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

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Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Samovar posted:

Goddamn, found it. Brog the Stoop.

Glad you found it but love how the Amazon description is basically 11th grade fantasy writing.txt:

quote:

The Source of Light is failing...And for the Stoop who inhabit Drabwurld, the encroaching darkness brings a terrible danger. Their mortal enemies the Gork, led by the vicious Redeye, grow ever stronger as the Light fades slowly away. And it is only a matter of time before the Stoop are utterly destroyed...
But there is one Stoop, who will not accept defeat. For Brog has the brave heart needed to find the Source of Light, and restore it to its former glory. And as he sets off on his perilous question, the Stooplord, Klan the Golden, leads the Stoop in a final, and possibly fatal, battle against the Gork...

# ¿ May 19, 2021 18:30

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 23:40

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Just had this pop into my head and I can't remember where from....

Theocracy with a very much of 'saving yourself for marriage' type vibe center to the religion...
So the Brothels (Maybe even government run) offered 2 and 4 hour marriages with an auto-divorce at the end so you wouldn't be in sin...

# ¿ Jul 19, 2021 21:39

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Whybird posted:

There's a quote from a particular book that is rattling round in my head and I'm trying to find. A radicalised character who killed his mentor is told something along the lines of: "He believed in you to the end. Right up until the moment your sword entered his heart, he was confident you would do the right thing."

I think maybe this is Death in a Discworld book but I can't place it at all.

I've read it for sure. And I read almost all of Pratchett's stuff, it sounds like it could be from him but I can't place it either yet.

# ¿ Jun 16, 2022 16:49

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Whybird posted:

It's definitely not an exact quote -- it could have been "right up until the point your bullet entered his brain" for all I remember, but I think it was definitely phrased along those lines.

Are you also sure it was radicalized? I can also half remember it as it's a protagonist who killed more of a fallen-mentor. The antagonist was so sure of the control over the situation up to the moment his confidant kills him.

# ¿ Jun 16, 2022 17:09

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Short Story:

Aliens investigating ruined Earth. Blah blah blah, some guy genetically engineered humanity to be able to diagnose cellulose. In turn there was a population explosion as food was no longer as scarce just eat grass/trees etc... Until so many people ate so much that the O2/CO2 cycle was disrupted and people choked to death. I think it also mutated to be airborne, maybe it was bacteria in the gut that was genetically modified. I remember that one of the explorers couldn't return to their ship because the outside of their spacesuit was infected and they'd lose all their food if they returned to the spaceship.

Can't remember if it was Analog or something or an Anthology.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2022 03:28

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Orc Priest posted:

hey yall i really need to find the name of this author/story...

he was a sci fi author. maybe part of the new wave sci-fi. his works had an environmentalist slant and one story in particular was about a man who wakes up, doesn't remember anything and sees visions of a ruined earth. he starts walking and arrives at this town where it is always twilight and time does not seem to pass.

thanks

I don�t think it�s what your thinking about but that describes Roger Zelaznys Jack of Shadow if you squint a bit.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2022 00:33

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

navyjack posted:

Random, but I�m thinking of a story. Fantasy or Urban Fantasy where there is a basilisk or cockatrice or Medusa thingy that turns people to stone, but just their skin and the resulting heat cooks the meat inside which is what the critter eats. Maybe Laundry Files or the Seanan McGuire Crypid books but I�m not sure and don�t want to do a re-read if I don�t haveta

Probably Concrete Jungle

# ¿ Sep 14, 2022 09:12

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Scaramouche posted:

Wasn't there a bit in Snow Crash like that with the skateboard courier?

I feel like it is, but that doesn't fit the modern tech aesthetic at the time it was written.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2022 22:52

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

All that but I also thought the original species was psychically controlling the rest of the galaxy not just tech.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2022 05:10

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

I swear I asked this before in this thread but can't see it...

Short story, was first in an anthology, the narrator visits an old friend at an observatory and learns that when a person dies, their soul travels out into space and becomes trapped inside an alien creature, where it remains for all eternity. The friend explains that these aliens are actually the physical manifestation of the soul and that they are all around us, undetectable until they consume a human soul. In the story, the narrator is able to observe the aliens and sees the souls of many historical figures, including Adolf Hitler. The story explores themes of mortality, the afterlife, and the nature of the soul.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2023 04:20

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

yaffle posted:

I have no idea but this sounds an awful lot like it might be by L. Ron Hubbard...

I think I'd remember if it was.... I'm thinking like 70s new wave, James Tiptree Jr or something. It's really driving me crazy, it was the first story of the anthology I was reading and I read it like 13 years ago but I have no idea what it was.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2023 06:57

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

New wave Sci-Fi story, written probably early 70s, I read it mid 80s.

Post apocalypse, environment destroyed and humans living in domed cities. There's a shuttle/plane crash going from one city to another and protagonist and partner are leading a rescue mission. Wild mutated dogs are guarding/shepherding the passengers, and a plot point is only heterosexual men that have a family should be let outside the city because the dogs are trying to shepherd humanity and see people who aren't reproducing the planet as a waste of resources.

I want to say was one of the sex weirdos from the time like Harlan Ellison or Piers Anthony, but could as easily have been Joe Haldeman or Ben Bova.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2023 06:06

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Professor Shark posted:

I�m pretty sure the protagonist equates the alien helping him to the same way a human might help a caterpillar cross a road: tiny, insignificant, never to be thought of again

That's also the main motif of Roadside Picnic / aka: Source of every bit of STALKER media. Unimaginatively advanced aliens visit earth and don't even notice us leaving some junk behind that can change lives, the way humans would have a picnic on the side of the road and leave their cups and napkins.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2023 22:47

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/856tjv/i_know_why_we_never_returned_to_the_moon_part_2/

I remember either seeing a movie or reading a book lately that was REALLY CLOSE to this short story. Landing on the moon, creepy moon stuff, pyramid, black crystal, etc. I cannot for the life of me remember what it was though.

Any ideas? Thought it might be Apollo 18 but that didn't have the pyramid or the dark side parts or the hidden base thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moontrap ?

# ¿ Aug 29, 2023 06:25

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

ScienceSeagull posted:

Short story about a young man who falls asleep/gets knocked unconscious one day, and wakes up years later, older, with a family and a job. He remembers the intervening time, and was going through life normally during those years, but he didn't experience any of it consciously (basically he was a p-zombie. I think he goes through a few more of these time skips (there might have been a specific trigger for a time jump, or maybe it was random) and the story ends with him on his deathbed, reflecting on how little of his life he actually experienced.

Fell asleep last night while sick with a fever and in my fevered dream thinking about this post I could only come up with was the Adam Sandler movie 'Click' which was based on the short story The Magic Thread in The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories

Any chance that's what it was?

EDIT: https://www.davidgaultiere.com/the-magic-thread/

# ¿ Sep 22, 2023 22:04

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Doktor Avalanche posted:

looking for an urban fantasy werewolf series

a girl comes back home to her pack. i think her parents are dead and the pack leader is her uncle or something. i can't remember a lot about the plot, except there are lone wolves testing the boundaries of the pack's territory and the pack leader and his enforcer (the girl's former love interest, also a professor of english lit or something like that) deal with that in a bloody fashion. also sometimes tourists trespass but that is dealt with more politely (LOL).

Pretty sure you have it a bit wrong but you mean 'Bitten' by Kelley Armstrong:

quote:

The main character of Bitten is Elena Michaels, a woman who is the only known female werewolf in the world. She lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and writes for a popular newspaper. She struggles to deal with her other-ness and to assimilate to the human world. She also contends with her terrible childhood and with the man who bit her and turned her into a werewolf.

Elena has settled into a somewhat normal existence, living with her architect boyfriend and ignoring her wolf side as much as possible. However, she learns that her Pack (the governing body of werewolves) is in trouble and comes to their aid, flying to Stonehaven, the country estate of the pack Alpha. It is in Bear Valley, a fictional city in up-state New York. When Elena arrives, she is greeted by her ex-lover, Clayton Danvers, who bit her and made her a werewolf (without her consent). Clayton is also the bodyguard and foster-son to Jeremy Danvers, the pack Alpha (leader). Elena learns that a local woman was found murdered on Stonehaven's land, savaged by what authorities thought to be a dog. However, the Pack has determined that she was murdered by a Mutt, a rogue werewolf. They find out he is a recently escaped killer who was recently turned into a werewolf. Clay and Elena chase him into a rave and after several of the partygoers are killed, the wolf is hit by an SUV.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2024 18:38

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Sri.Theo posted:

That reminds me of a book I was looking for before. It was a space based book but I remember there was a b plot with these medieval talking wolves?

I think at some point the wolves and the space plot converge.

I'm gonna be two for two here...

Vernor Vinge A Fire Upon The Deep

quote:

An expedition from Straumli Realm, an ambitious young human civilization in the high Beyond, investigates a five-billion-year-old data archive in the low Transcend that offers the possibility of unimaginable riches. The expedition's facility, High Lab, is gradually compromised by a dormant superintelligence within the archive later known as the Blight. However, shortly before the Blight's final "flowering", two self-aware entities created similarly to the Blight plot to aid the humans before the Blight can escape.

Recognizing the danger of what they have awakened, the researchers at High Lab attempt to flee in two ships, one carrying all the adults and the second carrying all the children in "coldsleep boxes". Suspicious, the Blight discovers that the first ship contains a data storage device in its cargo manifest; assuming it contains information that could harm it, the Blight destroys the ship. The second ship escapes. The Blight assumes that it is no threat, but later realizes that it is actually carrying away a "countermeasure" against it.

The ship lands on a distant planet with a medieval-level civilization of dog-like creatures, dubbed "Tines", who live in packs as group minds. Upon landing, however, the two surviving adults are ambushed and killed by Tine fanatics known as Flenserists, in whose realm they have landed. The Flenserists capture a young boy named Jefri Olsndot and his wounded sister, Johanna. While Jefri is taken deeper into Flenserist territory, Johanna is rescued by a Tine pilgrim who witnessed the ambush and delivers her to a neighboring kingdom ruled by a Tine named Woodcarver. The Flenserists tell Jefri that Johanna has been killed by Woodcarver and exploit him in order to develop advanced technology (such as cannon and radio communication), while Johanna and the knowledge stored in her "dataset" device help Woodcarver rapidly develop in turn.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2024 23:47

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Probably another unsolvable one... This popped into my mind while I thought of The Green Leopard Plague By Walter Jon Williams:

Aliens arrive at a ruined Earth and do archeology on it. See a statue of someone all across the planet, celebrated in rural areas defaced in urban. Eventually they figure out that the person created a microbe that could live in a human gut and break down cellulose and ending world hunger as people could just munch on trees or grass. However, it mutated and became airborn breaking down all plant life and causing the O2 => CO2 => O2 cycle to end leading humanity to die off. At the end the aliens realize the microbes are on their ship, and their clothes and they can't return to their home planet or they'd doom it as well.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2024 09:02

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

froglet posted:

Ooh I think I've seen a similar one! Iirc it broke the process by sequestering too much carbon so there was too much oxygen in the atmosphere?

Edit: found a book called The Nitrogen Fix that looks like it's close, but not quite on the mark.

That's similar but the one I'm thinking about is a short story and humans have been dead for a very long time when the aliens find Earth.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2024 21:28

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

SimonChris posted:

That's it! Thank you so much! For some reason that particular joke stuck with me.

Same. I just read the Corwin Chronicles with my 11 year old and ended with Dying of Ember. Still so good along with all the Dad jokes and it�s the way of our kind.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2024 04:35

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

I thought this was in All Systems Red but it wasn�t. Maybe one of the sequels.

Main character party is hyper capitalist hellhole negotiates help with opposing team/company but the opposing side is even more capitalist hellhole then they realized and chastises hero for bad negotiations as they�ll become slaves/lose their gear/land. But they turn it around.

If it�s not all systems red it feels like it could be The Lost Fleet?

# ¿ Mar 3, 2024 02:57

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

ToxicFrog posted:

"Hypercapitalist hellhole" describes a lot of the Murderbot setting, but those events don't match up with anything I recall in the books.

Yah and it�s one of the sides of the Lost Fleet which is why I think may be from there. Could also be a podcast like Girl In Space. Sigh

# ¿ Mar 3, 2024 04:02

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

With 3 body problem coming out soon was thinking of a book series i read the start of then I think I threw across the room.

It was a big series and had recently been re-edited and had a new prequel at the start which is mostly what I remember.

Chinese government realizes that western capitalism is going to win in the end so they launch a cyber attack on the entire world including China knowing that in the post-apocalypse recovery they'll emerge stronger.

Rest of series was hundreds to a thousand or so years later, and something about super powerful building materials making city sized buildings or something? The prequel story annoyed me that I didn't get to the actual story and just remember reading a wikipedia page about it instead.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2024 08:33

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

wizzardstaff posted:

I haven't read it myself but the summary for the Chung Kuo series by David Wingrove sounds very much like it fits.

Yep that's the one thanks!

# ¿ Mar 5, 2024 09:43

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Short story, people's homes are in parallel earth where mankind never evolved. In the US each person get's their own earth, in the Soviet Union they put a few thousand to a million on the same earth. Someone calls tech support / repair person because aliens are outside their house.

Feel it's either Roger Zelazny or Phillip K Dick but I don't know who or what it's called.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2024 03:12

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Inverigo posted:

Sounds like Asimov's "Living Space":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Space

That�s the one! Thanks

# ¿ Mar 28, 2024 18:35

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Hughlander posted:

I thought this was in All Systems Red but it wasn�t. Maybe one of the sequels.

Main character party is hyper capitalist hellhole negotiates help with opposing team/company but the opposing side is even more capitalist hellhole then they realized and chastises hero for bad negotiations as they�ll become slaves/lose their gear/land. But they turn it around.

If it�s not all systems red it feels like it could be The Lost Fleet?

Doing a reread of Martha Wells still, a scene very much like this was in 'Network Effect' where the captain of the transport wants to negotiate to release the protags after they delivered free repair equipment. But in my head it was on a planet and the reversal involved them needing more help. But tentatively I'm thinking I just misremembered Network Effect.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2024 17:23

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 23:40

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

GotLag posted:

It's also ringing a lot of bells for the most recent in the series, System Collapse.

Haven't read it yet

But will soon, just started Fugitive Telemetry reread with the kid.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 18:13

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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