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nuvan posted:edit: 5. read this one online. no idea if anyone will recognize it. story's about an AI that is "grown" or something, kinda like an artificial pregnancy. this is all done in the computer. turns out there's something special about it. I think it goes out into space or something like that, but it's been years since I read this one. This might be Greg Egan's Diaspora, which according to WP has its first chapter (which deals with the "birth" of the AI) available online. I have one: An SF novel, probably a juvenile, that involved a trip in a spaceship to a moonbase. The only real detail I can remember is that the ship springs an air leak on the way, and they have to send someone one outside to find where the air is leaking from. It's emphasized that it's much easier to find a trace of air leaking out into a vacuum than it is to detect from the inside. The plot involves sabotage of the moonbase or something by some criminals, I think. I read this in about 1980, in the UK. I remember there were diagrams of the ship in the front of the book.
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Oct 30, 2008 05:50
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Ballsworthy posted:Well, you didn't dream it, I've read it too, but I'll be damned if I can remember anything more than what you posted. That's the problem with being a short story junkie, I guess; they're a lot harder to keep track of than novels. Could it be Charlie Stross's A Boy and his God?
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Nov 4, 2008 21:55
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nuvan posted:
Actually this seems more like Robert Silverberg's Starborne. At least all the details match (telepathic twin, sentient stars).
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Nov 17, 2008 16:50
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The description is a bit inaccurate, but it's much closer to A Fire Upon the Deep than A Deepness in the Sky - in the latter, the existence of the fast/slow zones isn't known to the protagonists, for instance. Both good books, though.
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Dec 10, 2008 16:59
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jjack229 posted:There was a sci-fi story I read 10-15 years ago set in the future on Earth where the Earth had been completely encased by a barrier (I don't remember if the barrier was in space or in the atmosphere). There was a interesting explanation in the book that as we look at something we define its being, and in looking at outerspace we were destroying all the possibilities of existence beyond what we defined, so some alien race encased us in the barrier. Greg Egan's Quarantine.
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Dec 13, 2008 19:31
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Dead Alice posted:They went to Cornwall in Five go down to the sea and have an adventure involving smugglers, illiterate retard kids, undercover cops and carnies. There's also a lighthouse (and a cave/underwater tunnel) in Five Go To Demon's Rocks. I'm not sure it's a good or a bad thing that I can still remember most of the plots 25 years after I last read the books.
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Feb 13, 2009 17:35
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This one's a long shot, but I've been trying to track it down for a while. In the early 80s at junior (middle) school in the UK I read a collection of short stories. I know one of the other stories in the book was Saki's "The Unrest Cure" but that's not the one I'm trying to find. Anyway, in this story there are three boys, who play with toy boats on a lake in a local park. They work out a way to fire a torpedo from their boat to sink other peoples' boats. I remember there was secret signal described as "something to do with elbows" to signal one of the boys to fire the torpedo. Their boat is referred to as "a long, low, rakish craft" at one point. After a few successes they start referring to the lake as "The Spanish Main", but soon the narrator starts worrying that someone has realized what they're doing and they're following him. The story ends when they try to sink another boat belonging to someone that they've sunk previously - it turns out the target is remote controlled and has guns fitted to it, which destroy their boat. It's annoying that I can remember so many details of the story but not the title, so any help would be appreciated.
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Feb 16, 2009 19:13
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nemotrm posted:I am trying to remember the name of a scifi book which had a similar premise to the new show Dollhouse. People could be implanted into bodies, called 'skins' I think. The skins were usually criminals who were forced to give up their bodies for the period of their incarceration. The personalities each retained their muscle memory and special neuro-enhancements. That's Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon.
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Feb 24, 2009 03:37
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AberrantBassist posted:I've Googled everything I can think of to find this book, but I can't find it at all, and I'm really intrigued. I recognize that cover image as being used for Brian Lumley's Necroscope, but I never read the book so I don't know if the description is correct.
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Mar 9, 2009 00:41
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yaffle posted:I read this book in the UK about 15 years ago, I'm pretty sure it was a collection of short sci fi by a bunch of different authors, and most of the stories were pretty good. However there were at least three that dealt with pedophilia as a reasonable and accepted behavior at some point in the future. It was loving weird and I really want to know the authors and if there was a reason for this. (I'm pretty sure it wasn't Piers Anthony) Could possibly be the anthology Dangerous Visions or its sequel, Again, Dangerous Visions. These were edited by Harlan Ellison with the idea of containing all "taboo breaking" stories. I don't remember any paedophilia in DV (plenty of (adult) incest, though), but I haven't read ADV for a long time, and don't remember the stories in it.
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Mar 15, 2009 18:15
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Foxy Stoat posted:Sci-fi book. Alien ships land at various points on the earth, scientists and the military are trying to figure them out. I think all electrical gear stops working within a close radius to the craft, at one point a probe thing comes out and walks around, and when they send someone inside the ship it makes them insane. The book ends with the aliens seemingly shutting down anything electrical on the entire planet. Maybe Patrick Tilley's Fade-Out, certainly the details I remember match, but likewise I read it years ago.
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Mar 18, 2009 16:45
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Valkyn posted:I remember seeing this book when I was really small, and it always has sounded really interesting to me ever since. On the cover were some men in space suits walking on perhaps the moon or an icy planet with the Earth in the sky in the background, and the men are looking at an alien spacecraft that is half buried in the ice. It sticks in my head that the story was about present day humans finding this advanced alien craft and either getting it to work or learning from its technology, its been too long to remember exactly. That's a pretty common trope, but the book that springs to mind is James P. Hogan's Inherit the Stars. The cover doesn't quite match your description, but the plot is right. A good book, but the series gets progressively more loopy as it goes on (probably reflecting Hogan's decent into Velikovskism).
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Apr 2, 2009 07:51
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various posted:I need help trying to identify a book I think I read about 15 years ago or so. Set in England and definitely English in origin. That's A Shock to the System by Simon Brett. It was made into a film staring Michael Caine though the film's plot is a bit different.
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May 31, 2009 02:12
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JLightning posted:i read a scifi book maybe 15 years ago that was about an expidition from earth out to study a neutron star (or maybe a brown dwarf or something like that). when they got their they found that the star was inhabited by some kind of hyper-evolving flatworm type organism. Probably Robert L. Forward's Dragon's Egg, or its sequel Starquake.
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Sep 3, 2009 22:23
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Biaga posted:Ok this is a Si-Fi book. Main themes that i can remember are:
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Nov 29, 2009 05:43
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Plagiarism posted:Alright, here we go. A friend of mine was reading a bunch of pulp short stories and one of them was about this (space?) ship that found a pig-like creature. They take it on board and it's super intelligent, but the crew is starving and they prepare to eat it. The pig I thiiiink takes over the mind of the captain and it is the captain (who made the decision to eat the pig) whose mind is transplanted into the pig and eaten. Ring any bells? This sounds like a slight miss-remembering of Phil K. Dick's "Beyond Lies the Wub".
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Dec 17, 2009 06:38
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King Plum the Nth posted:Can’t stop thinking about a picture book I had as a kid (It was actually my older brother’s so circa 1974-1982). Similar in style to a little golden book (but not one) about a man in a pinstriped suit, bowler hat, and glasses (?) carrying an umbrella. And misadventures having to do with an apple. A long shot, but possibly Mr Benn? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Benn I only remember it as a TV series, but according to that article it was a book series also. I don't know how widespread it was outside of the UK, though, if your not from there.
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Jan 14, 2010 19:05
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Boody posted:Book I'm thinking off was more or less a hardboiled detective story but set on another planet, almost read like a near future dashiell hammett story. Slightly futuristic and I think the main sci-fi/cyberpunk twist was related to the girl but just can't remember what it was or why she was on the run. Probably some low profile author that I'll never track down. Frustrating as I can remember most of the authors I'd read before and after but just not from around that time. Before I was thinking Jeff Noon (Vurt, etc.) but now it sounds more like Richard K. Morgan (the Takeshi Kovacks novels starting with Altered Carbon), though they were published rather later than your timeframe.
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Jan 24, 2010 02:15
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Oberleutnant posted:I've been trying to remember the titles of some books I read when I was a kid (we're talking early nineties) about two brothers who roam around the world collecting rare and dangerous animals for their family's zoo/wildlife sanctuary. That's all I have to go on. Anybody have any ideas? The "Adventure" series by Willard Price. Amazon Adventure, Safari Adventure, Volcano Adventure, there was a whole lot of 'em, and I remember reading most of them as a kid.
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Mar 12, 2010 16:01
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regulargonzalez posted:Hm, that just reminded me of a series I read as a kid because my mom had read them when she was my age and wanted me to read them too. Wonder if it's the same series ... my memories of it are incredibly dim, except that I think they were written around that same time (1920s or 30s), and the kids ate a lot of biscuits (which my mom said were probably the British words for cookies). For some reason I'm thinking the series I have in mind was written by a woman, though. But same general premise - kids would either go back in time or to some fantasy land and have adventures. And it wasn't the Narnia series. Possibly E. Nesbit's stuff (Five Children and It, etc., which involves some time travel), but those would be set rather earlier (1890s or so). I don't remember many biscuits though. (Interestingly, Nesbit's The Enchanted Castle is referenced heavily in Half-Magic.)
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Jun 2, 2010 07:25
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Velvet Elvis posted:I have no idea when it was published, but I believe it read it in the mid to late 70s. Unfortunately I've never read it so I can't be sure, but this might be Philip E. High's Come, Hunt an Earthman judging from the description. That was published mid-70s, so the timing is right.
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Jun 7, 2010 19:28
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Panzerfaust posted:2) The means of quickly travelling through space in this universe is a sort of drive which makes the ship grow to an immense size in the direction of their destination, then shrink itself again, ending up at where the front of the ship had been when it was at its maximum size. Like if you hold a rubber band in your left hand, then stretch it between both your hands, and let the left side go. The band is small when it's hanging from your left hand, and small when it's hanging from your right hand, but it's huge when you stretch it between the two. I've never actually read the novel so I can't tell if your other points match, but that sounds like the "Bloater Drive" of Harry Harrison's Bill, The Galactic Hero.
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Jul 2, 2010 01:56
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Hughlander posted:What sucks about this one is it's a book I know I own, I just don't remember which it is... This is Pohl & Kornbluth's The Space Merchants, or (more likely from what I remember) its sequel, The Merchants' War - I forget exactly which one has that scene. It's a satire of consumerism, with advertising incredibly rampant and has the protagonist being physically addicted to a brand of cola at one point. The hiding place under the chicken is something to do with a resistance movement or secret society.
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Aug 16, 2010 15:47
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Strom Cuzewon posted:A request here from my father: Sci-fi book, author unknown. The title is something like "Unusual Engineering" or "Incredible Engineering" making any attempt at googling impossible. (A guess from the name, because I've never managed to find a copy of these): Possibly Colin Kapp's Unorthodox Engineers stories?
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Sep 19, 2010 16:59
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Detective Thompson posted:Another one, a novel this time. I can only recall it was about a pair of kids, brother and sister I believe, that run away from home. I feel like the people they ran away from might not have been their birth parents, but I'm not sure. Anyway, they end up living in an art museum for a bit, and meet some old lady that I associate an original DaVinci sketch with. I think there was a criminal or two that wanted to get the sketch or something inside the museum and might have asked the kids for help, but that last part might be/probably is wrong. Probably From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, a book I always wanted to read as a kid but could never find. God, I would have killed for something like Amazon or ABEbooks to be around back when I was 10.
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Dec 2, 2010 01:54
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It is indeed Gordon R. Dickson, Hour of the Horde. I read the novel but it seems it was expanded from his short story of the same name.
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Dec 7, 2010 04:18
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Solvency posted:Alright I have a sci-fi novel I read as a teen that though ally confused me, but I don't remember the name of it. Interstellar Pig by William Sleator.
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Dec 10, 2010 22:01
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Sunday Punch posted:I'm trying to find a short story I read, I think it was in an anthology of science fiction. The story was about these two people responsible for preventing the development of Artificial Intelligences before they became sentient as they would inevitably enslave humanity. I think they could travel in time or between dimensions or something in order to prevent the development of AIs. Anyway, the two characters eventually figure out that they've been brainwashed and are being used by an AI to wipe out any competition to itself. Just as they have this realisation their minds are adjusted and memories wiped by the AI to prevent their rebellion, the story ends with them heading off to destroy another proto-AI.
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Jan 5, 2011 16:11
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Agreeable Employer posted:Was browsing another forum when someone was looking for a book that I found had to have a pretty unusual premise. No one knew the title in that forum but it sounds kinda ridiculous. Here's the description: Joan Vinge (ex-wife of Vernor Vinge) had a trilogy (Psion, Catspaw, and Dreamfall) about a telepathic half-human, half-catlike-alien, though I think he was a boy not a girl. I've never read them so I don't know if the rest of the details fit. But when I think "SF + cat + psionics" that's what immediately comes to mind. Hobnob fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Jan 21, 2011 |
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Jan 21, 2011 20:45
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nuvan posted:Didn't that Outer Limits revival that was made in the mid '90s have a take-off of this, except the guy thought the sun had exploded or something?
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Jan 24, 2011 06:36
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SpoonmanUK posted:This was a children (possibly YA?) book about some regular kids who for some reason are friends with the prince of some tiny kingdom that is surrounded by mountains. They fly on a plane there and eat some chocolate that stops them feeling sick from the turbulence. After this I don't remember much of the plot, except at one point they end up in a boat going along an underground river. Anyone got any idea what this might be from my terrible explanation? Sounds very Enid Blyton, though of course that doesn't narrow it down very much. Possibly one of her "(Something) of Adventure" series?
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Apr 12, 2011 15:50
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The ISFDB might help you here, in that you can look at likely story titles and see what collection/magazine they were published in. Unfortunately I don't recognize either of those stories, though I've read a good chunk of Silverberg.
Hobnob fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Apr 13, 2011 |
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Apr 13, 2011 04:23
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Popular Human posted:My physics professor in college once mentioned to us that he read a really insightful but difficult to follow book once where the speed of light was fifty or sixty miles per hour and it changed human perception. I'm really interested in reading this book now - anyone ever heard of it? Sanford posted:There was a series of books (or possibly a single book with several stories) set in a near-future dystopian UK. They were very technology-heavy and virtual reality programs were inprinted on feathers. Androids gained sustenance by putting these feathers into a special 'mouth' on their stomachs. I think the feathers were blue, and turned brown once they were used. I think androids and humans could interbreed, and possibly dogs too? And... something about a DJ with a hand made of butterflies. I hope someone can help, this is bugging the hell out of me. Not sure about the details, but Jeff Noon's Vurt (and sequels) has the feathers-VR thing, though I don't remember any androids (but it's been a long while since I read them). Hobnob fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Jul 26, 2011 |
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Jul 26, 2011 19:50
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SolarFire2 posted:Okay. Sci Fi novel that I read in fourth grade or so, but it was probably written in the seventies. My parents were big fans of Niven, but I don't think it's one of his. I think one of Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium novels at least starts out like this. Possibly Birth of Fire? Pournelle was pretty tight with Niven so he's a likely prospect.
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Aug 18, 2011 06:02
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Sounds a lot like Alexei Panshin's novel Rite of Passage though obviously they're from a ship rather than a planet.
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Feb 17, 2012 20:13
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ClearAirTurbulence posted:There's also a short story I'd like to identify. It was published in Omni magazine in the 1980s. I can't remember any SF elements to it, and I'd like to look at it with adult eyes and see what I missed because it seemed pretty pointless. The main character was a man who I think was a reporter or writer. He's having an affair with a married woman who has a dog named "Bisquit". I remember the spelling because the narrator thought it was a pretentious name and thought less of the woman for naming it that. He takes the woman and her dog to a demonstration of napalm bombs, and for some reason Bisquit runs into the model village right before the bombs go off and get's burned alive. Funny you should mention Ellison, because there's a short story "The Bisquit Position" by Bernard Wolfe in Again, Dangerous Visions. Been a long time since I read ADV and I don't remember the story, but Library Thing has a "review" of it that's solely the words "napalm death dog" so it's probably the story you remember. Doesn't ever appear to have been published in Omni from what I can see, though.
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Mar 2, 2012 03:06
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Ramadu posted:I used to work in a library and I was flipping through some scifi book years ago adn the plot went something like this: Humans make it to Titan and find a crashed spaceship and then they activate its distress beacon and another one shows up and these aliens were from a destroyed planet and were horrified that humans came from the savage third planet. Does this ring a bell with anyone?
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Apr 24, 2012 04:14
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Lyon posted:I'm trying to remember the name of a Young Adult mystery novel that I read a long time ago. It involves 2-3 children investigating an eccentric millionaire and/or his missing fortune. Makes me think of the Alfred Hitchcock and Three Investigators series. I don't recall that specific plot, but I didn't read all of them, and they occasionally were a bit grim. Any other details you can remember? Failing that, maybe a Hardy Boys novel?
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Jul 1, 2012 18:39
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I'm looking for an SF story/novel, read it sometime in the early 90s but I suspect was written either 70s or early 80s. The background is that someone invented a method of remotely detonating fissile material so nobody can use nuclear bombs or reactors anymore. With oil running out, this has lead to a worldwide energy shortage (solar panels are at a premium) and there's been a number of Fuel and Water Wars (I believe they are referred to as that) for resources. That's the setting, I don't think the actual plot is really much to do to with that, though. At one point in the story a village/settlement is attacked when it's found to have working solar panels. It might be something about receiving an alien transmission though I may be conflating another story. It's definitely not Bob Shaw's Ground Zero Man, though it may be a British or Canadian author.
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Jul 8, 2012 21:14
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Zola posted:This sounds like Michael Kube-McDowell's Emprise, you aren't conflating. That's it! I recognize the Author's name and the other details match. Thanks very much.
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Jul 22, 2012 01:07
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