coming home from a date night and the main character tries to warn them, but can't (maybe the goo has turned out the lights?) - A character travels to the Amazon for some reason (her older brother is maybe involved?). She falls into a river with piranha, and thinks she'll be okay because they only attack when they smell blood. Then the ending is her remembering a tiny cut she got earlier that day. - A third story I barely remember, something about a summer camp where one camper has to do something (cross a long bridge? climb up a hill?). The gist of the story was that the counselors are essentially sacrificing a camper for some reason, and the main character realizes this and then gets got by whatever they're sacrificing her to. I feel like this bridge or hill or whatever might be what's on the cover.
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# ? Jul 4, 2021 03:07 |
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Numbuh 212 posted:- The scariest one, that kept me up that night. Two siblings buy some kind of silly-putty type stuff, with a packet of directions. They read the directions backwards for some reason, and the goo expands to fill up their whole house. I remember the ending was their parents coming home from a date night and the main character tries to warn them, but can't (maybe the goo has turned out the lights?) this sounds familiar and i’m p sure i lost sleep over it too
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# ? Jul 4, 2021 20:25 |
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Numbuh 212 posted:I wrote this up for the white whale thread, so I thought I'd cross post here. Man, I don't think it's the same book I'm remembering, but I remember those stories too. I'm trying without success to find yet another of those children's short horror story collections that I remember from the mid-90s. The two stories I remember are: 1) A girl and her cousins get stranded on a spooky island that turns out to be full of water dwelling zombies. She escapes, her cousins don't, but the story ends with her zombified cousins dragging her into the water. I'm pretty sure "It's a nice night for a swim" is the last line in the story, and I think I remember it being the first story in the book. e: I think her name was Amanda or maybe Alisha? 2) A boy that I'm 98% sure was named Robbie who has a scar on his chest goes to live with his uncle and cousin, they're really weird, it turns out the cousin is a robot and--surprise!--it ends with Robbie discovering that the scar is an access panel and he is also a robot. There was also a story I'm 90% sure was in the same book about a couple kids buying a video game that turns out to be a portal to hell and so forth, but that's such a cliche it was probably in every 90s collection of horror stories.
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# ? Jul 5, 2021 17:16 |
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Eric the Mauve posted:Man, I don't think it's the same book I'm remembering, but I remember those stories too. I can't remember the name of it, but #2 I've definitely read! Whoa, blast from the past. One picture in it had the main kid opening a door to see his robot cousin either apart, or working on himself or something.
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# ? Jul 5, 2021 17:41 |
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Some of those sound a bit like David Lubar's Weenies series? The piranha and secret robot ones both feel sort of familiar to me and I've read a lot of those stories.
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# ? Jul 5, 2021 17:42 |
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Ok, it might be Scary Stories for Sleepovers? There were a bunch of them. It's gotta be in there. I had a few, and I'm sure that the robot story is in there. Might be in "More..." because I remember that skeleton face on the cover. Edit: I think it's "What's the Matter with Marvin?" And reading through the titles, I'm pretty sure that "The Lesson" ended with the main character literally being eaten by whatever the monster of the story was. Rupert Buttermilk fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Jul 5, 2021 |
# ? Jul 5, 2021 17:45 |
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drat, you got it in one. So much memories Thanks my man!
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# ? Jul 5, 2021 21:04 |
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Eric the Mauve posted:drat, you got it in one. So much memories Thanks my man! Thank YOU for posting about it. This is just as much of a find for me as well. I just didn't remember enough to ask about it
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# ? Jul 5, 2021 21:07 |
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So, in the early 2000's I read a children's book series (I guess it would be middlegrade or perhaps young adult these days) where each book was a completely different spooky story. From memory, I don't imagine they were too old when I read them, though I might be mistaken. One of the books was about a kid and his male parental figure in a dystopian regime and at the end they escape through a portal into what turns out to be our New York. Another had a teenage girl whose friend died by falling through ice while playing hokey. She starts having visions(?) about the event and realizes that a mutual friend let the dead friend die. She uses the visions to alter the past and save her friend, then in the new present the villain's grandmother accidentally runs over the villain and cripples her (it's ironic because in Timeline A the grandmother is too scared to drive, but not in Timeline B). Sorry if that's all a bit vague but does anyone have any ideas regarding what series I'm talking about?
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# ? Jul 6, 2021 00:57 |
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Rupert Buttermilk posted:Ok, it might be Scary Stories for Sleepovers? There were a bunch of them. It's gotta be in there. I had a few, and I'm sure that the robot story is in there. Might be in "More..." because I remember that skeleton face on the cover. Oh my god, the cover of the book in that link just like blasted me back to 1995. Holy poo poo. I totally remember that robot one too.
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# ? Jul 6, 2021 12:10 |
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A Proper Uppercut posted:Oh my god, the cover of the book in that link just like blasted me back to 1995. Holy poo poo. Seriously. "Hmm, did I read these? I read a lot of kid horror, but the titles and plots don't sound familiar -- OH gently caress, THAT ZOMBIE COVER, HOLY HELL"
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# ? Jul 7, 2021 03:32 |
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So how do I go about reading these online? I only really want like 2 stories. Edit: holy poo poo, openlibrary.org is letting me digitally borrow it! I'm only doing it for an hour, in case that prevents anyone else from trying that. Edit: Jesus christ, this loving uncle creates sentient life and then just fucks with it. Rupert Buttermilk fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Jul 7, 2021 |
# ? Jul 7, 2021 05:18 |
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Rupert Buttermilk posted:So how do I go about reading these online? I only really want like 2 stories. I remember picture too. This is blowing my mind.
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# ? Jul 7, 2021 11:39 |
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Update on the "boy turns into a petrol pump" saga. Truths have been revealed! Posters in this very thread are implicated as CIA psyop agents spreading disinformation about a book that never existed! http://www.thecourieronline.co.uk/petrol-stein-or-the-modern-polybius-the-strange-world-of-internet-book-searching quote:On a SomethingAwful page entitled 'The identify that story/book thread', user Dell_Zincht posted a similar request on 31 May 2020. On 31 July 2020, an r/whatsthatbook user (who has since deleted their account, but based on this post in r/Teachers may be u/Paint_Her), made yet another post looking for the book, with a similar description. More users claimed to have read it but didn't remember much. Someone even claimed to have seen a film trailer with a similar plot and a famous actor.
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# ? Jul 8, 2021 19:10 |
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wizzardstaff posted:Update on the "boy turns into a petrol pump" saga. Truths have been revealed! Posters in this very thread are implicated as CIA psyop agents spreading disinformation about a book that never existed! We've still got it!
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# ? Jul 8, 2021 19:15 |
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I appreciate the fact that Whang (who I only heard of because of this very thread and whose content I've now since seen completely) respects and appreciates SA. He should really cover this story.
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# ? Jul 8, 2021 21:39 |
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While drunk, I suddenly had a flashback to a book that I remembered reading in elementary school probably around 3rd grade, which would be circa 2005 for me (I really hope this doesn't make anybody feel too old in this thread but that's also about the same age a friend introduced me to Something Awful). Basically all I remember about it is that it was targeted to my age group, relatively contemporary, and had a plot strikingly similar to Sword Art Online where it involved going into a VR world where if you died, you died IRL. Possibly, it involved a high fantasy theme (I was really into swords and other medieval stuff because of Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda) and may have been published by Scholastic, because I remember a lot of my elementary school library's books being published by them (or maybe I just remember all the books I got in their book fairs ). It could have also been connected to a larger but otherwise unrelated between the titles series like Goosebumps, except I'm close to 99.9% sure it wasn't Goosebumps. Otherwise, I don't remember much else except really liking the concept to the point where in the 4th grade I accidentally rented it again because I'd forgotten I'd read it the previous year until I'd read the first few chapters once more.
demostars fucked around with this message at 09:13 on Jul 11, 2021 |
# ? Jul 11, 2021 08:58 |
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demostars posted:While drunk, I suddenly had a flashback to a book that I remembered reading in elementary school probably around 3rd grade, which would be circa 2005 for me (I really hope this doesn't make anybody feel too old in this thread but that's also about the same age a friend introduced me to Something Awful). Basically all I remember about it is that it was targeted to my age group, relatively contemporary, and had a plot strikingly similar to Sword Art Online where it involved going into a VR world where if you died, you died IRL. Possibly, it involved a high fantasy theme (I was really into swords and other medieval stuff because of Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda) and may have been published by Scholastic, because I remember a lot of my elementary school library's books being published by them (or maybe I just remember all the books I got in their book fairs ). It could have also been connected to a larger but otherwise unrelated between the titles series like Goosebumps, except I'm close to 99.9% sure it wasn't Goosebumps. Otherwise, I don't remember much else except really liking the concept to the point where in the 4th grade I accidentally rented it again because I'd forgotten I'd read it the previous year until I'd read the first few chapters once more. Complete stab in the dark, but maybe Epic by Conor Kostick?
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# ? Jul 11, 2021 10:40 |
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wheatpuppy posted:Complete stab in the dark, but maybe Epic by Conor Kostick? Hmm, checked out the Wiki page and read the plot synopsis and this doesn't look like it's it I'm hungover now and still vague on details but I'm positive that if it was the AMAB protagonist choosing a female avatar would have definitely jogged my memory for uhh, reasons. The book also seems like it would have been a little long for my age; I'm pretty sure the books I was reading then were barely pushing 150 pages, let alone 300. Thanks for the stab, though, cause this looks like a book I would have read maybe closer to 6th or 7th grade. E: A book called User Unfriendly by Vivian Vande Velde sounds pretty close to what I remember about the plot and series structure (it had sequels that were loosely connected), but was published in 1990 and is 400 pages long. Granted, again, could be wrong about the book being a recent publish and that I just thought it was because the subject matter seemed contemporary to young me, but 400 pages seems like an even bigger ask for my attention span. Someone let me know if Scholastic ripped it off I guess! E2: Ok, an Amazon review mentioned that their copy was only 244 pages so maybe the 400 thing is just because a newer edition has larger print? That moves it from "probably not it" to "better find it at a library and read it to make sure it isn't" territory. demostars fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Jul 11, 2021 |
# ? Jul 11, 2021 17:09 |
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# ? May 10, 2024 01:02 |
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demostars posted:reading in elementary school probably around 3rd grade, which would be circa 2005 for me what in the gently caress
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# ? Jul 11, 2021 19:25 |