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

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Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Wolfechu posted:

Here's one a customer asked in the bookstore I work in yesterday, and it sounds familiar enough that it's annoying the hell out of me.

When she was in around 8th grade in the 1980s, she remembers the teacher reading them a story or book based on the Arthurian legends, but in the future. She remembers Arthur had some kind of robot sidekick/friend, and time travel may possibly have been involved.

Does this sound sort of familiar to anyone else?

Could it be Tom McGowen's Sir MacHinery? I don't think Arthur himself shows up in that story, but Merlin does.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2012 01:47

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 08:39

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Alfred Slote's My Robot Buddy. I think he did a couple sequels to it too.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2013 05:38

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

regulargonzalez posted:

Couple of sci-fi short stories I'm trying to remember. I think both are relatively well-known; not Hugo winners, but Hugo nominee type of deal.

1) Want to say this one is from the 80s. Humans make first contact with aliens somewhere in outer space, our rocket finds their rocket or w/e. Communication is achieved via first principles of math and going from there. Everyone likes everyone and seems to have the best intentions, but neither side can be 100% certain what will happen afterwards; while the other side seems friendly, maybe one side will track the other side back to their homeworld so they can eventually invade it or w/e. But do like and trust each other but not enough to risk their species. The solution is: They disable anything that could track the other ship in their own ship, and then swap ships. They're still taking a risk that the other side doesn't make their own ship blow up, but at least they're only risking themself and not their entire species
Probably makes no sense due to all the 'them' and 'themselves' but you'll know it if you've read it I'm sure.

It's not the '80s. It's Murray Leinster's 1945 novella "First Contact."

# ¿ May 17, 2013 18:18

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Stereo posted:

Fantasy trilogy (I think) about a group of young people setting out from their village down a river, they meet this travelling story collector who's good with a bow. Also remember that there's some kind of demi-gods or similar with powers ( one of the main ones is that he can use short-cuts everywhere). The main warring factions colours are blue and purple, also I think the sigil is a swan for the blue faction. The bad guy gets possessed or something by the fire god and the last battle is a fire storm in which the water girl helps. Arghhh can't think. The name of one of the books has swan in it I think

Could it be Sean Russell's Swans' War trilogy (The One Kingdom, The Isle of Battle, The Shadow Roads)?

# ¿ May 13, 2014 05:11

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

DrNewton posted:

When I was a child, I remember I had a picture book that I absolutely loved. It was about mice who had a TV. If I remember correctly, their TV was broken, so they made their own TV shows. I remember one page having a bunch of little squares with clips of the different TV shows the mice produced. A lot of them were jokes on American TV or stereotypes of mice. Like a game show where the mice could win cheese.

It's been bugging me for a while now.

Could it be Mouse TV?

# ¿ Jun 30, 2014 18:43

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Lprsti99 posted:

No problem, it led me to this site, which I'm finding rather hilarious.

I'm deeply amused that the writer who seems to have the most bad reviews on that site is ... Shakespeare.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2015 20:49

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Spadoink posted:

Overheard some folks talking about a book they were reading, sci-fi or fantasy genre, where a time travel experiment went wrong and created a group of people known as "the galvanized" who were immortal. The time travel experiment was set in 'the past' and the current arc of the story was in the future, with the galvanized being used by ruling houses in power struggles (or something). Googling "the galvanized" does not help in anyway. Hoping TBB might know what the heck book this is.

- wasn't a comic book
- can't rule out it being YA or children's, even though the discussers were grown adults.

A google for "galvanized 'time travel' fiction" turns up a series called House Immortal by Devon Monk.

# ¿ May 12, 2015 22:50

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

ToxicFrog posted:

This was a book, or possibly series of books, that I read as a kid. I don't remember exactly when I read them, but probably early/mid 90s.

It's SF. The main character is a boy, he has no siblings but does have a robot companion who looks just like him. The only way to reliably tell them apart is that the robot has a characteristic stiff-legged gait. There's one story where they get captured by space pirates(?) who want their help retrieving some radioactive materials from the bottom of a pool; they foil the plot by switching places (the boy imitates the robot's walk) and using the robot's inherent immunity to radiation to convince the pirate leader that they have some sort of radiation-immunity drug (which is actually future aspirin or something similar). The pirate leader takes a bunch of it, swims down to grab the radioactives, and dies.

I also remember a scene (possibly in the same story) where the bad guys are trying to reprogram the robot wirelessly, but (again, or possibly still) they've swapped places. But when they're done, the boy is so shocked at finding out what the bad guys are planning that he forgets to do the robot-walk and is found out.

Probably Alfred Slote's My Robot Buddy or one of its sequels. I don't recall the exact details, but I do remember the bit about the robot walking with stiff knees, and the boy pretending to be the robot by imitating his walk.

# ¿ May 14, 2015 14:32

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

gradenko_2000 posted:

I have a recollection of old 70/80s paperbacks, either published by Playboy or Penthouse, which was about the smutty R-18 adventures of a woman. The author has a "St." in the last name somewhere, like Something St. James or Something St. Pierre.

Any help? I have some vague memories of the scenes written in the books but I don't know if they'd be any help, like I said it was mostly paperback, somewhat fantastical smut.

Blakely St. James?

(which deeply amuses me, because I took a writing workshop with Charles Platt once. He mentioned he'd done romance novels under a female pseudonym but he certainly didn't mention THESE.)

# ¿ Jan 9, 2016 14:52

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Washout posted:

This was a sci-fi series about an agent that travels around the galaxy but the author has a boner for bio-mechanical beings that can have wheels, and he goes into great detail involving these alien ecosystems with the biologically wheeled alien creatures and whatnot. I last read it like 20 years ago so don't remember much more about the series, but he gets captured with some other humans at some point and is stuck in some kind of weird zoo space station and while he is trying to escape has to pass through all these alien ecosystems.

I would have said Piers Anthony's "Cluster" books but the zoo space station bit doesn't seem to fit.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2016 01:51

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Side Effects posted:

I've been trying for a long time to identify this book, but the name of it escapes me and all my googling comes up negative. As far as I recall, it's a study conducted by a doctor who recorded himself while high on LSD (or some other mind altering drug) and describing what he sees and experiences to better understand the brain on mind altering substances. Does anyone remember something like this? I've been intrigued for a long time but I can never seem to recall what it's actually titled.

Could it have been John Lilly's The Center of the Cyclone?

# ¿ Jun 18, 2016 13:30

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Antti posted:

I just read And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side by James Tiptree Jr. I thought I'd read it before, but quickly realized it's not that story at all that I thought I'd read.

The story I had in my mind was about an astronaut or a space traveller in general being stuck on a planet and having a relationship with an inscrutable and strange lifeform that ultimately becomes sexual in nature. Now it's possible my brain has created this story out of whole cloth based on just the title and premise, but it might also be an actual story. It's definitely not Kij Johnson's Spar, but the atmosphere and premise would have been a little similar.

Harlan Ellison's "How's the Night Life on Cissalda?" perhaps? Although that was more humorous in tone.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2016 13:44

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Several Goblins posted:

I've got two books that I checked out from the library back in the 90s. I believe both are YA but Google hasn't been able to help me at all.

One involves a kid who is trying to/was dared to complete this run through back yards in his neighborhood at night. There's various reasons why this is difficult, like fences, people who are quick to call the police, maybe dog(s). I believe he's trying to do this with a friend who dies during the story, or wants to do it because a friend died and wants to do it in memory of that person. I also vaguely remember a love interest character and a lot of British slang/phrases being used.

That's almost certainly David Mitchell's Black Swan Green, although it was published in 2006 so you couldn't have gotten it in the 1990s. Not YA, although the protagonist is a teenager.

# ¿ May 18, 2017 15:14

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Fruits of the sea posted:

Hey! I'm trying to remember a series of crime novels. Standard crime fiction, starring a police officer or detective of some sort. It's pretty forgettable, except one of the side characters is a fat, gross cop who is a vile racist, misogynist and generally an all around jerk, except his misanthropy is so universal that it becomes sort of endearing.

If it's not Bosch, I think it's probably Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series. In the later books, McBain introduced a recurring detective named Fat Ollie Weeks, who fits the personality outline you give to a T.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2017 14:58

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

yourdadsbestfriend posted:

A little while back, someone told me about a science fiction book about a personified version of San Francisco or one of its districts. I don't really have any other details, and Google isn't helping much. Does this ring any bells? Thanks.

John Shirley's City Come A-Walkin' perhaps?

# ¿ Jul 27, 2017 14:14

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

Okay, children's book search time. Written in the late-60s early 70s. Had anthropomorphic animals and a general store in a rural community, more prose than illustration (aimed at 8-11 year olds I seem to remember). Lead character and family arrive one winter's night at a general store.

This is a repost from a few years ago, Anybody have any ideas?

It's not one of Walter Brooks's "Freddy" books, is it? (I assume if it's for 8-11, it would be a chapter book?)

# ¿ Jul 29, 2017 18:30

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

AmyL posted:

I am looking for a gamebook/CYOA where the premise was that you had to enter the world of the Fae as one of two characters. A warrior looking to find a cure for his king or a bard looking for a legendary instrument. The game had stats, various problem-solving, and different branches depending on what character you were playing. The game was renown for following the myths of the Fae where if you ate anything inside that realm, it was a game over, even if you were starting out at the 2nd or 3rd entry.

Another thing I remember about the book that it was larger than most CYOAs/Gamebooks but there were less pages.

I don't know why I suddenly thought of the book but it has been annoying me and I havn't been able to find the name of it yet.

After a bit of poking around on Demian's Gamebook Web Page, I'm pretty sure you're thinking of Faerie Mound of Dragonkind.

Selachian fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Sep 14, 2017

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 17:10

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

I'd say Eric Frank Russell's "And Then There Were None," but in that one, the libertarian society is depicted as benevolent and sensible, not criminal and evil.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2018 21:03

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Plumps posted:

I'm trying to find a graphic novel, maybe part of a series that I read in the early-mid 90's. It was fantasy, swords and sorcery stuff with the main guy as a normal young human and his chum was a big green lizard(?) type guy with a wide head who also wore clothes. Whenever they did magic there would be circles and geometric shapes around their hands. I can't remember what the story was about but at one point they summoned a giant demon thing with a hammer to smash something but it didn't work out as planned.

I don't think it was marvel/whatever superhero comic publishers but can't be sure

Normal young human and big green lizard guy? That's gotta be Skeeve and Aahz, in Phil Foglio's adaptation of Robert Asprin's "Myth" books.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2018 21:34

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

skasion posted:

Looking for a specific sci-fi book that was recommended to me years ago but I never picked up. Cover art was a rather nice painting of a big spaceship with star destroyer type giant rear end engines heading into a red cloud, I would know it if I saw it but couldn�t turn it up with a quick google. As near as I recall the concept was that a spaceship, maybe a generation ship, was passing into a region of space with like abnormally high entropy or something and everything on the ship has gotten seriously hosed up because of this, including the people. I thought for some reason it might be a Brian Aldiss book, but I think after a bit of searching I might just have confused it with Non-Stop or some other author�s generation ship book.

Piers Anthony's Ghost? If so, don't bother, it's dreck.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2018 22:03

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

skasion posted:

Definitely not Anthony.

e: I�m pretty sure I found the source image for the cover. It was either this or something very close to it.

Well, a bit of googling on the artist's name seems to suggest you're looking for Frederik Pohl's Jem. Which I haven't read, so I can't venture an opinion on it.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2018 23:06

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:

Didn't someone create a breakdown graph of all the different ways the centaurs and humans could have sex and make a baby? It was some insane pic with a lot of variations.

It's straight from the book. Although no humans are involved; each Titanide (centaur) has three sets of genitalia, male and female, so they can reproduce in any way from self-fertilization to multi-parent combinations.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2018 13:51

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

BallerBallerDillz posted:

I'm trying to remember a scifi book that featured a detective from Earth who went to another planet, Mars I think but not positive, to solve a mystery (murder I think). Earth was overcrowded and this detective was real freaked out by all the open spaces. At one point he uses a bathroom that's all video walls an he can't handle it. I've been trying to find it for a few weeks now but have been coming up blank.

Maybe one of Asimov's Elijah Baley books? Baley's agoraphobia is a major plot point, especially in The Naked Sun and The Robots of Dawn.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2018 06:05

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Sanford posted:

Also looking for a sci-fi story - humans make contact with a race of duck-like aliens. They are kind and generous but also gluttonous and annoying pricks. Everyone has had enough of them until some die in a fire and nearby humans can�t resist the smell of the roasting aliens. Then the humans either eat them all or start to and the rest leave.

Cordwainer Smith's "From Gustible's Planet."

# ¿ Dec 5, 2018 23:56

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

VileLL posted:

i don't have an answer for this, because I'm pretty certain it's something which I've also been trying to find:

series of detective novels done by a guy who just pulled stuff like the bullshit you've mentioned above, included the detective narrating long sections copied from encyclopedias about any topic the writer or his wife were interested in at the time (generally unrelated to the actual story), as well as a lot of very poorly done supernatural business.

One of the other stories may have included a child/ little person's ghost, or something which seemed to be that? Think it was a Victorian thing, but can't really remember any more details

I suspect both you and John Lee are looking for Harry Stephen Keeler, who wrote back in the 1930s/1940s and is one of a kind when it comes to bad writers. As you note, his usual method of plotting was to grab a bunch of newspaper clippings out of his file and build a story out of them, no matter how little sense they made together. He frequently padded out his books with massive infodumps and completely unrelated stories that he, or his wife, wrote.

In John Lee's case, Keeler wrote three books (The Marceau Case, The Wonderful Scheme of Mr. Christopher Thorne, X. Jones of Scotland Yard) all using the same setup for an "impossible" murder (man found strangled in the middle of a freshly rolled lawn, no footprints nearby) but each of which has its own solution. None of the solutions make the slightest goddamn bit of sense, but that's Keeler for you.

Seriously, Keeler is utterly bizarre and original in his shittiness, and it's a bit sad he's been so totally forgotten since his day.

Selachian fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Dec 14, 2018

# ¿ Dec 14, 2018 22:30

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Runcible Cat posted:

Pretty sure it's a Christopher Fowler.

I think you're right. I seem to recall the escalator scene from Fowler's Rune, but it's been a long time since I read it.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2018 18:15

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Schadenboner posted:

Looks like those are the originals not the second series (or whatever: the 1950s atomic plane ones). Still might grab it, maybe the tiny hu-mon will like them when he gets older?

Warning: the original Tom Swift series features an extremely embarrassing comedy Negro sidekick who talks in minstrel-show dialect.

The Tom Swift Jr. series replaces him with a comedy Texan sidekick, which is much more tolerable.

I quite like the Tom Swift Jr. books myself; I had a complete set back when I was small but like an idiot I gave it to another kid.

If you like TS Jr., by the way, you might also like the Rick Brant books, which have a similar tone but are more about realistic science and engineering, rather than atomic-powered planes and flying submarines.

Selachian fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Feb 16, 2019

# ¿ Feb 16, 2019 18:28

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Jerry Cotton posted:

This is for an author rather than a book and my recollection is very limited and probably unreliable due to reasons:

Irish, I think.
Wrote a lot about bicycles and uhh time?
Thought it would be something Pataphysics-related but I guess not? (Could still be.)
Some sort of cult following.

Flann O'Brien (aka Myles na Gopaleen) is your man.

Selachian fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Mar 12, 2019

# ¿ Mar 12, 2019 00:53

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Thomas Olde Heuvelt's "The Day the World Turned Upside Down" (although in that case it's not only the protagonist who's affected)?

# ¿ Jul 15, 2019 00:47

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

I have a copy of The Ghost in the Noonday Sun on my shelves but still haven't read it -- I'll have to dig it out sometime.

As for the bullwhip with the gold coin, the only thing I can think of is Geoffrey Marsh (aka Charles L. Grant)'s Lincoln Blackthorne series, which starred a globetrotting adventurer blatantly copied from Indiana Jones to the point of using a whip. I don't recall the gold coin specifically, though.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2019 22:20

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Runcible Cat posted:

Maybe the other centaur gender has the cock up front and the vagina behind.

AAAA I'M POSSESSED BY THE UNHOLY GHOST OF JACK CHALKER

Okay, Varley, not Chalker, but I'll never pass up a chance to share this.

And here's a cool, non-squicky article about that chart!

# ¿ Dec 10, 2019 19:52

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Bippie Mishap posted:

I have two. One was a Moon goddess coming to earth and falling in love with a human. It was written in the 80's. It was practical and not science-fictiony or silly. The other was a guy in CA who had a lot of money, he had a dietician fill his fridge every week with food, but he was not happy. A sink hole appeared in his lawn. The end of the book has him on a raft waving to cameras.

Was the first one Lunatics by Bradley Denton? (Which, admittedly, is a bit silly in a Tom Robbins sort of way.)

# ¿ Jan 28, 2020 02:41

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Harvey TWH posted:

Help me find
2. Puzzle book I saw an older kid working on about 1990. I think it had the structure of a CYOA book, but it was primarily made up of detailed illustrations, and I think there was a series of glass tunnels with cameras all over and you had to avoid being seen or determine which cameras to take out. Monkeys may have been involved.

Was it a paperback? The Be an Interplanetary Spy series was a combination of CYOA and puzzles.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2020 04:46

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Sham bam bamina! posted:

This feels like something that Barry Malzberg would write, but I'm not finding anything by him that lines up.

I was thinking, "Hey, that sounds like a Ron Goulart sort of book," but I haven't found anything of his that fits either.

# ¿ May 1, 2020 18:43

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

A short novel rather than a short story, but The Void Captain's Tale is bleak as all hell.

Cordwainer Smith also had a line of weird space travel stories, like "Scanners Live in Vain," "The Lady Who Sailed the Soul," "The Burning of the Brain," "The Game of Rat and Dragon," and "The Colonel Came Back from Nothing-At-All," among others.

# ¿ May 16, 2020 21:05

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Books about Jewish girls in New York City make me think of the All-of-a-Kind Family series, but that's set a bit earlier than the 1950s.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2020 00:12

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

hooah posted:

I'm trying to remember the author who I read a bunch of in late elementary or early middle school. They were all sports-focused. I want to say the author's name had Christopher in it.

Matt Christopher. A favorite of mine when I was a kid too (despite being totally unathletic in reality).

# ¿ Jul 11, 2020 17:15

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

TommyGun85 posted:

Thats the one. I know you mention how forgettable it is, are his other books worth a read?

You've read one Eddings book, you've read them all. (edit: also, as you can see above, if you've read one post about Eddings, you've read them all.) Literally, he recycles plot points wholesale from one series to the next.

Also, Eddings and his wife both spent time in prison for child abuse -- although they're both dead now, so you won't be putting money in their pockets if you do choose to buy their books.

That said, I liked the Belgariad back when I was a teenager, but I soured on him when the Sparhawk books came out because the repetition was just so blatant.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2020 14:30

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

LLSix posted:

The horse one sounds like something Piers Anthony might write. You may be remembering the horse/unicorns from his Apprentice Adept series who can transform into humans. Or maybe Xanth, although I barely touched those so I can't say if those horses turned into humans or just talked like humans. Warning, Piers Anthony writing is not generally considered to be mind safe.

Or Anthony's short story "In the Barn" for Again, Dangerous Visions (warning: extremely :nms:

). However, that one came out in 1971, so it doesn't fit the criterion of a recent story.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2020 22:53

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 08:39

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

AwesomePossum posted:

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

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

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

If anyone knows I'd be grateful.

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

# ¿ Nov 24, 2020 06:51

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The identify that story/book thread: Home of the gas pump boy

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