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Sanford posted:I have a couple, one sci-fi, one fantasy. I mean, this really sounds like Stephen King's 11/22/63, but that can't be it since it was a hella long book.
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Apr 30, 2015 00:10
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Sanford posted:I have a couple, one sci-fi, one fantasy. This also reminds me of a Tales from the Crypt episode wherein the house was cursed so that some guys beautiful wife would get younger the further upstairs she went in the house and older the further downstairs. But anyone coming into the house got older as they went upstairs. And that way no one could sleep with her... or something.
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Apr 30, 2015 01:00
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Sanford posted:I have a couple, one sci-fi, one fantasy. That last one sounds a bit like Deltora Quest, though I think the main bad guy was 'the shadow lord' or something.
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Apr 30, 2015 13:08
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Nope, nope and nope, but thanks for trying. I remembered another aspect of the sci-fi story - when he went back in time, there weren't any stairs, so he had to run up a little hill to travel forwards in time again. I think he was getting chased by cavemen and may have brought a spear or something back with him to the present. Oh and the fantasy story wasn't a kids book. Maybe YA but more likely it was aimed at adults.
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May 2, 2015 10:25
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I used to have a book and I think it was either Heinlein, Clark, or maybe Asimov. It was about a generational space ship heading for a new world to colonize and the descendents of the crew forgot they were on a ship until a kid found the bridge and started studying the manuals and stuff. Can anyone please help me re-find this book? edit: Figured it out, it was Orphans of the Sky by Heinlein.
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May 3, 2015 14:55
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I remember nothing else about this book except one of the guys was some sort of trust fund kid whose access to money would go away when he graduated, so he basically did everything up to the last paper required to become a doctor, a psychologist, an engineer etc. It's probably a lovely sci-fi or post-apocalyptic book because that's mostly what I read.
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May 3, 2015 19:56
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mirthdefect posted:I remember nothing else about this book except one of the guys was some sort of trust fund kid whose access to money would go away when he graduated, so he basically did everything up to the last paper required to become a doctor, a psychologist, an engineer etc. It's probably a lovely sci-fi or post-apocalyptic book because that's mostly what I read. Sounds like Roger Zelazny's novel Doorways in the Sand. The main character is living off a trust fund that stops once he graduates, so he keeps taking more and more college courses. Captain Equinox fucked around with this message at 20:09 on May 3, 2015 |
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May 3, 2015 20:07
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mirthdefect posted:I remember nothing else about this book except one of the guys was some sort of trust fund kid whose access to money would go away when he graduated, so he basically did everything up to the last paper required to become a doctor, a psychologist, an engineer etc. It's probably a lovely sci-fi or post-apocalyptic book because that's mostly what I read. Definitely Doorways in the Sand. It has nothing to do with anything post-apocalyptic and everything to do with amazing.
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May 3, 2015 22:30
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mirthdefect posted:I remember nothing else about this book except one of the guys was some sort of trust fund kid whose access to money would go away when he graduated, so he basically did everything up to the last paper required to become a doctor, a psychologist, an engineer etc. It's probably a lovely sci-fi or post-apocalyptic book because that's mostly what I read. van wilder: party liason
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May 4, 2015 00:15
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Sanford posted:
Elfstones of Shannara, or one of the many other trilogies in the series? I haven't read them in a while, so I'm mostly going off of contrived and gems.
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May 5, 2015 23:01
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22 Eargesplitten posted:Elfstones of Shannara, or one of the many other trilogies in the series? I haven't read them in a while, so I'm mostly going off of contrived and gems. I don't recall them having to hunt down the Elfstones in any of the books I read (it's been a while though). I looked through the Macguffin-related TVTropes pages, and the only thing that jumped out at me was Deltora Quest, though no mention of female Big Bads or knife nuts.
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May 5, 2015 23:28
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This is an odd one, I read sandkings by GRRM about 30 years ago and I must have read a similar story at about the same time, because I just re-read Sandkings and it wasn't what I remembered, if you see what I mean. The story I remembered was about a scientist who bred or made little sentient people in the basement of his lab, they lived 10(?) times as fast as people and so evolved and developed much faster, I think at the end they took over, but were nice to him because he was their God. Any ideas?
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May 6, 2015 14:07
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yaffle posted:This is an odd one, I read sandkings by GRRM about 30 years ago and I must have read a similar story at about the same time, because I just re-read Sandkings and it wasn't what I remembered, if you see what I mean. The story I remembered was about a scientist who bred or made little sentient people in the basement of his lab, they lived 10(?) times as fast as people and so evolved and developed much faster, I think at the end they took over, but were nice to him because he was their God. Any ideas?
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May 6, 2015 15:19
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Runcible Cat posted:Microcosmic God by Theodore Sturgeon? Argh, beat me by 30 seconds. I had to pull my Science Fiction Hall of Fame Vol. I to check the title.
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May 6, 2015 15:30
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Runcible Cat posted:Microcosmic God by Theodore Sturgeon? Yes, that's it  Thanks.
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May 6, 2015 17:41
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shadok posted:Argh, beat me by 30 seconds. I had to pull my Science Fiction Hall of Fame Vol. I to check the title.  (I remembered the creatures were called Neoterics and googled.)
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May 6, 2015 18:08
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Lprsti99 posted:I don't recall them having to hunt down the Elfstones in any of the books I read (it's been a while though). I looked through the Macguffin-related TVTropes pages, and the only thing that jumped out at me was Deltora Quest, though no mention of female Big Bads or knife nuts. Oh yeah, you're right. Long shot: The Seventh Tower? Fantasy setting, one of the two main characters is a warrior girl with knives, and the main villain for most of the series is a woman. They're also seeking magic stones. I can't find too much information about the book plots to make sure.
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May 7, 2015 05:07
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:I'm looking for a short story that I'm fairly sure is considered to be an example of magical realism. I'm think the author is Latin American, though I know it isn't Marquez and I don't think it's Cortazar, either. It deals with two (?) people in a house that slowly get forced into a smaller and smaller area of the home by something unseen. I think all they hear is noises, and the house is basically taken over by them, but the characters don't respond with fear or anything. They just kind of shrug and and accept that the rooms are now off-limits. I almost want to say it's a brother and sister living together, though it could be a husband and wife as well, and the woman knits. I realize this was posted ages ago and you've probably found it by now, but I didn't see it answered and was excited to finally find something I recognized. This is definitely Cortazar's "Casa tomada" or "House Taken Over." Fantastic story, thanks for reminding me of it. Here's a link to the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Taken_Over
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May 9, 2015 00:45
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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.
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May 12, 2015 22:12
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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. A google for "galvanized 'time travel' fiction" turns up a series called House Immortal by Devon Monk.
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May 12, 2015 22:50
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A year or two back, I read a book about a guy who could travel through dimensions. I think he was basically travelling to alternate Earths. Then, someone invented a device that allowed almost everyone to travel like this. A lot of the story followed a group of pioneers who were travelling through a lot of alternate Earths to found their own settlement. The rest was about the guy with the natural talent. He ended up on some kind of badass blimp with a woman and a mysterious benefactor, who I think used some kind of robot to express his physical presence. What did I read? Edit: vv Thaaaat's the one. Thank you. Centripetal Horse fucked around with this message at 12:14 on May 14, 2015 |
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May 14, 2015 10:21
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Sounds like The Long Earth by Pratchett and Baxter. Not enough Pratchett in that one.
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May 14, 2015 11:32
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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.
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May 14, 2015 13:51
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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. 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.
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May 14, 2015 14:32
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Selachian posted: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. That's the one! drat, those titles are a hit of uncut nostalgia. I could have sworn the copy of "COLAR: a tale of outer space" I read was called "The Secret of COLAR", though. Maybe I'm just getting it mixed up with The Secret of NIMH somewhere. E: found plot summaries for some of them and "My Trip to Alpha 1" was another book I was trying to remember that I didn't think was in the same series at all.
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May 14, 2015 15:02
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Picayune posted:2. At some point in the mid-eighties I was at my great-aunt's house and I was super bored, so I found this lame thriller and read it. It was about this boy who was totally a genius (and was an arrogant jerk because of it) and also I think he was super-rich and away at boarding school or something, and also he maybe had a bodyguard or a driver or something? Anyway, there was some super-sensitive information that only the boy and his father knew the code word to access, and then the boy gets word that his father has either died or disappeared, which means that he absolutely has to rush across the country to find the men his father was working for and pass the secret code word to them--only the Bad Men who were responsible for his father's death/disappearance also knew that the boy knew the secret, so they were after him, oh no. Daddy by Loup Durand. I remember liking it.
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May 14, 2015 22:38
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1969 baby posted:Daddy by Loup Durand. I remember liking it. Holy crap, that does sound like it! And I can get a copy off Amazon for a penny, bonus. Thank you!
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May 15, 2015 06:54
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I've been trying to think of the name of a book I lost in a recent move. I picked it up from Goodwill when I was a kid, and I remember it being a huge book. The cover had a dude with a sweet laser-gun and rad medallion. The book was set in the far future where humans had lots of variants, and I remember that the number of teeth a person had was a big deal, because having the right number meant they were "more pure" human or something like that. The story followed a guy as he grew up, joined what I think was some kinda space-faring alien circus/carnival and then fell into space piracy or something? I think that towards the end there's this arc about trying to find Earth, which has been cordoned off by aliens for centuries, and this dude breaks through the alien defenses and finds out that they're all automated and there's just one old alien left, who monologues before dying. I know that's not much to go off, but I read this book when I was like 12, and I'm just wondering what it was.
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May 16, 2015 15:42
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Serf posted:I've been trying to think of the name of a book I lost in a recent move. I picked it up from Goodwill when I was a kid, and I remember it being a huge book. The cover had a dude with a sweet laser-gun and rad medallion. The book was set in the far future where humans had lots of variants, and I remember that the number of teeth a person had was a big deal, because having the right number meant they were "more pure" human or something like that. The story followed a guy as he grew up, joined what I think was some kinda space-faring alien circus/carnival and then fell into space piracy or something? Some google searching led to Earthblood.
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May 16, 2015 19:59
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That does sound like earthblood, except I don't remember anything about the number of teeth thing. It's kind of weird how much less weight the people in the book and the attitude of the book gave to the lives of aliens than humans, though.
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May 17, 2015 02:54
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Sci-fi short story I read probably in the mid 90s in one of those "year's best" anthologies (though that particular edition may have been from decades past). A scientist had a wife who develops a terminal disease, he invents a kind of stasis field that allows her not to age while confined to a room while he continues to work on a cure for the disease. E: and another. Very sad story where a girl who is a stowaway on a spaceship is discovered by the pilot, but since the fuel for the mission is calculated down to the gram there will not be enough fuel to land with both of them on board. regulargonzalez fucked around with this message at 22:52 on May 24, 2015 |
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May 24, 2015 22:49
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regulargonzalez posted:Very sad story where a girl who is a stowaway on a spaceship is discovered by the pilot, but since the fuel for the mission is calculated down to the gram there will not be enough fuel to land with both of them on board. The Cold Equations
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May 24, 2015 23:03
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It was also on the 80s Twilight Zone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_fzDTyOb5Q
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May 25, 2015 00:16
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regulargonzalez posted:E: and another. Very sad story where a girl who is a stowaway on a spaceship is discovered by the pilot, but since the fuel for the mission is calculated down to the gram there will not be enough fuel to land with both of them on board. Commentary on The Cold Equations: http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2014/03/cory-doctorow-cold-equations-and-moral-hazard/
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May 28, 2015 01:57
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ulmont posted:Commentary on The Cold Equations: The Cold Equations is a tough read due to the subject matter and the outcome, but that essay is asinine. I like Cory Doctorow, but I don't know what he's thinking with that tripe. "She only has to die because that's how the author wrote the story." Well, no poo poo, Cory. That's how authoring works. The Cold Equations isn't an exploration of what happens in a dire situation where there are tons of viable alternatives. Also, the last paragraph in his commentary seems to contradict itself. He seems to be saying that Farnham's Freehold, and The Cold Equations, are about people who did not stick to their values and beliefs in times of crisis, when the exact opposite is true. Captain Barton values the lives of a continent full of sick people over the life of an individual, and sticks to that despite wanting desperately not to. Farnham, while a piece of poo poo, is pretty consistent in applying his stated values. I think that's the first time I've ever really disliked anything I've read from Cory Doctorow. I don't read his blogging or online essays often, though.
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May 28, 2015 16:04
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Centripetal Horse posted:Captain Barton values the lives of a continent full of sick people over the life of an individual, and sticks to that despite wanting desperately not to. Which makes hims less of a moral person then that kind of story implies.
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May 28, 2015 18:00
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tonberrytoby posted:But he values that continent full of sick people less then the effort he needs to check the ship before launching. He also values them less then the money he saved by using lower safety tolerances then would be required on modern bicycles. Also, the door that the stowaway used to enter wasn't even locked. There was just a single "Unauthorized Personnel Keep Out" sign, with no warning of what consequences there might be. The ship had less protection than a gas station bathroom. I like what the story was going for, but would have preferred if the backstory had been that everything had gone to poo poo and all of the safety precautions had failed, or been overridden because of an emergency, or something. As it is, it's the story of someone dying because of lovely engineering.
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May 28, 2015 18:28
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tonberrytoby posted:He also values them less then the money he saved by using lower safety tolerances then would be required on modern bicycles. Splicer fucked around with this message at 22:33 on May 29, 2015 |
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May 28, 2015 19:22
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It's a story. Sometimes the premise doesn't work in the real world. This is like people complaining that you could see the lasers in Star Wars when in actuality, there isn't generally enough particulate matter in space to see a laser (from what I understand, but if I'm wrong just pick any number of stupid things that people complain about, ships exploding with sound/flame/etc.) I realize that the difference is that the fuel tolerance is the central premise of the story, but it's just a story. It could've been a different story that had a more realistic premise (the ship speeding off to save the colony is attached to by a desperate lifepod of survivors, an alien virus eats up some of the fuel, a mechanical failure leaked some fuel, etc.) and it wouldn't be made better, except to nitpicky  types trying to attack a work of fiction for not being real.
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May 29, 2015 20:56
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Actually I just reread the story and I'm wrong, the fuel is limited because the ships are emergency couriers launched from larger ships and the amount of fuel the larger ships can carry is limited, so they only send out as much as is required. That said, Doctorow remembers the story even worse than I do:quote:‘‘The Cold Equations’’ never asks why the explorers were sent off-planet without a supply of vaccines. It never asks what failure of health-protocol led to the spread of the disease on the distant, unexplored world. Captain Monkey posted:It's a story. Sometimes the premise doesn't work in the real world. This is like people complaining that you could see the lasers in Star Wars when in actuality, there isn't generally enough particulate matter in space to see a laser (from what I understand, but if I'm wrong just pick any number of stupid things that people complain about, ships exploding with sound/flame/etc.) e: emphasis on "reasons". Splicer fucked around with this message at 23:16 on May 29, 2015 |
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May 29, 2015 22:54
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