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I think the best take on "Door to hell" I have read was where the CERN experiment ended up opening a dimensional rift and let demons and poo poo loose, but YOU COULDN'T SEE THEM ON CAMERA cause... reasons I guess, so the inspection/spec ops team that goes in to investigate blows the gently caress outta a lot of them but the camera playback just shows em going wild and blowing poo poo up for no reason. I think it was supposed to start a new series but the author didn't do any more of them 
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Jan 19, 2021 04:44
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I’m gonna post this in the SFF thread too, but does anybody remember a book with a magic system that had practitioners learning foreign languages as a kind of “magical circuit breaker” in their minds? Like it could be Klingon or French or Old Estruscan, but the one step remove from being their native language kept the magical energies from blasting their minds apart? I need to know if I’m imagining this or if it’s real so I can use it in something if I made it up.
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Jan 22, 2021 07:25
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navyjack posted:I’m gonna post this in the SFF thread too, but does anybody remember a book with a magic system that had practitioners learning foreign languages as a kind of “magical circuit breaker” in their minds? Like it could be Klingon or French or Old Estruscan, but the one step remove from being their native language kept the magical energies from blasting their minds apart? I need to know if I’m imagining this or if it’s real so I can use it in something if I made it up. Dresden Files has this going on.
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Jan 22, 2021 08:10
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RCarr posted:I’m looking for a book I read a long time ago. It’s about cave explorers that find a giant door deep underground. The climax of the story is that it ends up being a door to hell RCarr posted:I don’t think either of these are it. I specifically remember a part where they use sonar on the door and determine the chamber beyond has no end. The Door in the Dragon's Throat by Frank E. Peretti? I had a bunch of those "Cooper Kids Adventures" books as a kid and didn't realize they were meant to be Christian propaganda until much later.
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Jan 22, 2021 13:56
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ToxicFrog posted:The Door in the Dragon's Throat by Frank E. Peretti? I think this is it. I must have read this in middle school or so, I didn’t even remember any Christian overtones. Thanks!
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Jan 22, 2021 14:13
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navyjack posted:I’m gonna post this in the SFF thread too, but does anybody remember a book with a magic system that had practitioners learning foreign languages as a kind of “magical circuit breaker” in their minds? Like it could be Klingon or French or Old Estruscan, but the one step remove from being their native language kept the magical energies from blasting their minds apart? I need to know if I’m imagining this or if it’s real so I can use it in something if I made it up. Either this is real or we're both imagining. However, I haven't read Dresden so it's probably Bakker, I guess? Let us know which one it was.
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Jan 22, 2021 14:19
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Either this is real or we're both imagining. However, I haven't read Dresden so it's probably Bakker, I guess? Let us know which one it was. Or Ben Aaronovitch's Peter Grant/Rivers of London series? Magicians there usually use Latin, but there's a lot of "be real careful using magic or it'll swiss-cheese your brain" in it.
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Jan 22, 2021 14:51
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Either this is real or we're both imagining. However, I haven't read Dresden so it's probably Bakker, I guess? Let us know which one it was. Thanks for responses. I’ve never read Bakker, so that can’t be it. Someone suggested that I’m misremembering Iron Druid and I think they’re right, so I’m going to try to track down the relevant bit.
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Jan 22, 2021 19:14
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I've been trying to find this one sci-fi short story. I read it online. It was about this dude who was an officer in a space imperium, who was a huge gently caress-up and lost every battle. Except his older brother was a military genius who was leading a campaign to reunite the systems or whatever, but when he came back he tried to take over the empire. Younger brother beat the older brother by hi-jacking his tactical displays to showcase various failures, and had one fleet focus entirely on killing older brother's fighter pilot girlfriend. Older brother committed suicide in despair, and younger was like, "guess he never learned to fail  "
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Jan 24, 2021 00:59
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Mazerunner posted:I've been trying to find this one sci-fi short story. I read it online. Firstborn, by Brandon Sanderson http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Sanderson_Firstborn.html
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Jan 24, 2021 01:23
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GotLag posted:Firstborn, by Brandon Sanderson Thank you!
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Jan 24, 2021 01:35
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RCarr posted:I think this is it. I must have read this in middle school or so, I didn’t even remember any Christian overtones. Thanks! I had four of those books as a kid, and while I don't remember a lot of the details, I do remember that every book hits most or all of these plot beats: - the family travels somewhere where the dominant religion is not Christianity and the culture is generally hostile to Christians - they are saved from certain death by sheer chance, which they attribute to divine providence - they pray for strength in the face of adversity and are refreshed and encouraged thereby - one of the locals converts to Christianity after meeting them (or reveals themselves to have been secretly Christian all along) and helps them in their quest - the main hazard or antagonist(s) of the book turns out either personify (or, in the case of Door, actually be) something bad from the Bible - the antagonists are undone by their own moral failings while the Cooper family live to adventure another day by following their faith
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Jan 24, 2021 05:01
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Hi all. I just learned about this thread so I'm hoping you can help me take out a brain splinter but my memory's shot... The book in question is science fiction, Soviet (or Soviet-adjacent) in origin, and I believe is part of a series. The story is set in huge structures/cities floating or orbiting in space and that's about the most memorable aspect of it. I don't think there are any aliens or space monsters, it's more of a "man against nature" kind of thing. Dealing with disasters, technical problems, exploration. I also don't recall any overtly Soviet ideology, but I was about 12 and living in  so who knows whether it just went over my head.It dates to at least the early 90s, but it's probably a solid couple of decades older than that. It's not be Stanislaw Lem, I'm pretty sure of that 
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Jan 24, 2021 06:27
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Trabant posted:Hi all. I just learned about this thread so I'm hoping you can help me take out a brain splinter but my memory's shot... If it wasn't for the Soviet aspect, I'd say you were describing James Blish's Cities in Flight series.
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Jan 24, 2021 07:02
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. Posting this to find an old post because I forgot it again.
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Jan 24, 2021 08:18
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Selachian posted:If it wasn't for the Soviet aspect, I'd say you were describing James Blish's Cities in Flight series. Same.
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Jan 25, 2021 08:19
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You know... I think you two might be right! Reading the wiki entry, these parts:quote:In this future, the Soviet Union still exists and the Cold War is still ongoing. As a result, Western civil liberties have been eroded more and more, until society eventually resembles the Soviet model. make me think my child brain (and eventual passage of time addling said brain) interpreted that as actually being written by a Soviet writer. The synopsis of the first two books is also very much along the lines of what I remember: less aliens/robots and more adventure/intrigue. So I'm absolutely taking Cities in Flight to be the thing which has been stuck in my brain for 30 years. It's a. freaking. relief. Thank you!
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Jan 25, 2021 14:46
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I've been thinking about this randomly for years, and while it doesn't really bother me and I don't even think it was that good I wouldn't mind putting a name to this. Sometime in the 80s (probably) I read some techno thriller about a deep sea oil drilling operation, coporate espionage and sabotage. The hook of the book, as I remember it, was the technology they used to get to the oil, which was building a massive shaft/tube right down the ocean floor, hundreds(?) of meters in diameter and kilometers deep. I don't remember what the reasoning behind that was but I remember being fascinated by the discussions on the logistics and physics of building such a thing. I pulled a lot of those kinds of books from my dads bookshelf back then, big fan of airport fiction that man 
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Jan 25, 2021 16:15
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Here’s the vaguest of vague memories. - kids novel, I got it about 1990 and it was, I think, new - book was a yellowish colour, like old fashioned writing paper - on the front was a blue & yellow macaw sitting on a stack of boxes tied up with string - I think it was about travelling or a special journey to possibly South America - probably set in a time when “explorer” was a good job choice for a strapping British lad - map or a globe featured prominently, maybe pictured on the cover or first few pages - it wasn’t The Talking Parcel, I don’t think it was that fantastical - it was rubbish. First book I ever read that I didn’t finish, and a real revelation that I needed to be selective and couldn’t read every book, and had the freedom to stop reading one I wasn’t enjoying. That’s the only reason I still remember it! Edit: the book might have been named after the parrot and the story, or at least part of it, may well have been told by the parrot. Sanford fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Jan 25, 2021 |
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Jan 25, 2021 16:47
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Eudora Welty's (?!) The Shoe Bird seems to fit. It doesn't look like it involves travel at all, but the cover matches the description, and, evidently, so does the quality.quote:The Shoe Bird is a 1964 children's novel by Southern writer Eudora Welty. The novel tells the story of a Parrot in a shoe store, as he talks to other birds about shoes.[1] Welty, who had never written any children's literature before, wrote it to satisfy a contractual obligation with her publisher Harcourt Brace and to pay for a new roof on her house.[2]
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Jan 25, 2021 17:46
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Hah good shout but I don’t think that’s it. A more cartoony cover and the more I think of it, the more I think there was a map or globe in the cover art. Good effort though, now I want to read The Shoe Bird.
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Jan 25, 2021 17:59
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Trying to find a novel/novella length sci-fi story that I read years ago on a forum. I think it might have been Stardestroyer.net? Gist of the story is a near future sci-fi interplanetary war in the Solar System. Ends with the Earth being glassed and the survivors fleeing on a colony ship. Very Starlancer vibe. Specific details I recall were the Europeans being nicknamed "Yurps" and one of the main characters dying of radiation poisoning at the end.
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Jan 26, 2021 20:42
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This was i think a polish book translated to English. I think it took place in the late 60s early 70s and some guy gets at this goverment facility that is FULL of spies. Everyone is spying on everyone there for eachother and their bosses but also for their personal enemies and blah blah. The main character is understandably completely confused as he's just bounced around this place. help
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Jan 27, 2021 22:22
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verbal enema posted:This was i think a polish book translated to English. I think it took place in the late 60s early 70s and some guy gets at this goverment facility that is FULL of spies. Everyone is spying on everyone there for eachother and their bosses but also for their personal enemies and blah blah. The main character is understandably completely confused as he's just bounced around this place. It's Lem. Memoirs Found in a Bathtub
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Jan 27, 2021 22:30
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:It's Lem. Memoirs Found in a Bathtub AHHHHHH YES thanks goon
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Jan 27, 2021 23:25
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I'm looking for a YA Christian Scifi book I read around 2000. It was set after a nuclear war with a kid or kids waking up form some sort of cryogenic sleep. Hes helped by a group of mutants, I think there was a giant and a pair of dwarf twins that had to stay physically close together or else they'd get sick and die. They ended up going to some desert mountains with maybe bird people. Thanks.
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Feb 4, 2021 17:42
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coathat posted:I'm looking for a YA Christian Scifi book I read around 2000. It was set after a nuclear war with a kid or kids waking up form some sort of cryogenic sleep. Hes helped by a group of mutants, I think there was a giant and a pair of dwarf twins that had to stay physically close together or else they'd get sick and die. They ended up going to some desert mountains with maybe bird people. I haven't read it but I believe this is the Seven Sleepers series by Gilbert Morris. Google Books has a hit on a passage about "Gemini Twins" who are dwarves with opposite personalities that have to stay together.
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Feb 4, 2021 17:52
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Thank you! That was exactly it!
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Feb 4, 2021 17:58
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A nonfiction book about human interaction with technology/AI which featured a weird anecdote about kindergarten kids holding a funeral for a "dead" Furby.
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Feb 10, 2021 22:04
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SerialKilldeer posted:A nonfiction book about human interaction with technology/AI which featured a weird anecdote about kindergarten kids holding a funeral for a "dead" Furby. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherry_Turkle maybe?
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Feb 10, 2021 22:52
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Thank you, I was able to find the book (Alone Together) with that name!
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Feb 11, 2021 00:48
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I'm looking fantasy book, at least 11+ years old. Black male author, setting is modern, about kids doing magic. Can't remember any specifics well, but I think the kids performed magic in a specific space where it lets them create anything they can imagine. Think they meet up with some other magic kids who explains this magic (I think this is really digging into the dearth of my memory).
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Feb 14, 2021 09:24
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Looking for an id (could be an old Agatha Christie short story? I haven't been able to find it): mystery, it involves a man living in an apartment that uses gas for the lights who has repeatedly woken up to find his rooms filled with gas. It is not the fault of the equipment and it turns out that someone on a lower floor is blowing into the gas tubing that runs through a supply closet, extinguishing the light in the man's apartment. The detective works this all out... I think that a flag pole is involved somehow to check to see if the man is asleep?
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Feb 15, 2021 11:29
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Professor Shark posted:Looking for an id (could be an old Agatha Christie short story? I haven't been able to find it): mystery, it involves a man living in an apartment that uses gas for the lights who has repeatedly woken up to find his rooms filled with gas. It is not the fault of the equipment and it turns out that someone on a lower floor is blowing into the gas tubing that runs through a supply closet, extinguishing the light in the man's apartment. The detective works this all out... I think that a flag pole is involved somehow to check to see if the man is asleep? But of a long shot, but maybe The Ghost at Massingham Mansions from The Eyes of Max Carrados? (http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1302121h.html) It's lights showing and the bath filling in an empty apartment, though, though it is solved by blowing through the gas tubing (and using a pump to pump back the water, which busts the ceiling above an unfortunate tenant who's sleeping in the bath).
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Feb 15, 2021 12:29
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Gats Akimbo posted:But of a long shot, but maybe The Ghost at Massingham Mansions from The Eyes of Max Carrados? (http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1302121h.html) This is entirely possible- as soon as I saw Max Carrados I realized that this story was a radio adaptation and could have been from the "The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes" series that I listened to. I will check it out and get back to you!
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Feb 15, 2021 12:46
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Aha! While you may not have been luminous, Gats Akimbo, you are a conductor of light! It was "The Mystery of the Scarlet Thread" by Jacques Futrelle, who's Augustus S. F. X. was featured in The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes.
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Feb 15, 2021 12:56
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Aha!
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Feb 15, 2021 13:01
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Feb 16, 2021 17:45
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This is kinda vague, but I read a kids book in around 1990 that scared the poo poo out of me. It had a group of kids whose hangout spot was a tree on a hill which grew horizontally because of the wind. Underneath the hill are some old tunnels (maybe a mine maybe secret ww2 tunnels, I forget). Some bullies goad one of the kids into going into the tunnels and the bulk of the book is him feeling his way around in the pitch darkness and getting creeped out/possibly seeing a ghost.
Sweevo fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Feb 23, 2021 |
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Feb 23, 2021 00:05
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This has been driving me crazy. I hate my lovely memory. A sci fi story about a bunch of kids on a starship. They are wandering the universe out for revenge against the unknown aliens that blew up earth with help from a confederation of other species who have had their home planets blown up. These aliens are the ones who built the ship and sent the children on their journey, under the ethical presumption that they are the ones who have the right to consider whether or not to xenocide the naughty aliens. I believe this is the second book in a trilogy btw, with the first leading up to the destruction of earth and involving contact with the friendly alien confederation who are willing to save a portion of humanity from the catastrophe. And the third book being about the humans who were saved and their experiences in the period after the children on the revenge ship crew had departed. Relativity being what it is, this happens long after the subjective timeline of what the kids are going through in book 2. Anyway more details about the specific book: the leader of the kids changes every subjective year IIRC and they're called The Pan, as in peter pan.There's a humanoid interface on the ship the kids call Mother I think, though it only intervenes with the kids in very specific circumstances for ethical reasons. The kids eventually find a conglomeration of alien species that might have been the ones who destroyed earf. But it's intentionally unclear until after the climax whether it's true or not. One of the big themes is about how very advanced species might rely on interstellar camoflage as their primary defense. The particular aliens the kids find have multiple layers of it going on, from intentionally making themselves VERY hard to find when looking into their system from the outside to not being exactly what they seem when they actually come into contact with other species. EDIT: Go figure. Shortly after I posted this I finally google-fu'd enough specific phrases to get an answer: Anvil of Stars, of the Forge of God series. By Greg Bear. Which explains how I came across it, I love Greg Bear. Nathilus fucked around with this message at 12:45 on Feb 28, 2021 |
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Feb 28, 2021 12:19
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