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I have 3 books I would love to find, maybe someone can help me? #1. Very old children's novel, I would guess around 1950, possibly older. A girl in a wartorn city hides aboard an airplane of rich people leaving the bombed out town. While in the air, the plane is forced to land in a very happy, peaceful place. Turns out this peaceful place is able to atract and interact with people who have good intentions. Sie the girl is the only one not thinking selfish thoughts, she is offered citizenship of the paradise place, and given a gold star to wear on her chest. This star is magical, and this magical force is what runs the entire city. The other passengers are very envious of her, and I think there is a young boy among them who in the end decides to be good, so he can say in "happy peaceland". The name of the happy place might hae been something like "Speero" #2. Fantasy novel I left behind at an airport sometime in the 1990s. Don't really remember much, except it was typical sword and sorcery fantasy. The hero is at some point captured by some evil woman, and badly tortured with an electric whip. #3. Sci-fi. At the age of 13 for girls, and 15 for boys, all children are taken away from their family. At the "Temple" they are subjected to all sorts of tests and sorted according to beauty, intelligence, physical strength, magic abilities etc. I think girls had 7 tests, boys had 5. After a year, they have to choose the cast they will serve in for the rest of their lives. 12 castes, all with a specific colour. But each child is only given a choice of 3-5 castes, to make sure they end up in the one where they can best serve their society. There was this one girl who was being groomed and preasured to choose the turqois caste, who were some sort of nuns. Also a boy who tries repeatedly to injure himself, so he can't be forced to enter the caste that produce food. I think some kids disappeared during training, and later it's revealed they are being used as breeding stock, and forcibly paired up with someone according to genes.
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Apr 18, 2009 15:03
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This is a book I read as a child, around 1980. 4 children get lost exploring a city, possibly London. Somehow they briefly come across a parallell world where they are asked to look after the treasure. The kids wake up and find they are each clutching a junk item like a brick, an old plank, stuff like that. Later a lot of weird stuff happens in their lives. Static electricity messing up their tv set. I seem to remember the girl finding unicorns burried in the back yard or something. The unicorns have a poem written. And one of the boys havng weird dreams about the junk being part of golden treasure. Later some two dimentional black silouettes start showing up and eventually chasing the children. I think the oldest brother acuses the others of hallucinating what is happening for a while. Does any of this ring any bells?
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May 8, 2009 11:55
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Thank you, Morlock
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May 8, 2009 20:00
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quote:BattyKiara posted: No, that's deffinately not it. The book I read was older, and set in a more futuristic society. Thanks for trying though.
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Jan 20, 2010 00:43
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A novel I read sometime in the early or mid 1990s. It's set in Persia and Arabia in the time and style of Arabian Nights. There is is a young girl with a stutter. After being assulted by her teacher she runs away. Over time she has lots of adventures, and meet people with incredible/supernatural backstories. There was a woman posing as a man made kalif and using her position to execute all her ex-lovers who wronged her in some way. There was a woman who time travelled to modern day America and met and married a black muslim who wanted to go back in time with her. I think a harp made of stone that could only be played under specific circumstances played an important part of the story. This was not a children's book by the way. The author's name was something in the way of Sally Sue, Danny Dan, something like that. A name that almost repeated itself.
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Mar 15, 2010 11:41
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This book is about 4 years old I think. It's an autobiography by a woman who grew up in a very strict christian family, possibly some weird cult. She was sent to some reform school thing on a Carribean island, this reform school was more or less a prison colony with torture like punishments for tiny ruleninfractions. There was something about her not being allowed contact with her brother. Sorry, very vague, but I just half read it at a very extreme time in my own life.
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Oct 6, 2010 13:40
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timefly posted:That sounds like Jesus Land: A Memoir by Julia Scheeres. Looks like the same, but I could have sworn it had a different title. Hm...
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Oct 7, 2010 12:16
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PureRok posted:I read this book in the late 90s. It was about two friends and they made a game of hopping fences through yards at night. I can't remember much else, except the main character's friend dies. I think it was a young-adult book. Bridge to Terabithia, maybe?
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Jan 10, 2011 20:42
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This was a book I read maybe 2 years ago. It's set in a train and have a short text on all the 250 (roughly) passengers aboard the train. Including one pidgeon. Ring any bells?
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May 24, 2011 15:59
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Engelbrecht posted:Geoff Ryman, 253. Yes! Thank you!
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May 24, 2011 17:26
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Beige posted:I remember reading a short story online and I'm quite sure somebody from SA recommended it, however, I can't find it again. I don't remember any of the storyline (there's a good start) but it's set in a virtual world where you control some kind of avatar which you can make look however you like. In the virtual world people like to meet up and have rather gruesome fights with one another. I think the protagonist is a female, older, who chooses a younger body covered in tattoos. At some point a guy turns up with his friends, dressed in a sharp suit, thinking he's the poo poo. He challenges her to a duel but he cheats and uses a weapon called a diamond filament or something similar. She gets angry saying only 'real' weapons are allowed and he replies that diamond filaments are technically feasable. That would be The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect Link here: http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/mopiidx.html
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Jun 10, 2012 01:04
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This book is from the 80s I think. A bunch of misfits band together to recreate Camelot, jousting on 3 wheeled motorbikes. The King Arthur in the group has nightmares about a bloke who has black eagles on his shield. The Merlin is a doctor who had a nervous breakdown the first week after he got his medical licence, and has face tattooes. There is a Mordred bloke who think he is destined to kill the king of the group. One of the girls is a scizophrenic who is experimenting with her medications because she misses her real feelings. Also a bloke who has religious visions and tries to purify himself to be worthy of something. I don't really remember most of the story, but it was written with point of view chapters for most of these people. I think it had a sad ending with tuns of forshadowing.
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Jun 13, 2012 12:27
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Is it OK to ask for help identifying a book my sister is looking for? "Young Adult book, she read it in the late 80s or early 90s. Set in Sydney, Australia. Involves a teenage girl using a nursery rhyme to travel back in time. Lives with a family from the Hebredees who have emigrated to Australia after the Crimean war. The family accepts her time travel story because of some family curse. At the end of the novel she has returned to the 20th century and is now an adult. She finds out that her husband's grandfather was the son in the family she lived with in the 1800s." Ring any bells for anyone?
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Nov 22, 2012 13:33
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Thanks, Hedrigall. That is probably it. 
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Nov 22, 2012 20:15
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Book for older children, posibly from the 90s. A large book about goblins. Written as a scientific work, by someone who studied goblins. It had annotations by goblins in red ink.
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Mar 14, 2013 19:15
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Action Jacktion posted:Brian Froud's The Goblins of the Labyrinth, also known as The Goblin Companion: A Field Guide to Goblins. It's actually a tie-in to the movie Labyrinth. Thank you!
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Mar 22, 2013 16:45
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This one is going to be really tricky. I was talking with a friend, and we got into the subject "books that creeped you the gently caress out!". Her contribution was a (probably) German novel from the very early 90s. The story as she remembers it: A truck carrying toxic chemical waste crashes with a train carrying nuclear waste. The accident happens inside a tiny town in Germany. The area gets horribly contaminated. Soon the entire area is quaranteened, and armed forces deployed to make sure noone escapes. Slowly the inhabitants understand that they are going to die from radiation poisoning, and that noone is going to help them. Very detailed descriptions of the sympthoms as people start geting sick and dying. The mayor tries to make some sort of bribe/deal so his family can get contamination suits. A heavily pregnant woman is taken away to have a forced c-section. Her last words while being strapped down to an operating table is "Please! Let my baby grow up!" Ends with the surviving villagers trying to force their way through a barricade and the order being given to shoot to kill. Does anyone know this novel that gave my friend nightmares?
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May 19, 2013 18:16
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Science fiction novel. The language was sort of 1950/60ish. A father is concerned that his 10 year old suddenly starts having imaginary friends. The son starts asking weird questions abou the Earth, claiming his invisible friend needs to know these facts. In the end we fnd out the imaginary mates are really aliens interogating the boy to prepare for an invasion and colonisation of Earth.
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May 18, 2014 19:56
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Runcible Cat posted:Or Chocky by John Wyndham. Thank you, that's it.
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May 18, 2014 22:58
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Short story from the 1980s I think. Set in a future where everyone has ear implants that force them to listen to advertising whenever they buy or use products. The lead character is a stay at home mum who keeps asking her children to choose cereal boxes and jams with the least annoying jingle. She specifically hates a cereal box which has marching soldiers and drums, because it gives her a spitting head ache. A granny lad a kind of anti advert revolution when she figures out how to disable the advertchip. I think she ends up in jail, and at the end there is something about music.
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Dec 29, 2014 22:13
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regulargonzalez posted:Some of the details are off but it sounds a lot like Harrison Bergeron Sorry, absolutely not it. It was written in a very different style than anything by Vonnegut. But thanks for trying.
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Jan 9, 2015 11:36
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DeimosRising posted:My wife is trying to remember the name of a novel that she got in the school library as a kid. She says she felt at the time that if the school had read it then it probably wouldn't have been there, so it may not be a YA novel. It's set in ancient Egypt, and the story opens with the main character at a party or banquet preparing to do some important, decisive thing. An old man, possibly carrying a scroll, approaches and tell him not to do the important thing. He shoves the old man aside and goes through with it, it leads to his eventual downfall, and so forth. In the end when he dies he begs the gods (there may be a heart weighing sequence) for the chance to go back and warn himself, and they grant his wish and send him back as the old man, to be ignored by his younger self. She also remembers the main character marrying a woman with a name that might have sounded something like "Ssu-bassu". Sounds like Scroll of Saqqara by Pauline Gedge
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May 31, 2015 11:52
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This one is going to be difficult. I'm looking for a short story I read online, many years ago. A blind woman gets a phonecall from her sister. The sister is a single mum and has up until a few months ago homeschooled her son. Convinced her son is a genius she has named him something super pretentious like Ludwig Amadeus Hamlet, and only taught him things like classical music, ancient Greek works of literature, Shakespeare etc. The child has never had any kind of social interaction with other children. But a few months ago a social worker came around and made it clear that either this boy starts school, or else he will be placed in care. At school the boy is completely confused, and unable to understand much of what is going on. When asked if he has a PlayStation he answers something like "I like lots of plays" and starts spouting lines from Greek classics. But gradually he makes friends and starts having normal interests, prefering to play football after school instead of listening to opera with his mum. Mum gets very upset over these changes. Finally mum has a breakdown, calling her blind sister, ranting about how it only took school a few months to turn a genious into a monkey, and now she doesn't know what to do, she can no longer control this monkey and she wants her son back. The blind aunt arrives at her sister's house. She finds the door unlocked. In the hall she finds a phone message confirming a purchase of a single plane ticket to Brazil or some other far away country. She also finds that there are no traces of her nephew, not even a single piece of child size clothing. What should have been the nephew's room is empty. However, there is a small monkey running wild in the living room.
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Dec 19, 2015 20:03
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Shark talk has made me half remember a story. A depressed nobleman is walking along some cliffs. He sees a ship getting wrecked. Then a huge shark attacks the sailers. The nobleman is so impressed with the bloodthirst and rage of the shark he kind of falls in love with the sea monster. In the end he throws himself to the shark, hoping to have some kind of extacy when he is eaten. Pretty sure it was written in the 1800s, and it may have had "Count of..." in the title.
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Feb 25, 2016 12:47
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Runcible Cat posted:Les Chants de Maldoror. Thank you!
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Feb 25, 2016 13:42
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YA novel from the 1970s. Ants have become sentient. Anthills are moving around attacking people. Gross, detailed scenes of people being gobbled up by anthills and melted by acidic ant spittle. Lots of thinly veiled messages about how artificial fertilizers and pesticides are bad, and how humans are doomed now that women can choose to use birth control without needing permission from their husbands. I think the book was set to The Netherlands, but the main characters were Swedish teenagers on holiday? Or something similar. Could have been Dutch people in Denmark. Absolutely had a 19 year old hero described as having "thick, wavy, angelic blond hair" he hoped he would pass on to his future children. Cheesy '70s style cover and artwork in psychedelic colours. I need the title for the terrible book thread in PYF BattyKiara fucked around with this message at 12:17 on Sep 19, 2016 |
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Sep 19, 2016 12:13
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Sort of political thriller I read around 2005. Set at the end of the cold war. As the Soviet Union collapses and splits into several nations, the same thing happens to USA. As in The union dissolves, and several new, smaller nations emerge. Some of them successful, others...not so much. I think the north west states was a dictatorship with a batshit insane dictator. There was also a war between two southern nations, mostly over where the borders extended into the gulf of Mexico. Ring any bells?
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Feb 24, 2018 15:14
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Short story about teleporting. When they first test the teleporter on a soldier, for a split second it looks like there are two of him. This is dismissed. But they try again, lots of times in a row, and indeed, the original stays for a tiny amount of time before disappearing, but after the new one arrived. They are teleporting this bloke back and forth in a large gym or something. They keep testing, and soon the original stays for a few seconds. In fact, he stays for something like 0.02 seconds longer with each teleport. They keep testing, always with the same soldier. Trying to figure out why this double twin thing happens. One day the soldier disappears during the transport. The original, who now stays for a few minutes is grinning. A few days later there is a collect call. "Hi, I got bored just going back and forth inside the gym, so I decided to go to Paris." Turns out the soldier has been teleported so many times he can now do it at will, so he is using his new power to take holidays all over the world. Also, since the originals stay for longer and longer, they are now able to teleport at will as well. So he is creating more and more versions of himself, and each new version makes new ones etc. Then end result is massive overpopulation. The Pope specifically make a ruling saying this soldier has no soul, it is every good Catholic's duty to kill him on sight. Abortion is still a sin, but killing this specific person is good. The KKK teams up with a Black Identity group to go Clone hunting. After less than six months there are now more of this person than all other people on Earth put together. There are versions of him fighting on both Israeli and Palestinian sides in the Middle East. Ends with the soldier as a newsreader, reading a bulletin about the last non-Clone dying in Bulgaria.
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Nov 14, 2018 21:04
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Novel I read in the early 1990s. Set in Spain, in the Franco era. A rich man is approached by an elderly man, who asks to be his slave. Not in a kinky way, he literally wants to be a house slave, in the style of ancient Rome. The rich man agrees, thinking it is half a joke, half elderly man needing a job and a place to live. But the old man is serious. He insists on wearing a kind of bracelet or collar in the style of prison manacles. Claiming that as a slave owned by a powerful man he is safer and better off than as a free, but poor and powerless man. At a supper party for military men he silently serves food kneeling at each seat while serving. The rich man is utterly mortified and tries to get out of the whole slave thing. But the old man insists that no, he is a slave owner now, with the responsibilities that come with his station. The son of the house is worried that his father is going to Hell for owning a slave. Ends with the slave and owner going to a church, step up to the altar, where the slave finally agrees to having his slave manacles removed. With a priest as a witness. They then kneel to receive communion, and the priest is crying when giving them the bread.
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Jan 10, 2019 12:45
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Trying to find an absolutely terrible fantasy novel I read back in the 1990s. This is so bad it boggles the mind, no one should ever read this thing. I want the title so I can warn people to NOT read it level bad. In a fantasy medieval society, that is really the last remnant of humans descending from those few who survived The Great Calamity! (Or Catastrophe! or similar) people of every colour live in absolute perfect harmony. They have totally fixed racism, OK? No, really, and it was so simple! How did they do it? Well...Every 9 months or so, there is a ceremony. Any woman who has a baby age 6 weeks or older takes her baby to a sacred space. It was a natural setting, like a sacred grove, or special altar stone or something. They hand over the baby to a priestess who gives them a goblet with a special liquid to drink. The priestesses mix up the babies, and hand them back to random mothers, lottery style. Because of the magical drink the mothers instantly bond with their baby. Sometimes you do get your own baby back, but in general you have no way of knowing if your offspring is blood related. Since every family now have children of different ethnicities, no one is racist anymore, because how can you be racist towards your own child? The entire thing was this level ham fisted. Yes, it is every bit as bad as it sounds. Please help me find this horrible case of Why was this thing even published?
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May 3, 2019 18:49
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Sci-fi eco novel. There are earthquakes and other natural disasters all over the planet. Several survivors report hearing strange chanting or eerie music before the catastrophes happen. Over time weird humming, or not quite singing is reported, the centres of these hotspots forming a kind of grid pattern, all leading towards the middle of Australia. Turns out Songlines and Dreamtime are real. Australian Aboriginal tribes end up saving the Earth by walking, while singing, ancient paths and patterns.
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Jul 10, 2019 21:31
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Novel set to pre-historic Britain. An elderly couple who live in a village laid out like a rabbit's warren, with underground tunnels. There is a fog? or something that has given everyone partial amnesia. The elderly couple set out the find their grown up son, who they haven't had contact with for decades, but they don't remember what caused the rift between them. On their journey they come across a sort of early Christian, heretical cult. Something about a monster and a young boy? Sorry, this is really fuzzy.
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Jan 18, 2020 12:32
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That's it. Thank you!
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Jan 18, 2020 17:04
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Sci-fi from the 1970s. the Earth has gone through a "change", that made a 150 km band around the equator. A zone that cannot be crossed, and there is no way to communicate between the north and south spheres. In the north, civilisation is based around farming communities, arts, co-operation. In the south there is a meritocracy, where teenagers are taken from their families, sent to a boarding school where they are tested to see what caste they will live in as adults. Both halfs are extremely curious about the other half, but like I said, the Zone cannot be crossed, and something blocks all radio signals, telescopes, etc. If you stare into the Zone, you just see a shimmering ever changing colour, but it is unclear if everyone sees the same colour. The story switches back and forth between a young woman in the north, and a young man in the south. Also, the polar areas have changed, and become strange. While no one has survived going into the Zone, about 1 in 4 who venture into the polar areas come back alive. But changed. If you enter the North polar region, you come back extremely spiritual, and overly religious. If you come back from the South polar region you come back as a very aggressive warrior type. The whole thing was super trippy, in a very 1970s writing style.
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Jun 3, 2020 22:25
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regulargonzalez posted:Sounds a lot like a slightly misremembered Well World book from Jack Chalker. Very 70s, planet with different zones but iirc the southern hemisphere was for carbon based life and the north was silicon based and were essentially entirely incompatible with each other. I think the first or second book has two people who get split up into different zones in the south. The equator is another zone that has to be passed to travel from North to south. And each hemisphere has different zones, some are agricultural, some are war based, some inhabited by people, some by plant things, some by centaurs, etc. Looked it up, and no, not it. But I can see why you thought so. The whole "zone that cannot be crossed" was the main thing, and I don't think there were any centaurs. I do remember a lot of things like the North Woman wondering if, by some miracle, she was transported to the other half, could she still breathe there? And that South Man didn't mind that different casts got different rations? payments? well, some casts were really privileged, except the top leadership, who took pride in living as if they belonged to the bottom cast. So you could never be 100% sure if that raggedy looking man eating the cheapest possible food was a bottom cast or else a leader who could have you punished for treating him badly.
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Jun 6, 2020 12:09
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A sort of "artsy", kind of magical realism novel, from around 1990. Set in the mid 1980s. After a nuclear war has left Europe a smoking ruin, but Britain has sort of survived. As in society has collapsed, because there is no more importing anything from abroad. Money has lost all value, bartering is the new economy. People with useful skills, like farming, builders, as well as people who know how to spin, weave, and sew are seen as extremely valuable, while what is deemed "useless knowledge seekers", like academics, are seen as horrible people who "fretted away valuable time, filling their head while exploiting proper workers". Bright coloured clothing is very much frowned upon for some reason. Yet at the same time make-up, especially black lipstick and eye make-up, hair dye, etc are seen as essential. "No one would want to look like people from the old age after all". Also, music plays an important role. Sex is no longer seen as something that gives you pleasure, more a necessary ritual, in order to breed new children. Few people are interested in reading for fun. Instead, music is used to express a range of emotions, and give performers and audiences orgasmic, physical releases. Yes, there are music orgies happening, including references to various kink.
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Mar 29, 2021 20:51
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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:Thanks! That page looks like a really fun rabbit hole, whether or not the story I remember is there. It's possible that I'm conflating different tales that share a similar theme. Probably this story: https://aleteia.org/2018/03/02/so-a-priest-and-a-rabbi-are-having-a-religious-debate/ Several centuries ago, a priest and a rabbi agreed on having a religious debate. The Jewish people met and picked an aged and wise rabbi to represent them in the debate. However, as the rabbi spoke no Italian, and the priest spoke no Yiddish, they agreed that it would be a “silent” debate. On the chosen day the priest and rabbi sat opposite each other. The priest raised his hand and showed three fingers. The rabbi looked back and raised one finger. Next, the priest waved his finger around his head. The rabbi pointed to the ground where he sat. The priest brought out a communion wafer and a chalice of wine. The rabbi pulled out an apple. With that, the priest stood up and declared himself beaten and said that the rabbi was too clever. The Jews had won. Later the cardinals met with the priest and asked him what had happened. The priest said, “First I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity. He responded by holding up a single finger to remind me there is still only one God common to both our beliefs. Then, I waved my finger around my head to show him that God was all around us. The rabbi responded by pointing to the ground to show that God was also right here with us. I pulled out the wine and wafer to show that God absolves us of all our sins, and the rabbi pulled out an apple to remind me of the original sin. He bested me at every move and I could not continue.” Meanwhile, the Jewish community gathered to ask the rabbi how he’d won. “I haven’t a clue,” said the rabbi. “First, he told me that he was going to beat me in three rounds, so I gave him the finger. Then he tells me that I was beating around the bush and I told him to get straight to the point.” “And then what?” asked a woman. “Who knows?” said the rabbi. “He took out his lunch so I took out mine.”
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Jul 24, 2021 14:30
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sorry, double posted for some reason. My bad
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Jul 24, 2021 14:31
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A fairy tale, about a young woman who avoided marriage by coming up with convoluted rules for potential suitors. Like Every meal, including sweet puddings, must include onion! or Show up in a full outfit made entirely from fishing nets! Or walk on your hands all the time, including when you use the privy! She changed her rules once a month, and promised to marry only if she either found someone who managed to live a whole month by her rule of that month, or she ran out of challenges/repeated her challenge.
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Jul 28, 2021 11:09
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