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I'm trying to find a sort of "Time Traveller's Guide/Handbook" that I checked out of a library sometime in the late 90s-early 2000s. Tried searching for it, but only came up with newer, different books. The main things I remember about it, is that in order to time travel, you had to apply for a "Time Card" as a license, you could only travel to the past, and there was a foreword by H.G. Wells. It went into great detail about the rules and regulations of time travel. Also, it had a section on "time immigration" with a love song written for someone who fell in love with a person from the past. EDIT: I think I found it. It was The Complete Time Traveler: A Tourist's Guide to the Fourth Dimension. Botman fucked around with this message at 08:29 on Aug 27, 2017 |
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Aug 13, 2017 07:50
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This one might be hard, I think. This was a short story in one of those small sci-fi rags like Asimov's or maybe Analog. It would have been somewhere around 10 years ago, give or take a few. The story was about a woman who was on a mission to (I think) set up or maintain gates for ftl jumps. You had to set up a gate first, only after that could you actually us it. Anyway, her and her buddy make their jump, and he almost immediately dies due to some mishap. As she struggles to continue the mission it slowly becomes clear to her that she is caught in the pull of a black hole, and there is no way out. So she sends off a message to her family and self destructs the ship to save earth from opening a gate so close to a singularity. The story ends with her parents getting the message. Can anyone help me here? I loved that story and I haven't thought of it in years.
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Aug 14, 2017 00:32
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I read a horror(?) short story (??) in like 1995 that I think was part of an anthology, but every part of that sentence may be wrong for all I know. i've tried to google this with different phrases and every time google tells me it's Clive Barker and then directs me to a Clive Barker story that is not it (although they are always interesting). The main thrust of the story is that the characters are traveling through some trap-filled wreck of an old city, a place that, now that i'm older, sounds like it was probably based on Kowloon or something. The only other thing I remember, aside from how it concentrated on the deadliness of these old dormant traps, is that I think the characters ended up loving each other over, possibly due to one character having previously slept with the narrator's wife or something like that. I mostly just remember the surprising deadliness of rusty old traps killing people, kind of like a creaky janky Cube except very sprawling and in short-story form
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Aug 19, 2017 11:58
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Hi, I'm trying to remember the author or the name of a fantasy series about a people who live by the sea and wear masks. The MC is a son of one of the noble houses. Some poo poo happens to their society and they have to leave the shore. I can't remember if the masks are just used in rituals or generally. And I think the MC might be gay but can't be sure. 3 or 4 books. edit: it's Ricardo Pinto's fantasy series Doktor Avalanche fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Aug 22, 2017 |
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Aug 20, 2017 23:08
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This is probably the wrong thread for it, but are there any good books from the point of view of people or a society that are truly immortal and have more than 40 or 50 thousand years of experience? I know there's things like Chronicles of Amber by Zelazny, but for all their agelessness it feels like they've only lived for 5-10k years. (Except maybe Benedict.) There's the various Warhammer 40k or DC Vandal Savage characters but I'm interested in something about the fantasy/sci-fi society that long long term immortals would create. Only other one I can think of is Mutineer's Moon by David Weber but a main point of that was that the people who lived for 50k years were in a totally static society and were afraid to change anything.
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Aug 21, 2017 18:03
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Malazen empire? The main novels are mostly from the perspective of normal humans but some characters are hella long livers.
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Aug 21, 2017 18:29
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Hughlander posted:This is probably the wrong thread for it, but are there any good books from the point of view of people or a society that are truly immortal and have more than 40 or 50 thousand years of experience? I know there's things like Chronicles of Amber by Zelazny, but for all their agelessness it feels like they've only lived for 5-10k years. (Except maybe Benedict.) There's the various Warhammer 40k or DC Vandal Savage characters but I'm interested in something about the fantasy/sci-fi society that long long term immortals would create. Reynolds' House of Suns
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Aug 21, 2017 18:48
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CaptainJuan posted:Malazen empire? The main novels are mostly from the perspective of normal humans but some characters are hella long livers. Fwiw, Anomander Rake - one of the recurring characters - is apparently 300 thousand years old.
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Aug 21, 2017 23:37
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Hughlander posted:This is probably the wrong thread for it, but are there any good books from the point of view of people or a society that are truly immortal and have more than 40 or 50 thousand years of experience? I know there's things like Chronicles of Amber by Zelazny, but for all their agelessness it feels like they've only lived for 5-10k years. (Except maybe Benedict.) There's the various Warhammer 40k or DC Vandal Savage characters but I'm interested in something about the fantasy/sci-fi society that long long term immortals would create. Julian May's saga of the exiles has some stupidly long-lived characters.
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Aug 22, 2017 01:48
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Immortal by Gene Doucette. The main character has been around for eons. Literally from cave dwelling to now. It's an urban fantasy kind of series. Fun though. No special powers or anything, just hasn't died yet and it's immune to disease and poison I think. There a few novellas as well that cover stuff from his history like Highlander with the flashbacks, and they also do a few in the novels as well.
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Aug 22, 2017 05:31
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Really vague but I remember a scary kid's story about some kids ceremoniously replacing one of the parents with something (a doll maybe?) and it comes to life.
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Aug 29, 2017 02:24
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Dude gets teleported or something into a fantasy/primitive realm, heavily "island paradise" tribally themed. Dude gets a native wife, and then later on travels to another tribe where he cheats on his wife with a girl who can't say his name right and calls him "Rob-Rrt" or something. There were also these weird butterflies that were attracted by fruit juice that would drip a nasty acid-poison, the main character is badly wounded by one early on and kills the badguy at the end of the book with a swarm of them
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Aug 29, 2017 02:35
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RentACop posted:Dude gets teleported or something into a fantasy/primitive realm, heavily "island paradise" tribally themed. Dude gets a native wife, and then later on travels to another tribe where he cheats on his wife with a girl who can't say his name right and calls him "Rob-Rrt" or something. There were also these weird butterflies that were attracted by fruit juice that would drip a nasty acid-poison, the main character is badly wounded by one early on and kills the badguy at the end of the book with a swarm of them Might be "The Transall Saga" by Gary Paulson?
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Aug 31, 2017 21:41
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Rough Lobster posted:Really vague but I remember a scary kid's story about some kids ceremoniously replacing one of the parents with something (a doll maybe?) and it comes to life. Lucy Lane Clifford's The New Mother? vvv Yay! vvv Runcible Cat fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Sep 1, 2017 |
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Aug 31, 2017 22:28
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Runcible Cat posted:Lucy Lane Clifford's The New Mother? Yeah that was it, thanks.
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Sep 1, 2017 12:06
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A book that appears to be set in medieval times but is revealed at the end to be contemporary but isolated. It might have been in South America and there might have been references to a city of glass that was assumed to be heaven but turned out to be just a modern city. Sorry it's so vague; half a memory from 15 years ago when I was reading 3-4 novels a weeks so some or all of the scant details I've got may be wrong.
Sanford fucked around with this message at 14:03 on Sep 7, 2017 |
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Sep 7, 2017 13:54
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Book writen in New York in the 1970s, by 2 gay men, about a female opera singer - it's a bit vague it was something that David Markson made passing reference to in one of his books (I think by dropping the name of that opera singer, who's possibly eponymous anyway) that I marked down then lost the note on.
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Sep 7, 2017 21:37
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Sanford posted:A book that appears to be set in medieval times but is revealed at the end to be contemporary but isolated. It might have been in South America and there might have been references to a city of glass that was assumed to be heaven but turned out to be just a modern city. Sorry it's so vague; half a memory from 15 years ago when I was reading 3-4 novels a weeks so some or all of the scant details I've got may be wrong. This one may be Running out of time by Margaret Peterson Haddix. Mr. Squishy posted:Book writen in New York in the 1970s, by 2 gay men, about a female opera singer - it's a bit vague it was something that David Markson made passing reference to in one of his books (I think by dropping the name of that opera singer, who's possibly eponymous anyway) that I marked down then lost the note on. Maria Callas is one of the main gay icons of the opera and referenced repeatedly in Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress. I can't find the actual quote, but if you have access to the book some lovely person on the internet has helpfully indexed the references in the book; Callas is mentioned on pages 26, 104–6, 108, 110–2, 116, 136, 175 and 207. I would hazard a guess that the book referred to is Callas: The art and the life by John Ardoin and Gerald Fitzgerald. Easy-Bake Coven fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Sep 8, 2017 |
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Sep 8, 2017 16:14
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I am trying to find the title and author of what was probably an SF short story that I read in the early 1970s, so it would have been written probably long before that. All I can remember about the story is near the beginning the protagonist is taking biology (perhaps as a youth??) and they are dissecting a frog. The story is written in first person, so everything is from the protagonist's viewpoint in in his voice (male). The part I remember is that after starting the dissection, the frog's abdomen has been cut open, and all the protagonist can see is "goo". No organs can be defined at all, no matter what. He asks the teacher and as soon as the teacher points out each organ, suddenly they can be clearly seen in the frog. The story carries on from there and I recall the theme being something about reality being rather fluid and requiring a guide before certain things could be seen clearly. Sorry - but that's all I recall.
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Sep 9, 2017 22:43
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calicokitty posted:Maria Callas is one of the main gay icons of the opera and referenced repeatedly in Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress. I can't find the actual quote, but if you have access to the book some lovely person on the internet has helpfully indexed the references in the book; Callas is mentioned on pages 26, 104–6, 108, 110–2, 116, 136, 175 and 207. Thanks for trying but it was a fictional diva I was looking for, and after going through Reader's Block backwards and forwards searching every name that wasn't attached to an anecdote, I've discovered it was Mawrdew Czgowchwz by James McCourt. I don't think anybody could have got it from what I said though, - i thought the book had two authors because wikipedia makes such a big deal of McCourt living with Vincent Virga.
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Sep 9, 2017 23:54
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A kid thinks that his big brother's girlfriend is a vampire who is sucking the life out of him; turns out she's nursing him as he's dying of radiation poisoning, as he'd come in contact with fallout after the bombing either of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Either a short story or a novel, I don't remember.
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Sep 10, 2017 04:01
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Sending out another call to ID this story:Professor Shark posted:I'm looking for a short story that I read in Grade 8 (2000-2001) that I was telling students about today, but have been unable to find online. Resident Idiot posted:I think it's older than that, because I feel I read it in the mid 1980s. I *thought* it might have been in 100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories, because I was reading a ton of those Asimov/Greenberg/Olander collections around that time, but I had a quick look and couldn't see it.
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Sep 11, 2017 10:30
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bloody illegal aliens nickin' our pollotta innit
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Sep 11, 2017 12:27
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I am looking for a gamebook/CYOA where the premise was that you had to enter the world of the Fae as one of two characters. A warrior looking to find a cure for his king or a bard looking for a legendary instrument. The game had stats, various problem-solving, and different branches depending on what character you were playing. The game was renown for following the myths of the Fae where if you ate anything inside that realm, it was a game over, even if you were starting out at the 2nd or 3rd entry. Another thing I remember about the book that it was larger than most CYOAs/Gamebooks but there were less pages. I don't know why I suddenly thought of the book but it has been annoying me and I havn't been able to find the name of it yet.
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Sep 14, 2017 14:55
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AmyL posted:I am looking for a gamebook/CYOA where the premise was that you had to enter the world of the Fae as one of two characters. A warrior looking to find a cure for his king or a bard looking for a legendary instrument. The game had stats, various problem-solving, and different branches depending on what character you were playing. The game was renown for following the myths of the Fae where if you ate anything inside that realm, it was a game over, even if you were starting out at the 2nd or 3rd entry. After a bit of poking around on Demian's Gamebook Web Page, I'm pretty sure you're thinking of Faerie Mound of Dragonkind. Selachian fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Sep 14, 2017 |
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Sep 14, 2017 17:10
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On the off chance that's not it there is also a series of books called "Wizards warriors and you" that closely matches your description.
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Sep 19, 2017 23:33
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Professor Shark posted:Sending out another call to ID this story: I remember reading a story a lot like this called In the Hereafter Hilton. It's a really shorty story though, I thought it was more than 3 pages but this might be it: http://www.williamflew.com/omni24b.html
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Sep 22, 2017 15:31
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After several years, I was finally able to identify a book from my childhood. I had asked about it in the thread a couple of times. I read this thing a bunch. It has a copyright date of 1951 
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Sep 24, 2017 01:20
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du -hast posted:I remember reading a story a lot like this called In the Hereafter Hilton. It's a really shorty story though, I thought it was more than 3 pages but this might be it: http://www.williamflew.com/omni24b.html Thanks - if it helps that 's exactly the one I was remembering. I read a lot of Omni back in the day.
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Sep 24, 2017 05:37
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RC and Moon Pie posted:After several years, I was finally able to identify a book from my childhood. I had asked about it in the thread a couple of times. Wow that's great, I would love to read that. Do you actually have a copy? Take a pic of the page with the biggest wrong fact!
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Sep 25, 2017 20:45
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Sanford posted:Wow that's great, I would love to read that. Do you actually have a copy? Take a pic of the page with the biggest wrong fact! I've ordered a copy. As horrible as it probably is, it got me interested in archeology. And yes, I'm making sure the copy I order has the dust jacket.
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Sep 26, 2017 01:41
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du -hast posted:I remember reading a story a lot like this called In the Hereafter Hilton. It's a really shorty story though, I thought it was more than 3 pages but this might be it: http://www.williamflew.com/omni24b.html I actually already posted on a sci-fi site and found out that it is In the Hereafter Hilton, but thanks!
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Sep 29, 2017 16:24
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There's this children's book I've been trying to find for more than a decade now. It's a story about a tiny invisible dude who finds a pair of slippers and goes on a walk through town, much to the delight of the townspeople. He eventually loses the slippers and realizing people weren't paying attention to him. It ends with a joke about frogs knowing the future, but only reveal it after events they predict have already happen. I've googled ever combination of invisible, tiny, and slippers I can think of, as well as frogs and future for good measure.
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Oct 5, 2017 06:35
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I've been searching for a certain short story for ages now. Google so far has failed me, probably because the concept behind that story is too outlandish to make sense to its servers or something. Here it goes: After the states bordering the Mediterranean (mostly Italy and Spain, though I probably just can't remember stereotypes from other countries anymore after all that time) develop a type of FTL-drive based on some strange property of citrus fruits, they conquer the entire universe. The story then has unknown beings from another reality invade, slowly making their way to Earth, capital of the universe. The rest of the story then makes fun of the way Space-Itapain conducts the war (I think this is meant as a parody on the way Italy conducted WWI, because hot drat do they waste all those poor aliens as cannon fodder) and inevitably, the unknown beings make the entire universe go silent. The story ends when they reach the solar system. I've read this story in an old anthology I had borrowed that one time from my local library. In the ca. 20 years since then, I never was able to find the story or said anthology again.
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Oct 5, 2017 11:42
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I was at a used book sale over the weekend and came across a book with this inscribed. I actually know what the book is, but thought it would be fun to see if anyone can guess it based on this:
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Oct 9, 2017 01:19
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The Grey posted:I was at a used book sale over the weekend and came across a book with this inscribed. I actually know what the book is, but thought it would be fun to see if anyone can guess it based on this: Octavia Butler!, I thought, before reading the bit where it's a dude who knows kung fu. Uh. ... Samuel R Delany does not know kung fu. drat. 
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Oct 9, 2017 01:29
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Steven Barnes practices a whole shitload of martial arts, I'd be surprised if some variety of Kung Fu wasn't among them.
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Oct 9, 2017 02:07
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Lemniscate Blue posted:Steven Barnes practices a whole shitload of martial arts, I'd be surprised if some variety of Kung Fu wasn't among them. Yeah, this is probably Stephen Barnes. The one where the MC is a null-gee boxer, maybe?
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Oct 9, 2017 02:18
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Who then is the Mike who did the inscription? There is an 83 year old British/Canadian Michael Barnes, which fits with the handwriting, but he seems to do mostly non-fiction stuff about Canada going by his wiki.
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Oct 9, 2017 02:23
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Not sure there has to be a connection? Probably just some dude named Mike who thinks Art might be interested in Barnes' work for the reasons stated. Probably Mike is an older fellow because you rarely see anyone who uses "Afro-American" anymore.
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Oct 9, 2017 02:29
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