|
Ugh, please help me identify this book so it stops bugging me. The book is about a group of teens who were raised in VR by the military as a mix of commander/electronic warfare geniuses. At some point they manage to escape VR and escape the base they are held in. Stealing a submarine at some point. This becomes important as the VR implants they were given are extremely sensitive to unshielded EMF. To the point strong sources could cause extreme pain or death. Probably written in the early 2000s, maybe in the 2005-2010 range.
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2022 09:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 23:49 |
|
|
I very strongly remember reading a book like that in middle school (a little earlier than the time range you gave) but the title is escaping me. Do these points resonate with you: - Cover had three kids on it in kind of a photo collage style, with their heads pasted on pictures of people in a virtual war zone - Main protagonist was an angsty teen dude, other kids on the cover were a rebellious teen girl and a younger genius kid whose body was physically underdeveloped or weak - Protagonist was raised by a virtual parent figure who had male, female, and neutral modes of presenting - Virtual war training involved a series of tough scenarios, I remember one was having to escort civilians by pushing them around and avoiding mines or something, and they were scored on the number of casualties - When the kids escape the virtual environment, they sneak around in a locked-down city - Author’s name may have been something eastern european sounding Maybe this isn’t the same book, but if it isn’t then now that’s two requests for the thread because my interest is piqued. Edit: shoulda just started looking, because in less time than it took to type that I found my own book. Virtual War by Gloria Skurzynski. Looks like it had a few different covers with later editions but this is the one I remember: 
wizzardstaff fucked around with this message at 13:39 on Apr 11, 2022 |
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2022 13:32
|
|
|
wizzardstaff posted:I very strongly remember reading a book like that in middle school (a little earlier than the time range you gave) but the title is escaping me. Do these points resonate with you: Unfortunately Virtual War isn't it. If I'm remembering correctly, the setting was modern day Earth.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2022 17:28
|
|
|
Holy poo poo that cover
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2022 18:08
|
|
|
Carthag Tuek posted:light brigade by kameron hurley? if thats not it idgaf cause its super good v 2 Yo this was good as hell
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2022 18:26
|
|
|
Biplane posted:Yo this was good as hell 
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2022 18:39
|
|
|
Less Fat Luke posted:Holy poo poo that cover
|
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2022 20:12
|
|
|
It's a book I checked out of the library in the 90s, I would guess it wasn't new then so possibly 80s or even 70s. This book features a serial killer who really hates women. At the start he's put in some kind of institution after he kills his mother, but runs away when there's a big fire. He steals the identity of a friend he made there who died in the fire. There's a long sequence where he's found one woman he doesn't instantly want to kill because she introduces him to fellatio, but he eventually does end up killing her, burying her body, and running off with her money.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2022 04:12
|
|
|
Absurd Alhazred posted:It's a book I checked out of the library in the 90s, I would guess it wasn't new then so possibly 80s or even 70s. By Reason of Insanity, by Shane Stevens
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2022 22:17
|
|
|
Davros1 posted:By Reason of Insanity, by Shane Stevens That could be it! Thanks!
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2022 22:46
|
|
|
Absurd Alhazred posted:It's a book I checked out of the library in the 90s, I would guess it wasn't new then so possibly 80s or even 70s. Now he's got money AND he knows how to suck dick!
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2022 17:13
|
|
|
3D Megadoodoo posted:Now he's got money AND he knows how to suck dick! I don't remember if he ever thought to try dudes.
|
|
#
?
Apr 18, 2022 17:21
|
|
|
Story #1: Looking for a scifi book I read around 2000, standard full novel length. Story: Dude finds a weirdo life pod with a lady inside while escaping from a random unknown attacking spaceship. Lady has amnesia or pretends to be unaware of where she came from as multiple random warships attack human settlements... or places that were previously known human settlements. Reveal/backstory: far back in human history, the government had done a massive purge (basically the English shipping the convicts off to Australia) - shipping all undesirables on suicide one way trips out on probe ships. One made it out to the Lesser Megallanic Cloud, established a FURIOUS revenge-based star culture (perhaps finding some ancient tech etc to give them a head start). This culture then built automated attack ships to send back and WRECK the 'English' confederation as they were at the point of exodus (thus the attacks on now-abandoned systems). Another reveal as the lady realises that her culture back home must have either moved on or died out, as there are no second wave attack ships. Story #2: Short story I read back in the 90s, felt like golden age Asimov/Clarke/Silverberg style. Story: human civilisation has found no other life in the galaxy and has expanded a bit, but not overmuch: turns out the further people get from their home planet the more antsy they get, eventually going nuts and killing themselves. This is described as being akin to a rubber band stretching the further away a person gets, eventually either snapping or forcing return. Humans are exploring a stellar cloud using individuals in singleships going out as far as they can - main character of the story is 40 odd days out (longer than anyone before, etc) and spots a planet, lands, encounters a biped. Biped alien is super intelligent and manages to break down and understand the human's language (the human is chatting to their autopilot/A.I), in a single conversation understands the danger that is humanity: aggressive and potentially expansionist, restrained only by the Rubber Band. Biped shows human a statue/trinket that the AI excitedly dates to show that the civilisation has been active/stable for x million years. Reveal: dude ends up back in his ship nowhere near the planet remembering nothing, A.I. remembers nothing. Rubber band instinct has been reinforced, OH poo poo GOTTA GET HOME. Story 3: Books: multiple, I think this was probably a 60s or 70s pulp Sci Fi series (I read them in the 90s,finding a few out of order books in second hand shops etc). Story: always centred around a single captain flying a specific ship. Humans have colonised several planets but don't really have a military, instead expanding outwards in pastoral pioneer settlements. An enigmatic alien race/ship keeps attacking these settlements, doing weird experiments on humans (merging them with inanimate objects or animals, causing catastrophes) but communicating or interacting not at all. Through the books the captain encounters them and the book describes them only as THE ENEMY. There's no combat from memory, just the (transport, or ineffective weapon) ship doing delivery/repopulation runs to colonies only to find that experiments have been done and half the people were melted into walls. Background/world building: I recall one of the books establishing some human traitors were on the ship, by flashing back to the totalitarian earth before the ship launched. Some psychopaths killed leading prospect crew members to secure themselves the role of Nuclear Engineer, etc. Short story 4: Likely in a best-scifi-of-(YEAR) COLLECTION Story: young kid of some humanoid species living in the industrial era leaves home, loses his penis (the McGuffin the story is centred around regaining, not a weird sex book) . The race have a socket groin, with the male gender swapping when they sleep together (dude loses his virginity and his penis in a one-off fling, with the lady departing the encounter now a man). Kid ends up trying to detective his way back into contact with this mysterious lady to regain the bits, working on some sort of armoured merchant Marine steamship in the pursuit. Isolationist fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Apr 30, 2022 |
|
#
?
Apr 23, 2022 08:11
|
|
|
...what kid's book was it that had a planet where the "sky" was a thick layer of something like macaroni and cheese, and started about four feet up or so? I want to say it was My Teacher Was an Alien or a sequel
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2022 03:59
|
|
|
Brawnfire posted:...what kid's book was it that had a planet where the "sky" was a thick layer of something like macaroni and cheese, and started about four feet up or so? I want to say it was My Teacher Was an Alien or a sequel sounds like a Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs prequel lol
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2022 09:12
|
|
|
Isolationist posted:Story #2: There's a Larry Niven short story that gets into that, where his favorite character Louis Wu is doing a "sabattical" (iirc) which means flying away from Earth until he feels like flying home. The alien has 3 eyes. I don't remember the title, but duckduckgo tells me it's "There is a Tide". It also reminds me of the short story where humanity encounters the Kzinti (tiger aliens), something about humanity being warlike even when they don't have weapons. Carthag Tuek fucked around with this message at 09:19 on Apr 30, 2022 |
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2022 09:17
|
|
|
Carthag Tuek posted:There's a Larry Niven short story that gets into that, where his favorite character Louis Wu is doing a "sabattical" (iirc) which means flying away from Earth until he feels like flying home. The alien has 3 eyes. I don't remember the title, but duckduckgo tells me it's "There is a Tide". It also reminds me of the short story where humanity encounters the Kzinti (tiger aliens), something about humanity being warlike even when they don't have weapons. Not part of a larger established universe - the story took place entirely within the singleship/in conversation with the alien. The background of the universe had humans basically being stuck in an inimical, unpopulated universe - unable to explore due to the psychological block. Man some of the background short stories (often written by authors other than Niven) in the Known Universe were rock solid - you're talking about the.. Baxter? one where the first contact was successful only for the humans because they used the drive as a fusion torch to attack the Kzin ship I think?
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2022 11:48
|
|
|
Isolationist posted:Not part of a larger established universe - the story took place entirely within the singleship/in conversation with the alien. The background of the universe had humans basically being stuck in an inimical, unpopulated universe - unable to explore due to the psychological block. yeah to the second paragraph. a lot of those shorts are really good re the first para, its honestly not really relevant that its louis wu. it doesnt tie into any other known space stuff as i recall. just superfluous reallly, he could be anyone. its just a guy flying as far into space as he can because humans bore him or whatever, meets an alien, then flies back after learning a lesson. so idk, it still sounds like it might be it but its been a while
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2022 11:56
|
|
|
Brawnfire posted:...what kid's book was it that had a planet where the "sky" was a thick layer of something like macaroni and cheese, and started about four feet up or so? I want to say it was My Teacher Was an Alien or a sequel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliens_Ate_My_Homework Found it!
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2022 14:12
|
|
|
If your teacher was an alien, and a separate alien ate your homework.... .... could you get an extension?
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2022 14:19
|
|
|
"Alright, Mr. Proberman, here's my algebRRAAA--HEY!!!" *the teacher packs the ditto paper into his mouth and thick, green saliva sizzles out around it* "Oh my god, omg I'm so sorry but mmmmm, mmmmmm!"
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2022 14:25
|
|
|
Isolationist posted:Not part of a larger established universe - the story took place entirely within the singleship/in conversation with the alien. The background of the universe had humans basically being stuck in an inimical, unpopulated universe - unable to explore due to the psychological block. I vaguely remember this but not enough to trace it yet. It's not All The Way Back by Michael Shaara, which has humans finding empty/scorched planets all around, and eventually a group of astronauts meet up with an alien who explains that yeah all the alien races had to gang up and wipe out this incredibly nasty and savage species on all the planets they'd taken over but oopsie looks like they missed a spot astronauts die but oopsie 2 the aliens forgot to check that they could track them back and now have to worry about when the rest of the human race will show up. It's not that though, since I remember reading the psychological rubberband one and being reminded of it...
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2022 14:37
|
|
|
Carthag Tuek posted:re the first para, its honestly not really relevant that its louis wu. it doesnt tie into any other known space stuff as i recall. just superfluous reallly, he could be anyone. its just a guy flying as far into space as he can because humans bore him or whatever, meets an alien, then flies back after learning a lesson. so idk, it still sounds like it might be it but its been a while Not really the same -- there isn't any general psychological force drawing people back to earth, Wu just needs some time away from humans for a while. The alien doesn't send him back, either -- he meets the alien on the surface of a planet to negotiate ownership of the planet's tiny moon (which they both believe to be a stasis pod full of precursor technology). While they're down there the alien ship makes a play for the moon (unlike Wu, the alien wasn't traveling alone) but whoops, it's not a stasis pod but a ball of solid neutronium and the ship is destroyed. It ends with Wu and the surviving alien heading back towards human space so they can set up a life support chamber before its suit runs out of air and find a way to return it home.
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2022 14:57
|
|
|
Trying to remember the name of a short story that was about a man who was running through an idyllic 1950s neighborhood but everything was frozen in time, or ghostly, or there were no people there and just memories. I think there was also a short film made from the short story. They were running through the neighborhood, I think because they wanted to get back home or wanted to reconnect with their family, but lost them as time went on. Wish I could remember more of it, but it was years ago.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2022 07:05
|
|
|
Chill la Chill posted:Trying to remember the name of a short story that was about a man who was running through an idyllic 1950s neighborhood but everything was frozen in time, or ghostly, or there were no people there and just memories. I think there was also a short film made from the short story. They were running through the neighborhood, I think because they wanted to get back home or wanted to reconnect with their family, but lost them as time went on. Sounds a little like The Day Time Stopped Moving? But while the main premise of it being frozen in time matches, the lost family bit doesn't really fit that well.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2022 14:43
|
|
|
Chill la Chill posted:Trying to remember the name of a short story that was about a man who was running through an idyllic 1950s neighborhood but everything was frozen in time, or ghostly, or there were no people there and just memories. I think there was also a short film made from the short story. They were running through the neighborhood, I think because they wanted to get back home or wanted to reconnect with their family, but lost them as time went on. John Cheever's "The Swimmer" loosely fits this. The dude is getting home by swimming in all of the pools in infinite suburbia as if they're one long river, having drinks with people as he goes, but gothic weirdness happens and things start to become less idyllic and when he gets home his house is long abandoned. There is a film but I haven't seen it
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2022 15:33
|
|
|
Thanks a lot! It was definitely "The Swimmer" but "The Day Time Stopped Moving" sounds great and I'll give it a read too.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2022 16:39
|
|
|
Chill la Chill posted:Thanks a lot! It was definitely "The Swimmer" but "The Day Time Stopped Moving" sounds great and I'll give it a read too. 
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2022 19:42
|
|
|
I'm trying to remember the name of a children's book i read in the late 80's. No idea when it was written. A little girl gets a rat as a pet. It's specifically said to be a hooded rat. I think she named the rat Rose. She keeps it in a shoebox under her bed. Eventually her parents try to make her get rid of her pet because her grandmother is coming to live with them and they think she'll freak out about the rat. The girl hide the rat and lies to her parents about it. Eventually grandma finds the rat and it's cool because she sees that rats are pretty chill pets.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2022 10:10
|
|
|
titties posted:I'm trying to remember the name of a children's book i read in the late 80's. No idea when it was written. There are aspects of "The battle of Bubble and Squeak", but I think they were gerbils and there were two kids.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2022 11:08
|
|
|
titties posted:I'm trying to remember the name of a children's book i read in the late 80's. No idea when it was written. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6257273-kid-sister maybe? It has a hooded rat named Rosemary which is originally not liked when her great aunt was coming to visit, but then gets accepted.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2022 13:21
|
|
|
Resident Idiot posted:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6257273-kid-sister maybe? This is definitely it, thank you! No idea why my brain started itching over this book but i appreciate you finding it.
|
|
#
?
May 10, 2022 22:38
|
|
|
There's a sci-fi novel right had Reef in the title but there's a bunch of well known ones (egan, Armageddon reef etc) and the one I thought it was, Vacuum Flowers doesn't sound like the correct one: There's some kind of competition between companies and so on to engineer space plants basically, but something never works out and they die or don't spawn? Maybe it's an engineered death. But some folks find what seems to be an abandoned research facility In a rift on an asteroid that's like an undersea reef full on different plants metabolizing different materials and maybe space bugs. Perhaps a war between asteroid miners and a corporation that wants to poison the reef and stop them from being independent? The second I'm deeply embarrassed to describe this way but uhh... It was In one of the sci-fi zines probably 99/2000. The pov character is gay (unfortunately very important) and working on some project with what is basically an exploded diagram man you can zoom in on and see processes in action. I think he bemoans being unable to bear children for his partner. I believe being queer gets outlawed and all the gay people move to Brazil (?) And they get some retrovirus that makes a little pocket off their colons so they can have... butt babies. And I think it ends on a line about how gay guys do be loving. Mostly I just want to know who wrote the latter story so I can find out what the gently caress.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2022 02:37
|
|
|
Synnr posted:There's a sci-fi novel right had Reef in the title but there's a bunch of well known ones (egan, Armageddon reef etc) and the one I thought it was, Vacuum Flowers doesn't sound like the correct one: Brightness Reef by David Brin? Can't help with your butt babies I'm afraid.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2022 04:46
|
|
|
yaffle posted:Brightness Reef by David Brin? Can't help with your butt babies I'm afraid. No, it's all in the solar system. Reef is unfortunately very popular in sci-fi novels and I might be misremembering it.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2022 04:58
|
|
|
Paul J McAuley, reef, from one of the Quiet War series is my guess
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2022 10:27
|
|
|
branedotorg posted:Paul J McAuley, reef, from one of the Quiet War series is my guess Stories from the Quiet War, kindle edition about $1.50
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2022 10:29
|
|
|
Oh fabulous that does look like the story! I must have had it in a years best of sci-fi shorts and conflated it. Thank you both very much.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2022 14:09
|
|
|
I've got a vague one here; I only read the beginning, but I'm pretty sure it was about a guy named Richard, who was crippled saving the life of some rich guy, gains psychic powers. I think it was a cyberpunk/horror kind of thing? I think Richard was completely disabled, and whoever he had saved/rescued was rich enough that he set Richard up on easy street for the rest of his life. For some reason, I thought it was Necroscope, but it isn't. Leave fucked around with this message at 05:39 on May 26, 2022 |
|
#
?
May 26, 2022 05:26
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 23:49 |
|
|
Isolationist posted:
I've definitely read this, was this called something like THE PUSH and the last line was something along the lines of the protagonist absently wondering why the weird force wasn't called THE PULL?
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2022 07:09
|
|
