Hoyt Hoyterson posted:

Orphans of the Sky. I think I read it after someone else posted it in this thread.

MrSlam posted:

My dad told me a short story he read once as a kid, and it may have been part of an anthology from the late 50's-late70's. It goes like this [parts I'm not sure about go in brackets]:

A very successful man takes [his best friend] out [somewhere] to tell him his deepest darkest secret. The successful man tells his friend he's an alien and explains a bunch of stuff about the world he came from. The man used to be a [king/revolutionary/criminal] or somesuch and he was overthrown. As part of his punishment he was exiled to earth and forced to live as a human and has spent his entire time here rebuilding his life. The friend then reveals that he's also an alien and he was sent there to spy on the man. And the moment he rebuilt his life and became happy again he'd be exiled to a new planet to start all over.

Now I'm beginning to wonder if it was a Twilight Zone episode or a ghost story he heard.

mcustic posted:

I remember a short story about an Arab, possibly a trade representative, sent to America in a dystopian future in which Islam rules the world. America is dirt poor, and there might've been a plot about a woman that sings in a bar, which the protagonist finds most unusual.

mcustic posted:

I remember a short story about an Arab, possibly a trade representative, sent to America in a dystopian future in which Islam rules the world. America is dirt poor, and there might've been a plot about a woman that sings in a bar, which the protagonist finds most unusual.

House Louse posted:

Is it "Seven American Nights" by Gene Wolfe?

quote:

"It's about a little girl who finds a fairy circle in the woods and a book. She is able to see the fairies fly around. Later you learn that it is because she is given tiny amounts of foxglove. What is really going on is a creepy old man is abducting girls..."

angelicism posted:

I want to say there was something about some magical hair/cord being braided to use as a harness for Fenrir to tame him.

angelicism posted:

2:

YA historical fiction set in ancient greece or rome (there was worship of either the greek or roman gods, I can't remember) where the main character is a young rich boy who I think is the son of a merchant. The boy has a personal slave who he's grown up with and studied with and considers a best friend. A key point is that he mentioned only having hit the slave twice, once for beating him in a pankration match and another for something in their studies.

The father takes the boy on a journey and the boat gets attacked by pirates(?) and the boy gets captured. He manages to smuggle some pearls that he owns into like a rag hoping he gets to later buy his freedom. He gets bought as a slave, and I forget what happens except he eventually makes it back home to his mother and sisters and his personal slave, who was the only one left (the rest ran away or were sold?). The boy manumits the slave, the slave hits him twice to make up for the times when they were kids, and they make up and that's the end of the book.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

computer parts posted:

A science fiction story about Earth (and maybe some colonies?) who meet this giant alien empire and fear they're going to be conquered by it. I'm pretty sure it's a short story. In the end it turns out that the alien empire hasn't had real resistance in ages while the humans fought between each other a bunch so humanity has better weapons and repelled/beat them.

There's a specific analogy to the Persian War in there, where the alien empire is Persia and Earth and co are the Greek city states.

e: I've apparently asked this before, so it's not Homo Sol by Asimov.

Lemniscate Blue posted:

The other one that gets suggested when this type of story gets asked about is "The Road Not Taken" by Harry Turtledove.

AlMac posted:

I read this enjoyable piece of poo poo in an afternoon years and years ago and would love to find it again. I remember that the cover had a really garish picture of the insecty monster hatching from a chrysalis.

MrSlam posted:

My Google-Fu is weak, but that story sounds really interesting.

AlMac posted:

This has been bugging me for a while so hopefully someone can help.

It's a schlocky 80s (or maybe 70s) style pulp horror novel. I initially thought that I remembered it being called "The Room" but Google leads me nowhere with that title. It was about a family who move into a big house in the country and the kids find an egg in an airpocket cave under a lake on the house grounds.

The egg hatches and a weird monster insect thing emerges. The details are vague but the creature makes the family bring victims for it to eat and it gets bigger and bigger. I remember that one of the boys is super into doing the creature's bidding, more so than the rest of the family.

The house has a lead-lined room (for some reason) and lead blocks the creature's controlling powers so it won't go in there. At the end the teenage son holds a party for all his horrible school friends in that room. The monster goes on the rampage in the room, drawn by all the people,and the family lock it in there.

I read this enjoyable piece of poo poo in an afternoon years and years ago and would love to find it again. I remember that the cover had a really garish picture of the insecty monster hatching from a chrysalis.

Anyone recognise the description? Thanks!

Bandiet posted:

You were right, it is called The Room. Bonus disgusting cover:

THE ROOM's back cover blurb posted:

They seemed incredibly lucky. Bob Briar, single father of Harvest and Bounty, two nubile teenage girls, and Rebecca Halifax, divorced mother of two virile teenage boys, Ron and Jamie

[...]

Once the perverted urges passed them

computer parts posted:

A science fiction story about Earth (and maybe some colonies?) who meet this giant alien empire and fear they're going to be conquered by it. I'm pretty sure it's a short story. In the end it turns out that the alien empire hasn't had real resistance in ages while the humans fought between each other a bunch so humanity has better weapons and repelled/beat them.

There's a specific analogy to the Persian War in there, where the alien empire is Persia and Earth and co are the Greek city states.

e: I've apparently asked this before, so it's not Homo Sol by Asimov.

Bandiet posted:

You were right, it is called The Room.

Drakhoran posted:

If you think it could be an Asimov story, that sounds kind of like In a Good Cause—.

quote:

"But our very disagreements are our strength! Your Federalist party used to speak of ancient Greece a great deal once. Do you remember? But your people always missed the point. To be sure, Greece could never unite and was therefore ultimately conquered. But even in her state of disunion, she defeated the gigantic Persian Empire. Why?

"I would like to point out that the Greek city-states over centuries had fought with one another. They were forced to specialize in things military to an extent far beyond the Persians. Even the Persians themselves realized that, and in the last century of their imperial existence, Greek mercenaries formed the most valued parts of their armies.

"The same might be said of the small nation-states of preatomic Europe, which in centuries of fighting had advanced their military arts to the point where they could overcome and hold for two hundred years the comparatively gigantic empires of Asia.

AnonSpore posted:

Okay

RC and Moon Pie posted:

One of the chapters was "The Weatherhill Boys Go Exploring" which is probably misspelled.

Poldarn posted:

I have a vague recollection about a story or novel where a gun is built into someone, probably against his will. He can fire it but it's very painful and if he uses it too much it might kill him? This might have been a comic book, I really can't remember.

Phy posted:

SF heist story about a guy who designs impossible-to-steal-from vaults getting roped into stealing from his own latest creation, a labyrinth (maybe on the moon), complete with a silent murderous robot as minotaur. I think I remember the book being clear about the difference between a labyrinth and a maze, and having something to do with pattern recognition, like there's a part where the labyrinth will kill him if he doesn't type or walk with the exact rhythm that his former client would.

e: googling "moon labyrinth heist" and "labyrinth minotaur heist" was getting me nowhere. It's not The Maze Runner or the Doctor Who episode with a minotaur.

Centripetal Horse posted:

Can the mods send this thread on a tour of GBS, or something? I am sure there are enough people on these forums that this thread needn't go three weeks between replies, but most of them probably don't know it exists.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

This is a decent idea and I'm definitely interested in ideas to help this subforum get more traffic.

My concern with bouncing this thread to GBS is that it might just get spammed full of shitposts.

Splicer posted:

Tour the other subforums, chickencheese style.

Phy posted:

SF heist story about a guy who designs impossible-to-steal-from vaults getting roped into stealing from his own latest creation, a labyrinth (maybe on the moon), complete with a silent murderous robot as minotaur. I think I remember the book being clear about the difference between a labyrinth and a maze, and having something to do with pattern recognition, like there's a part where the labyrinth will kill him if he doesn't type or walk with the exact rhythm that his former client would.

e: googling "moon labyrinth heist" and "labyrinth minotaur heist" was getting me nowhere. It's not The Maze Runner or the Doctor Who episode with a minotaur.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

My concern with bouncing this thread to GBS is that it might just get spammed full of shitposts.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

It's on, though I went with the book recommendation thread instead because I thought it might be a little more generally applicable. Everyone please chip in with rec's for all the poor bookless fools out there

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3147139

ToxicFrog posted:

I have no idea what book this is, but it sounds rad as hell.

mania posted:

Did you post about this in the SciFi/Fantasy thread?