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

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

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:

Trying to remember a short story or a book that was mentioned earlier in either this thread or an earlier incarnation of it.

Guy gets flown by helicopter to this place out in the desert, where there's this giant hole in the ground. He's a reporter, and some multi jillionaire has decided to take up this SECRET PROJECT and requested him.

Turns out the SECRET PROJECT was somehow falling into a giant hole in the ground and travelling through time?

I remember something about some sort of space shark? attacking the time sub thing, and the end of the story was something along the lines of "They went through with it a second time to see if they could something something, but no one heard from them again".

Pretty sure it's a short story.

In The Abyss off Time, by Stephen Baxter. It was in his Last and First Contacts collection.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2013 04:56

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# ¿ May 4, 2024 12:30

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

John Cenas Jorts posted:

Trying to find a scifi short story I read quite a while ago, I'm pretty sure it was in one of those Gardner Dozois Year's Best anthologies

The story takes place on Earth. There was a Ring built around the planet that most of humanity had lived on but then they had disappeared in some type of singularity event (I think?). Anyways there are a few people left behind on earth and the main character is a teenaged girl who is part of 'creche.' I remember it being like a sibling group that all live together and might have some limited telepathy? I know that each of the kids had a little ability, the only one that I remember is that one of them never missed when throwing rocks. Anyway, the main girl meets this older guy who says that he was on the Ring and has a way to get back and my memory gets fuzzy from there, but I think in the end he was lying or something.

I think this is a story by Peter Hamilton, written in the same universe as Olympos and Illium. There were a few of them over the years.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2013 22:10

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Pretty sure that's the short story Antibodies by Charles Stross.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2017 02:52

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Hughlander posted:

Very probably though the story is more terrifying than the summary.

Also sounds a bit mixed in with the Eschaton stuff from his earlier Iron Sunrise series - but yes, what a great read.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2017 02:56

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

navyjack posted:

Any idea where I can find an ebook? Only seeing hard copy on Amazon

Should be in this collection: https://www.amazon.ca/Years-Best-Science-Fiction-Eighteenth-ebook/dp/B005AYIAZ8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499524480&sr=8-1

# ¿ Jul 8, 2017 15:35

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Hyrax Attack! posted:

Three sci-fi short stories:

-A generation ship is going to take a long time to reach their destination, fleeing a losing war, I think one side was Egyptian themed? The original population is educated but the ship is set up to discourage innovation and free thinking, so no one tries to tamper with systems. Some people need to scrub the floors and walls for cleaning.

The main character is put into stasis with other leaders and occasionally revived but becomes the only one onboard who remembers the purpose of the trip, while the rest of the population devolves into creatures who only value the ability to scrub walls, although they don�t know why they do so.

-A scientist in present day investigates the death of a friend who had been researching faster than light travel. At first he thinks it was a murder as he found a collection of news reports of brutality, but discovers the friend was becoming disillusioned by humanity and feared his discovery would allow humanity to spread before it is ready. The main character decides to release the technology anyway and claim credit.

-In present day an alien ship appears on the edge of our solar system. It doesn�t try to communicate and ignores messages, and is on a course to exit our system, and it is moving too fast for anything to be sent to reach it.

I think the theme of the story was frustration among scientists that there is proof of intelligent life, but after initial excitement nothing changes on earth and the ship leaves.

Second one kind of sounds like Light by M. John Harrison and the third might be Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2019 22:04

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

So I read this weird I guess graphic novel when I was a kid (probably 80s) where a group of humans in space end up colonizing the Earth while humanity was still in caves. It starts with them trying to establish a colony isolated from the cave people but then eventually people start comingling, having families and such and there's some incident where a local gets blasted by a laser for some reason. Ring a bell to anybody?

# ¿ May 26, 2020 17:32

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Tree Goat posted:

I could have sworn I posted that I thought this was LeGuin's Planet of Exile, but i didn't.

The plot sounds similar but this was definitely a graphic novel (quite thick) and I don't think it was up to LeGuin's level of work. But thank you

# ¿ Jun 4, 2020 18:38

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

I will always remember �It's longer than you think, Dad!�

# ¿ Oct 8, 2020 05:26

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

#4 is probably Blindsight by Peter Watts. It is excellent, albeit very depressing.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2020 06:23

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Which one?

# ¿ Jan 5, 2021 01:46

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Agents are GO! posted:

Lady of Mazes.

Thanks!

# ¿ Jan 16, 2021 06:35

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

Holy poo poo that cover

# ¿ Apr 11, 2022 18:08

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

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?

# ¿ Aug 1, 2023 21:13

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

I felt the exact same; really cool premise and just boring as hell execution.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2023 00:49

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

It's weird but I feel like both Gibson and Macleod started with some really fantastic near future sci-fi - The Fall Revolution series and Gibson's Sprawl trilogy basically launched my interest in science fiction but as they get older their writing seems more and more boring and it kind of breaks my heart, despite the themes still being interesting.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2023 02:49

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# ¿ May 4, 2024 12:30

Less Fat Luke: May 23, 2003; Exciting Lemon

I've read that and want to say it was an Alastair Reynolds or Peter Watts short story..

# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 19:12

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