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I'm stumped on a series that has, I think, 2 books and a novella, if not 3 books and a novella. The protag is amnesic, he has gray or white hair that gets blacker as he gets more of his memory back, has a biblical name like Solomon. The first book may have involved a mine. I remember it was a small town and the mayor I think was the bad guy and had some sort of hidden treasure room in his house. The 3rd? book had some sort of Jewish sewing thread code on the inside of a suit jacket and he went to some place like a concentration camp to do something or other. Turns out there's a LOT of characters named Solomon so finding it has been rough. I thought I asked about it before but I guess it was a previous thread, but I can't find it.
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Jul 18, 2023 02:18
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I read a book in the early 2000s where the central plot was about a group of terrorists who are... angry at TV, I guess? who take a bunch of people hostage and say they'll execute them live on TV unless everyone tunes away or turns off their TVs, because they were monitoring the ratings for the broadcast. But people don't tune away and a bunch of people get killed and everyone who survives blames and sues each other. The same author wrote a bunch of other books that always ended really depressingly, the only other thing I really remember is that in another one (or a subplot of the same one, possibly) a cop that infiltrated an ecoterrorist group was found out because he kept repeating a bunch of 'the earth is dying' talking points, but the actual ecoterrorist community apparently had an unofficial policy where they don't bother talking about that stuff because they're all already on the same page and it's just a pointless circlejerk.
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Jul 20, 2023 17:19
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Tehan posted:another one (or a subplot of the same one, possibly) a cop that infiltrated an ecoterrorist group was found out because he kept repeating a bunch of 'the earth is dying' talking points, but the actual ecoterrorist community apparently had an unofficial policy where they don't bother talking about that stuff because they're all already on the same page and it's just a pointless circlejerk. Maybe This Other Eden by Ben Elton? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Other_Eden_(Elton_novel)
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Jul 20, 2023 21:59
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Tehan posted:I read a book in the early 2000s where the central plot was about a group of terrorists who are... angry at TV, I guess? who take a bunch of people hostage and say they'll execute them live on TV unless everyone tunes away or turns off their TVs, because they were monitoring the ratings for the broadcast. But people don't tune away and a bunch of people get killed and everyone who survives blames and sues each other. The same author wrote a bunch of other books that always ended really depressingly, the only other thing I really remember is that in another one (or a subplot of the same one, possibly) a cop that infiltrated an ecoterrorist group was found out because he kept repeating a bunch of 'the earth is dying' talking points, but the actual ecoterrorist community apparently had an unofficial policy where they don't bother talking about that stuff because they're all already on the same page and it's just a pointless circlejerk. Sounds kinda like Norman Spinrad's Pictures at 11.
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Jul 20, 2023 22:02
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Tehan posted:I read a book in the early 2000s where the central plot was about a group of terrorists who are... angry at TV, I guess? who take a bunch of people hostage and say they'll execute them live on TV unless everyone tunes away or turns off their TVs, because they were monitoring the ratings for the broadcast. But people don't tune away and a bunch of people get killed and everyone who survives blames and sues each other. The same author wrote a bunch of other books that always ended really depressingly, the only other thing I really remember is that in another one (or a subplot of the same one, possibly) a cop that infiltrated an ecoterrorist group was found out because he kept repeating a bunch of 'the earth is dying' talking points, but the actual ecoterrorist community apparently had an unofficial policy where they don't bother talking about that stuff because they're all already on the same page and it's just a pointless circlejerk. The first one sounds like "Popcorn" by Ben Elton
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Jul 21, 2023 08:19
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A Maze of Clouds posted:Maybe This Other Eden by Ben Elton? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Other_Eden_(Elton_novel) Davros1 posted:The first one sounds like "Popcorn" by Ben Elton This is definitely them, I recognize the cover art style. Thanks.
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Jul 21, 2023 08:27
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Trying to remember this picture book I read as a kid, where all the images were photos of peoples' hands with various patterned gloves on them to represent various animals. I think the plot was about a dog/bird(?) who finds a flower and tries to protect it from all the other animals who approach, until finally a man appears (represented by an ungloved hand) and simply plucks the flower. I don't remember how it ended, but I feel there had to be some moral besides "wow humans suck." I also remember the final pages having several tips on how to tell the story at home and how to do the various hand animal figures.
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Jul 24, 2023 09:09
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A sci-fi book I read 10+ years ago, didn't leave enough impression on me to remember the title and author, but there's a particular scene that has stuck with me. If I recall correctly, the basic set-up has people from a very pastoral life escaping what turns out to be some kind of containment habitation where their ancestors had wanted to escape The Future and all the everything of interplanetary society. Anyway, the scene that actually stuck with me is this bit from the perspective of someone living in that technological society the main characters were hidden away from, where some young woman is working on her art (sculpture, I think) and some rear end in a top hat decides to give her an existential crisis. He has the public network pull up images of other people doing art as well - and then gets progressively more specific, narrowing down the criteria to sound more and more like her, starting with like her medium and the material and style and color of the art she's doing, then narrowing it down further based on her own appearance, gender and skin tone and hair and so on. And because the whole solar system has been settled with all kinds of habitats and everything is really densely populated everywhere, there's so many people that he still has this tessellating pattern of similar-looking women making similar-looking art on a screen the size of a wall, and he's telling her how she's not unique, not even rare, yelling at her that she's "wallpaper." Which is not necessarily much to go on, but it's a bit that's kind of haunted me despite nearly the entirety of the rest of the book falling away from my memory.
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Aug 1, 2023 21:08
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Yeah gently caress that scene stuck with me too! I want to say one of Karl Schroeder's books like Ventus or Lady of Mazes?
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Aug 1, 2023 21:13
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Dang, I think that might be it. Looking Schroeder up, and Lady of Mazes sounds familiar enough to feel right. The book seems to have disappeared from the library where I checked it out, at least according to their online catalog. But also I'm pretty sure it was a paperback and the SF/F paperbacks always seemed to get beat to hell fast from high circulation. Thanks!
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Aug 1, 2023 23:15
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disposablewords posted:Dang, I think that might be it. Looking Schroeder up, and Lady of Mazes sounds familiar enough to feel right. The book seems to have disappeared from the library where I checked it out, at least according to their online catalog. But also I'm pretty sure it was a paperback and the SF/F paperbacks always seemed to get beat to hell fast from high circulation. Here is a snippet from Lady of Mazes, in case that helps you to confirm: quote:“You're wallpaper, Ishani. You can't have a thought that a million other people aren't having, you can't do anything that a million other people aren't also doing. It doesn't matter what you say or whether you live or die [...]
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Aug 1, 2023 23:39
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Schroeder seems to have anticipated the Deviantart comments interface.
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Aug 2, 2023 19:09
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wheatpuppy posted:Here is a snippet from Lady of Mazes, in case that helps you to confirm: Yeah, it's very much this, thanks for the additional quote. gently caress, that moment was simultaneously freeing but terrifying on my wanna-be-a-creator mind at the time.
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Aug 2, 2023 19:18
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Help me with this one, goons: Sometime around 1995 I read a kids' series, 3 or 4 books, with a spooky/occult theme. The protagonists were a couple of kids, who I think had an aunt or uncle that was a witch. The first book involved a haunted (?) house and I think a sundial that was a secret passage or portal to another world. Another book involved a magic amulet that gave a kid magic powers but slowly got him possessed by a demon. Definitely wasn't Goosbumps or Scary Stories or anything popular like that. I took these out of a public library, probably around Halloween.
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Aug 4, 2023 19:56
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Omnomnomnivore posted:Help me with this one, goons: Sometime around 1995 I read a kids' series, 3 or 4 books, with a spooky/occult theme. The protagonists were a couple of kids, who I think had an aunt or uncle that was a witch. The first book involved a haunted (?) house and I think a sundial that was a secret passage or portal to another world. Another book involved a magic amulet that gave a kid magic powers but slowly got him possessed by a demon. Definitely wasn't Goosbumps or Scary Stories or anything popular like that. I took these out of a public library, probably around Halloween. Maybe something by John Bellairs?
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Aug 4, 2023 20:04
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wheatpuppy posted:Maybe something by John Bellairs? Yeah this is it, the Lewis Barnavelt books! They even had Edward Gorey illustrations, huh. Over 30 years my brain turned The House with a Clock in its Walls into a sundial  . Thanks! Turns out there was even a movie with Jack Black as the magic uncle a few years ago.
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Aug 4, 2023 20:28
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Some books 20-30 years ago, I think it might have been a short series? Some kids go to a magical world or the past or something via a stone circle.They pick up some magical items like a spear and a goblet and stuff, and take them back to our world where they end up disguised as a railing and an old cup etc. I think maybe the stone circle was evil?
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Aug 4, 2023 20:32
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Omnomnomnivore posted:Yeah this is it, the Lewis Barnavelt books! They even had Edward Gorey illustrations, huh. Over 30 years my brain turned The House with a Clock in its Walls into a sundial One of the later books has a giant sundial, so you might have just been conflating them.
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Aug 4, 2023 20:47
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Qwertycoatl posted:Some books 20-30 years ago, I think it might have been a short series? The stone circle and time travel immediately made me thing of this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_the_Stones Turns out a novelization was released. I can't remember if it had items like you describe though.
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Aug 4, 2023 20:49
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Ah found it, it was Elidor by Alan Garner (or maybe I was conflating two unrelated books, maybe the stone circle stuff was something else)
Qwertycoatl fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Aug 4, 2023 |
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Aug 4, 2023 21:00
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Qwertycoatl posted:Ah found it, it was Elidor by Alan Garner (or maybe I was conflating two unrelated books, maybe the stone circle stuff was something else) Nah, there's an evil stone circle in Elidor too.
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Aug 4, 2023 22:39
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Right, time to try mine again! I read this in the UK in the early to late 90s. Almost certain it's a standalone book but it could have been part of a collection of scary stories. British Children's/YA book about a family that moves into a farmhouse which is haunted by the Victorian ghosts of children who lived there and died in tragic circumstances. One of the children broke his neck falling off his horse. The children in the present (a girl and a boy) end up communicating with the ghosts via a computerised chess game. Earlier in the story they try to scare the ghosts away by dressing up as ghosts themselves, but the boy stands on some Lego and cries out in pain, giving them away. I honestly can't remember what the point of the story was, I think the ghost children were unable to pass on into the spirit world or something. This has been bugging me for years.
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Aug 7, 2023 16:20
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GD_American posted:OK, got one for y'all. finally realised why this triggered something in me, it is pretty similar to the setup of 'the collapsium' the first book of the queendom of sol books by Will Mcarthy. utter red herring for you though, sorry
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Aug 9, 2023 02:15
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I have two more I'm trying to find, which I remember looking up and finding the names of years ago but then re-forgot and I can't find them anymore. Should have bookmarked them! The first one is a juvenile or young adult science fiction novel. The protagonist is a girl with orange eyes who lives on a jungle/forest hippie utopia planet. There's a colonization or military ship heading to the planet from Earth (I think?) and the protagonist makes psychic contact via dreams with a boy on the spaceship. Their connection becomes stronger as the ship approaches the planet, and they have long conversations with each other this way. Psychics are a regular (if maybe uncommon?) thing on the girl's planet and I think a major subplot involved her training her abilities. I don't remember much else about it other than that the philosophical questions brought up felt very 1970s, and that on the hippie commune planet every psychic was assigned a companion who had a mental or physical disability of some kind. The second one is a short story that I read while picking up and flipping through some sci fi/horror anthology book at the library years ago. I think it was either a Ray Bradbury story, in an anthology curated by Ray Bradbury, or otherwise connected to him in some way. It's about a boy and his grandmother in the south during the summertime, driving to a lake to escape the heat. (The heat/humidity is a major factor in the story, and I feel like the title might have something to do with it.) On the way they pick up a hitchhiker who starts to harass and antagonize them, getting riled up and asking them weird, violent questions, asking them about the true nature of evil and making allusions to the oppressive summer heat. The boy and grandma get freaked out, and eventually get him to leave. They go to the lake and swim, and try to forget about what happened. Then on the way home, they drive past a little boy in a white suit and a straw hat and pick him up (why?? not a very smart move imho) The story ends with the boy asking them the same questions as the original hitchhiker. I think there was an implication that both hitchhikers were the devil? edit: Oops, I just figured out what that second one was. It was The Burning Man, and it was by Ray Bradbury like I remembered. Owl at Home fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Aug 10, 2023 19:53
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Owl at Home posted:edit: Oops, I just figured out what that second one was. It was The Burning Man, and it was by Ray Bradbury like I remembered. The Burning Man is also a Twilight Zone episode, based on Bradbury’s story.
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Aug 10, 2023 20:35
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Owl at Home posted:I have two more I'm trying to find, which I remember looking up and finding the names of years ago but then re-forgot and I can't find them anymore. Should have bookmarked them! Holy poo poo, reading the summary on wikipedia and this is everything I liked about the plot of Jeepers Creepers. Glad that there's a version which isn't made by an absolute monster, going to have to look this one up.
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Aug 11, 2023 01:53
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GD_American posted:OK, got one for y'all. I don’t think it’s this, but I can’t help but think of E.L.V by Nick Nielsen.
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Aug 11, 2023 04:28
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The_Doctor posted:I don’t think it’s this, but I can’t help but think of E.L.V by Nick Nielsen. Sorry, should have followed up in here, I dug through all my old Amazon orders back like 10 years and found it. It was Smallworld, by Dominic Green. Free on Kindle (which is how I found it, I remember now- one hunting season I loaded up on all the free scifi they had to read.) https://www.amazon.com/Smallworld-Science-Fiction-Adventure-Comedy-ebook/dp/B004GNFMLO?ref_=ast_author_dp Also bought the sequel, Littlestar, which wraps everything up. https://www.amazon.com/Littlestar-Science-Fiction-Interstellar-Smallworld-ebook/dp/B005NB0QEG?ref_=ast_author_dp
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Aug 11, 2023 05:11
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Right then, British kids book I read in the 80s but could have been much older. I think it was called “the something/someone of somewhere” but I realise that doesn’t narrow it down by much. Two very very English children, a boy and a girl, are on holiday (maybe evacuees?) in the countryside. The girl has a necklace and a variety of bad bastards want it - I think an evil sorceress and an old guy who used to be a hero, maybe more. I think it might have had dwarves and elves and so on but that’s so generic I may be wrong. I remember a lot of tricksy business and general confusion over who the good/bad guys are. I also think it might have had a radio dramatisation because I can remember a really scary bit about being chased by spectral hounds or similar, and either I heard it somewhere or I’m much better at imagining stuff than I thought. No idea what happened at the end or at all, really.
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Aug 11, 2023 16:23
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Sanford posted:Right then, British kids book I read in the 80s but could have been much older. I think it was called “the something/someone of somewhere” but I realise that doesn’t narrow it down by much. Could it be something from the The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper? A lot of that series involves people trying to get talismans, chasing each other around trying to reclaim them, etc. The talismans were rings with a cross or x in the middle. They weren't necklaces per se but I'm almost certain one of the protagonists wore one on a chain or a string around their neck at some point.
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Aug 11, 2023 16:34
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Sanford posted:Right then, British kids book I read in the 80s but could have been much older. I think it was called “the something/someone of somewhere” but I realise that doesn’t narrow it down by much. Maybe The Weirdstone of Brisingamen? It's a bracelet in that though.
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Aug 11, 2023 17:06
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Runcible Cat posted:Maybe The Weirdstone of Brisingamen? It's a bracelet in that though. There was indeed a radio adaptation. The biggest thing I remember about it was that it included a lot of crawling through goblin caves, do you remember it having that?
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Aug 11, 2023 17:16
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Ouugh, I figured out my first one too. It was Dream-weaver by Louise Lawrence. 
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Aug 11, 2023 19:17
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Owl at Home posted:Could it be something from the The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper? A lot of that series involves people trying to get talismans, chasing each other around trying to reclaim them, etc. The talismans were rings with a cross or x in the middle. They weren't necklaces per se but I'm almost certain one of the protagonists wore one on a chain or a string around their neck at some point. It wasn’t this, but I do love The Dark is Rising. An amazing example of a series that should have been a single book; I’ve read the first one about ten times and the rest just the once and never again. How about when he gets chased by all them weasels though, eh? That was weird. “Tonight will be bad, and tomorrow beyond imagining.” All that stuff was awesome. Still remember being vaguely disappointed on my 11th birthday that I wasn’t one of the Old Ones. Runcible Cat posted:Maybe The Weirdstone of Brisingamen? It's a bracelet in that though. It was this though! The cover of the 1983 version unlocked the hidden memory cutscene and allowed me to level up. Published in 1957. it’s free on kindle so I’ll have a listen and see how weird it is. There were radio versions in 1963 and 1989 and it’s probably more likely I heard a recording of the 1963 version in about 1985. Thank you very much!
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Aug 11, 2023 22:13
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Sanford posted:It was this though! The cover of the 1983 version unlocked the hidden memory cutscene and allowed me to level up. Published in 1957. it’s free on kindle so I’ll have a listen and see how weird it is. There were radio versions in 1963 and 1989 and it’s probably more likely I heard a recording of the 1963 version in about 1985. Thank you very much! It's good stuff, so's the sequel. It gets fabulously weird in the 3rd book he finally got around to writing 50 years later after spending most of those decades despising the first 2 books and writing... well, rural psychogeography? Folk not-horror? instead. Garner's pretty hard to classify except as writing Alan Garner books.
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Aug 11, 2023 22:21
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A folktale or parable that goes something like this: A great king wanted to gain perfect knowledge of the world, but he realized he couldn't read every book in all the world's libraries, so he hired an army of scholars to read and summarize everything for him. This summary was still multiple volumes long, so he asked the scholars to summarize it, producing one book. Which was still too long to read, so he requested it to be summarized. After a few more rounds of TL;DR, the scholars presented the king with one sentence: "Life is suffering and then you die". I think I've also seen a slightly more optimistic version where the final summary is "this too shall pass." This is probably somewhere in the Aarne-Thompson index, but I'm not sure where to look.
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Aug 13, 2023 01:33
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I'm not sure, but if you want to look for yourself, all three volumes of the Index are available as PDFs from the Kalavela Society.
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Aug 13, 2023 02:03
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ScienceSeagull posted:A folktale or parable that goes something like this: It's a Persian fable popularized by Edward Fitzgerald's poem “Solomon's Seal”
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Aug 13, 2023 02:30
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Another passing memory of a long ago short sci fi story. For a change, I am pretty sure of the details here. A man is on his way to work and the police stop his bus and everyone has to get off. He says he’s on his way to work and the coppers say don’t worry, we’ll give you a note for your employer. He goes in a booth that does some truth-telling thing, and makes him reveal that he recently stole an ashtray from a department store for his wife. As punishment, the booth simulates his hands being frozen off, burned off, and finally eaten by rats. He also tells the booth that he found a wallet and kept it, and the booth tells him that is neither wrong nor illegal. When he comes out he lies on a little bed to recover, and sees that the booth next to his just has smoke coming out the top. He saw an old lady go into it, and wonders what on earth she did to deserve that.
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Aug 17, 2023 22:11
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2004-2010 I THINK it was British. A novel with a few different protagonists. The cover was white with a few different images on including a gecko/tree frog. One of the characters was some kind of FBI/government official whose partner chain smoked (literally smoked cigarette after cigarette all day). Think there was a theme about probability/likelihood of things happening. One character was (or had an item that was) a probability influencer.
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Aug 24, 2023 21:35
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