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

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

fritz posted:

Long shot: The Cold Equations?

nah, Cold Equations has an astronaut on a medical supply run to a colony with exactly enough fuel to get him there safely, when the sister of one of the colonists is found to have stowed away. He's forced to airlock her as she makes the ship too heavy and they'd BOTH die, along with the essential supplies on the ship. There's no peeing involved

# ¿ May 21, 2008 01:06

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# ¿ May 6, 2024 21:43

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

Childrens book. A Girl is on holiday, possibly in Scotland and meets a sea monster, possibly the loch ness monster. I don't remember much about the middle of the book, but the ending is fairly distinct. It turns out the monster is an alien, but was exiled to Earth for some crime or other and forced to change form. The real form of his species is a glowing ball of energy. Two of his people, a big red orb and a little silver orb come along for some reason, and I think at the end he saves the girl somehow and is judged to be virtuous and to have been rehabilitated, and allowed to take on his true form (a big gold orb) and return home.

I guess I must have been 8-10 when I read this, so it was written probably some time before 1990-92. I live in the UK, and I *think* the cover was dark red, with a picture of the monster on a white background.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2008 00:18

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

Shonagon posted:

The setting is completely wrong but the ending is Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones. He's Sirius the Dog Star, exiled to Earth for murder, and the other orbs (big red and small white) are the planetary bodies who framed him. However, it has nothing to do with sea monsters. Is this coincidence or could you be confusing two titles?

it could well be that. I did find another book where the sea monster part was there but not the orbs (The Bogart and the Monster by Susan Cooper), so I may well have been mixing them up

thanks very much in any case, I'll seek them both out and see how messed up my memory really is

# ¿ Sep 24, 2008 10:18

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Ignoranus posted:

Someone else found it for me - it's entitled "Silicon Muse", by Hilbert Schenck. Published in the Oxford Book of Science Fiction, ed. Tom Shippey.

Unfortunately, it's in the library of my old school, and not my current one, so I'll have to go to greater lengths to get it...

haha, I was thinking how great the story sounded and how much I would like to read it...and it turns out I own it already. I have a fair few SF short story collections (probably over 100, one day I'll catalogue them properly) and that one just happened to be sitting right there on the shelf. So, uh, thanks for pointing me to a good story I guess :P

# ¿ Oct 30, 2008 03:46

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

Science fiction. Two supremely nasty short stories

1: in a future where nanotech can repair all bodily damage, a woman has a small boy (son? about 2 years old) whom she systematically tortures and kills on a daily basis. Nano machines repair him each time. He doesn't age because of the nano tech. This is not seen as particularly unusual in her society. I think there's a thing about her doing this because she hates men.

2: a long space mission involving a small all male crew. After spending too long in deep space they go loving nuts and decide that one of their number is pregnant, and it will be necessary to perform a caesarian section to get the baby out. They arrive home shortly after completing it.

I'd love to know who wrote these and what they're called so I can find out which collections they've been reprinted in.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2009 04:40

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

GrandpaPants posted:

A book that I think was in a recommendation thread around here, but I don't remember which thread it was or if it was even a recommendation.

The basic plot synopsis is that a father was a writer in some capacity, but he mysterious vanished/died, leaving a son. However, it soon becomes apparent that the son may simply be a work of fiction. Does this ring a bell in anyone's head or did I just dream this up?

The Land of Laughs has a *kinda* similar premise, though it's not the same book unless the description got garbled or you're mis-remembering. in this the dead author has a daughter, who is real, but the town in which she lives and all its inhabitants is what is fictional, after the writer "retired" he spent the latter part of his life writing the town. However, time is running out as they come to the point he reached in his writings, and things are starting to go wrong. A young man comes to town with the intent of writing a biography of the late writer, and is caught up in various nastiness as the townspeople decide he is the one who can save them. It's kinda a contemporary fantasy/horror. Even if it's not right, it's a pretty good read.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2009 19:21

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

Cortel posted:

Second one was in the same literature book for high school (I think) was about this guy that had surgery to make him really smart, and there was a mouse that had the surgery a little bit before him and he fell in love with the female doctor and the mouse died and he revealed that to the scientific community. I later found out that the entire love sequence was edited out of the story, and I think it was actually a whole book. I think there was a movie too, because I'm remembering the part where he shows the dead mouse at the conference in a black and white film style from the 50s or something.

It is Flowers for Algernon, there were actually two versions. The shorter novella (without the "love sequence", I think there was *something* along those lines but it was far less elaborate) was written considerably earlier than the novel length version, so it's not that the one you read was edited, but that it was later expanded upon. There have been several movie adaptqtions, the best known is called "Charly"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowers_for_Algernon

# ¿ Oct 28, 2009 11:50

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

Was Taters posted:

I read a science fiction novel in the past couple years and I can't remember oh, most of it.

But I do remember that there's a ship sent off into space with smart squid? something like squid, anyway, on it, meant to start the process of terraforming a planet. The squid that they sent was pregnant and had progeny who went on to be instrumental to the story as well.

Anyone?

try this link: http://www.vondanmcintyre.com/squids/Squidliography.html (yes there are indeed SEVERAL series featuring talking squids in outer space). It's probably the Baxter Manifold series.

There is a little bit of a story behind that site. The Author Margaret Atwood, famous for her stories about future dystopias where things are different than they are today dismissed the notion that what she was writing was science fiction. Science fiction, she said, was all "talking squids in outer space" thus to classify her work as such was inappropriate. Several writers of SF took umbridge at this, hence the lists of Squid stories (other than Baxter, author of the book you're probably looking for, who promptly declared himself to be the ONLY SF writer in the world).

# ¿ Dec 16, 2009 12:02

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

Sci fi short, probably 60s/70s as most of what I read is in older collections.

Group of (male) astronauts on a long voyage. Start going space crazy. Eventually, they come to the conclusion that one of their number is pregnant. They attempt to deliver the baby by caesarian.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2010 01:33

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

SimianNinja posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E2%80%94All_You_Zombies%E2%80%94

You're welcome.

um....OK

If you were attempting to shock rather than making an honest mistake, I have actually read the story you linked to :P

# ¿ Mar 1, 2010 18:18

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

SimianNinja posted:

That's not it?

You mentioned a man getting pregnant and giving birth by c-section in space, so I honestly thought that that Heinlein story, involving a weird hermaphrodite man giving birth by c-section in space, had to be the only one. Also the date it was written matches.

I guess it was an honest mistake.

How could there be multiple stories like that?

EDIT: Oh goddammit I guess it didn't mention anything about this taking place in space... but still... it seemed like a fairly unique situation

ah, sorry. He's NOT pregnant. He's fat. The rest of the crew DECIDE he is pregnant because they are space-crazy. The "C-section" kills him.

sorry, I should have been clearer with my description.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2010 14:28

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

Rough Lobster posted:

This is a quasi repost, because this is killing me.

I read this book/story as a child, and it scared the everliving thunder out of me.

Don't really remember if it was a full book or a short story, and it might have been in an anthology.

What I remember.

There was some fat man who lived in a decrepit house. He wasn't really a man, though, he might have been some kind of alien in disguise. His house was positively full of pizza boxes and stuff, and the book distinctly mentions him emerging gracefully from a pile of refuse like a dolphin or something.

He would kidnap and eat people (I think he does this to a pizza delivery guy). I also think he may have eaten people by shoving them through a hole he had under his gut that led directly to his stomach.

I think he replaced the people he ate with soulless puppets designed to look and act like them.

At one point the main character, I believe a child, sneaks into this guys house to discover the truth.

Please someone tell me I didn't dream this up.

I know neither of these are the story you're after, but GRRM wrote two stories called "the pear shaped man" and "the monkey treatment" which are both disturbing/horror shorts about extremely fat people. It's possible he might have written more?

# ¿ Dec 3, 2010 22:20

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

wheatpuppy posted:

Is "The Monkey Treatment" about an invisible creature that latches on to the protagonist's back and snatches the food he tries to eat? If so, thanks! I've been trying to remember the name of that story for ages.

It is indeed. I think only he can see the monkey

# ¿ Dec 4, 2010 13:06

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

edit: I lack comprehension, ignore

# ¿ Dec 22, 2010 20:33

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:

Holy poo poo...

The first result on google is a review of the book, and wow... I don't think I would read these on a bet.

Ahahaah, man, the author (apprently) has googled himself and has posted a comment in the review post justifying his horrible book http://ninjadebugger.livejournal.com/226678.html

# ¿ Dec 29, 2010 00:25

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

Unkempt posted:

The Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick

Which is a sequel/follow up to The Iron Dragons daughter, which is well worth a read.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2011 20:15

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

eumenidy posted:

I'm looking for a short story about a society of robots who discover that they are slowly dying due to a loss of air pressure in their underground dome. Their brains worked by air being pushed through a delicate arrangement of tiny gold sheets and the main character worked this out by performing brain surgery on himself. It's a lot more beautiful and poignant than I make it sound, and I think it won an Asmiov a few years back...

right. Not heard of it but here's the best I can do.

The Asimov awards have been renamed the Dell awards, and are made to undergraduates for excellence in SF/Fantasy story writing. This is the only writing award I could find with Asimovs name attached. http://dellaward.com/past-honorees is a list of all the past winners back to 1994, there's no descriptions but there is author-title which should hopefully be enough to help you search

# ¿ Mar 6, 2011 02:14

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

Bookish posted:

Is it Exhalation by Ted Chiang? And seconding that everything he has ever written is terrific.

http://www.nightshadebooks.com/Downloads/Exhalation%20-%20Ted%20Chiang.pdf I've just read it, and it is

# ¿ Mar 6, 2011 16:28

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

posting for a friend:

I remember aaages ago someone on LJ describing a book (or was it a short story), not interested in the book but I want to see the cover again. It was about a dog that drowned and stayed at the bottom of the river and the cover had a dog skeleton with all the water forming it's fur and such sounds morbid but it was really pretty

# ¿ May 24, 2011 21:07

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

Neurosis posted:

A series where aliens attack us by slowly terraforming the planet; the aliens themselves are never seen. Their species out-compete the domestic species furiously. Help!

If it wasn't a series, it could well be "The Genocides" by Thomas Disch (though there's only one alien species in that, a fast growing plant)

# ¿ Jun 11, 2011 13:05

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

Sci-fi short story. Could be from any time period bar the last few years, I've read a LOT of anthologies in my time

Guy and a girl traveling in a post apocalyptic waste. They come to a city/town and compete in some kind of tournament involving computers/VR. The thing I specifically remember if the guy somehow finds an area of forgotten memory in the computer, and finds something like a sprite sheet for a snowman character. The Snowman has some degree of AI and him and the guy become friends, but at some point the tournament organizers find out and the snowman character is deleted.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2011 23:46

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

funkybottoms posted:

How We Got In Town and Out Again by Jonathan Lethem. It's in Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse.

Awesome. Though I must have read it in the Dozois anthology from 1997, as that's the only book in it's bibliography that I own

That's the problem with short stories, I must have over 50 anthologies and collections, each with 10-20 stories in, and I've read a bunch more that various family members currently have. Chasing down a specific story from a vague description is almost impossible even when I know the drat thing is most likely within 10 feet of where I'm sitting.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2011 02:31

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

One from my Sister:

My Sister posted:

There is a poor and mean village built on the top of a sleeping dragon. A self sufficient and possibly promiscuous (?) girl there gets into some trouble think perhaps with a jealous lover and is persued by men intent on killing her. She flees into the mouth of the dragon. It's full of stuff growing. The inside of the dragon hosts a village of imbecilles, among whom she lives for many many years, learning stuff about the sleeping dragon and how it works. I think the imbecilles might destroy parasites. The dragon maybe speaks/communicates somehow...

her coming there is I think for some purpose of the dragons. A bloke eventually turns up there too. I think they have a strange and unhealthy relationship. Eventually I think she manages to leave.

and a second:

quote:

The last of the dragons has been sleeping for many generations under some mountain, together with the memories of his forebears, which live on in the gemstones their bodies become upon death. Modern man starts drilling down. The dragon takes action to take to the sky and seek out people with whom to negotiate. Somehow a deal is struck in which the stones of the old dragons are left untouched in exchange for him dying himself and giving the precious stones to the humans, including one to the woman (a musuem curator) who he has befriended. This means all the parts of him will be separated so his soul will not live on. But eventually the stones call to all their owners and people start to trickle back to the museum...

Both short stories I believe

# ¿ Jul 28, 2011 15:35

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

Bookish posted:

Does anybody know of a short story, probably science fiction, where it is told from the perspective of a young boy who is quarantined during a plague or something. All he knows is what he overhears from nurses, they call him "patient zero" but he doesn't really understand what that is. I remember it was a very sad story.

Bizarrely enough, it's called Patient Zero. Author is Tananarive Due, it's been collected in two different 2001 retrospective collections, "The Years Best Science Fiction, 18th Annual Collection" edited by Gardner Dozois and "Years Best Science Fiction 6" edited by David G Hartwell.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2011 14:43

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

wormil posted:

I read this novel in the early nineties, science fiction, very distant future, the main character was an architect of planets and frequently changed genders having both male and female lovers. That's all I remember. Hoping it rings a bell with someone.

Sounds very Culture, so likely Iain M Banks (don't forget the "M"). Could be Consider Phleabas though it;s a long time since I read that one.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2011 12:28

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

akurlej posted:

Its a short story that I'm pretty sure I read on somethingawful, and was about earth being covered in this red (although it may have been a different color) fungus that infected everything, and mutated everything into monsters/aliens, causing the human population to slowly dwindle down in bunkers until they started fighting back. It ended with the US about to invade Europe.

Sounds a little bit like Bio Apocalypse, which had a dedicated SA thread

It was a 94 page illustrated EPIC, written by a 6th grader

http://hillridge.net/SA/Bio%20Apocalypse.pdf

# ¿ Nov 15, 2011 14:22

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AntiThesis posted:

A (terrifying) book from my childhood, all I can remember is there was a Jester who skinned people? I'm sorry, I know that's a pretty tiny bit to go on.

quote:

To expand on this, I have a feeling they may have been animals so that narrows it down a bit.

The Oaken Throne, Robin Jarvis. Book two of the Deptford Histories.

The jester is a weasel who is secretly a high priest of an evil cult which worships a horned rat god called Hobb, skinning sacrifices to make a "bloody bones" of them.

# ¿ May 13, 2012 13:48

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

Sri.Theo posted:

I'm looking for a Winnie the pooh book that contains this quote:

Everyone attributes it to AA Milne but I'm unsure which book its from, would love the help!

There are only two Winnie the Pooh books, Winnie the Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928), but searching through the full texts of both, neither seem to contain your quote. It may be a misattribution or a paraphrase, or it might come from some attendant writings rather from one of the 20 Pooh stories from the books.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2013 14:25

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# ¿ May 6, 2024 21:43

Fatkraken: Jun 23, 2005; Fun-time is over.

Sanford posted:

A friend and I both remember a book where the conquered populace of a defeated country (planet?) agree to surrender on the condition that their libraries and art galleries are not destroyed by the occupying army. The leader of the occupying force gets around this by sorting all the individual letters from the libraries into alphabetical order, and sorting all the individual pigment fragments of the artworks into colour order. Thus he punishes the populace without (technically) breaking his word. Can't remember a single drat thing more about the story.

I know this one! The idea always stuck in my mind too even though it's not central to the story.

It's a briefly mentioned aside in Iain M Banks' "The Player of Games", the second Culture novel, as something done by the conquering armies of the civilization the protagonist is sent in to destabilize.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2013 16:26

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