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Ramc posted:Okay I have kind of a tricky request. A family member of mine sent me this photo (cropped to remove people) and they are wondering if it is possible to figure out what the book on the table is. Time-wise the pic was taken around 1989 and is "probably sci-fi" I swear I recognize that back cover. The title seems to say something like Entropy Stars or something
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Jul 26, 2021 00:28
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I think the white writing could be "EMPIRE" but probably not.
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Jul 26, 2021 00:38
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Gambrinus posted:I think the white writing could be "EMPIRE" but probably not. Sam Delaney wrote a book called Empire Star but none of the editions posted on Goodreads has the right front cover
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Jul 26, 2021 00:40
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I think we'd get more joy from the back cover but impossible to Google that.
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Jul 26, 2021 00:46
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Ramc posted:Okay guys I was referred here from the GBS what is your white whale find stuff thread. That thing on the back cover looks familiar, it might be a publisher or series mark. I don't have much of an old pb collection anymore but I'll check the shelves.
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Jul 26, 2021 00:48
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fritz posted:That thing on the back cover looks familiar, it might be a publisher or series mark. I don't have much of an old pb collection anymore but I'll check the shelves. It's just distinctive *enough* that one would recognize it if they saw it. Maddening.
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Jul 26, 2021 00:57
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Gnoman posted:That front cover looks very much like the format that early Star Trek books used, before Pocket took over. None of my early copies have a back cover like that, but it could theoretically be a later printing of one. That's exactly what I thought of, but you're right, the back cover doesn't fit.
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Jul 26, 2021 01:01
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This guy collects and writes about old horror paperbacks, so he might be able to help: http://www.gradyhendrix.com
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Jul 26, 2021 01:55
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VileLL posted:one from my girlfriend’s childhood: Yeah, as someone said a take on Bluebeard or maybe Koschei the Deathless.
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Jul 26, 2021 01:58
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ScienceSeagull posted:Oh, I just remembered another weird book from my childhood. It was about a kid who was a "worry wart," and he started to grow actual warts all over. I recall it being illustrated in a sort of garish cartoon style, a bit like Rugrats or other Nickelodeon cartoons. Sounds like a Mrs Piggle-wiggle book, but they had iirc one illustration per chapter and I wouldn't call it garish. They were black and white old timey drawings, because the books were themselves old. But maybe they were updated with xxtreme illustrations at some point
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Jul 26, 2021 03:04
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regulargonzalez posted:Sounds like a Mrs Piggle-wiggle book, but they had iirc one illustration per chapter and I wouldn't call it garish. They were black and white old timey drawings, because the books were themselves old. But maybe they were updated with xxtreme illustrations at some point Heh, I liked those books as a kid, and I'm sure the book I'm remembering wasn't one of them! It was more along the lines of David Greenberg's Slugs in writing style (might also have been written in rhyme). This might be it, although the publication date doesn't fit (unless it's a reprint?) and the art style seems different: https://www.amazon.com/Worry-Wart-Wes-Smarties-Book/dp/0970829612 ScienceSeagull fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Jul 26, 2021 |
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Jul 26, 2021 03:57
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VileLL posted:one from my girlfriend’s childhood: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1386325-7-sisters-7-rooms-7-keys-s perhaps?
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Jul 27, 2021 20:37
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Can anyone help me find a short story I can barely remember? It may have been Daphne Du Maurier but googling can't find it. It starts with a man returned from America to Europe and his plane crashes in the Alps. The survivors sit and wait a few days for rescue and then they're led to the nearest village. But the protagonist used to be a mountain climber so instead of carrying on he decides to turn back and explore the peaks instead. I think he next goes to stay in a tavern and has vaguely foreboding conversations with first the tavern keeper and then his daughter before heading into the mountains. That was as far as I got before I lost the book.
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Jul 28, 2021 07:43
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A fairy tale, about a young woman who avoided marriage by coming up with convoluted rules for potential suitors. Like Every meal, including sweet puddings, must include onion! or Show up in a full outfit made entirely from fishing nets! Or walk on your hands all the time, including when you use the privy! She changed her rules once a month, and promised to marry only if she either found someone who managed to live a whole month by her rule of that month, or she ran out of challenges/repeated her challenge.
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Jul 28, 2021 11:09
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BattyKiara posted:A fairy tale, about a young woman who avoided marriage by coming up with convoluted rules for potential suitors. Like Every meal, including sweet puddings, must include onion! or Show up in a full outfit made entirely from fishing nets! Or walk on your hands all the time, including when you use the privy! She changed her rules once a month, and promised to marry only if she either found someone who managed to live a whole month by her rule of that month, or she ran out of challenges/repeated her challenge. This sounds inspired by the meeting of Ragnar Lothbrok and Aslaug/Kraka: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aslaug But it and similar constructs have probably been used a lot
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Jul 28, 2021 12:47
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Carthag Tuek posted:This sounds inspired by the meeting of Ragnar Lothbrok and Aslaug/Kraka: Yeah, the "neither dressed nor undressed, neither walking nor riding, neither on land nor on sea," etc., restriction shows up in the story of Llew Llaw Gyffes from the Mabinogion as well, although in that story it's the conditions under which Llew can be harmed rather than demands set by a potential bride.
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Jul 28, 2021 20:31
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Sci Fi book I think its about time travel or travelling to different planets, and when you travel you have to take a pill to go to sleep, and a guy/kid doesn't take the pill and goes absolutely crazy.
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Jul 28, 2021 22:49
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Flaggy posted:Sci Fi book I think its about time travel or travelling to different planets, and when you travel you have to take a pill to go to sleep, and a guy/kid doesn't take the pill and goes absolutely crazy. The Jaunt by Stephen King?
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Jul 28, 2021 23:05
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ScienceSeagull posted:The Jaunt by Stephen King? IT'S LONGER THAN YOU THINK, DAD! LONGER THAN YOU THINK!
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Jul 28, 2021 23:10
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Absurd Alhazred posted:IT'S LONGER THAN YOU THINK, DAD! LONGER THAN YOU THINK! Especially for a short story.
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Jul 29, 2021 02:57
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Update, it was found!Snowglobe of Doom posted:Screencaps for the sake of thread completeness:
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Jul 29, 2021 13:15
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Ramc posted:Update, it was found! NICE! I knew I had seen it, and even pulled all my vintage Witchworld books to check because something whispered Andre Norton in the back of my mind. Well done
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Jul 29, 2021 14:31
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Another GBS success story.
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Jul 29, 2021 17:00
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Well done all, I thought that was going to keep going for months!
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Jul 29, 2021 20:32
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ScienceSeagull posted:The Jaunt by Stephen King? One of my favorite, if not actual favorite, King short story.
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Jul 31, 2021 01:36
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i prefer the jnt
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Jul 31, 2021 01:41
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ScienceSeagull posted:The Jaunt by Stephen King? I'm not the OP, but that is absolutely The Jaunt. Also my favourite King story. It's the only one where I spend considerable time trying to imagine the worst case scenario, like when that guy sent his wife through the gate that had its destination set to "null", or when mobsters would use it to dispose of living people. Like loving jesus christ, whaaaaat  at least with the people generally going through awake, there's the eventual, very welcomed death, but to not have that?That's the poo poo that keeps me from sleeping. loving excellent story and if you like that kind of 'eternal mind fuckery', watch the Black Mirror episode "White Christmas".
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Jul 31, 2021 05:26
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Rupert Buttermilk posted:I'm not the OP, but that is absolutely The Jaunt. Have you read King's "Revival"? If not, you should. Possibly a worst metaphysical fate than The Jaunt
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Jul 31, 2021 05:37
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regulargonzalez posted:Have you read King's "Revival"? If not, you should. Possibly a worst metaphysical fate than The Jaunt This is a good suggestion and that book unnerved me a lot at the big reveal.
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Jul 31, 2021 06:31
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OK, two inquiries about books, at least one of which I expect to be a long-shot to identify because I have almost no memory of it. These were both in the Young Adult section, and I was still single-digit age; I don't think either book had its slipcover, and when I wanted to reread, I knew what shelf they were on, but never remembered the author or title. And because it's been a long time since the early 80s, I don't have much memory of the stories, either. Book 1: Probably written in the 50s or 60s, possibly the 70s, and I suppose it could have been an edition of an older book. It had line drawn illustrations that I recall being fairly detailed. The story involved some kids and a section of undeveloped land, mostly caves I think, and there were small creatures that lived in the caves that were highly differentiated. Most of them had some ability to blend in, like having rock-like shells, and the art for them gave them features like long, spindly arms. I think there may have been a few "brain" creatures, but the only ones that really stick out in my mind were roundish, had a cluster of manipulator arms, and could float in the air; I'm afraid that they may in fact have been called "floaters." The others were similarly differentiated, one kind that was strong and another with loads of sensory organs, and so on. Some evil land developers/exploiters want to come in and do something that will expose the creatures (mining? dig for oil? something environmentally destructive and greedy). The kids have to organize the creatures to work together to stop them. Book 2: This one's thin gruel, indeed. Another YA book, that I encountered in the early 80s, no idea when it was first published. I would guess 60s? A few illustrations, not especially precise as I recall (a fairly scribbled style). It featured one of those "kid ends up in a game/environment" stories, but all I can remember is that it was structured by having some kind of vehicle on a track like a roller coaster that moved the participants from place to place where they had to answer questions or otherwise complete tasks. Very definitely a YA book starring kids; I seem to recall one of the illustrations is a close up of a kid who bullies the main character. Absolutely not the Apprentice Adept series from Anthony (which I read later, though still too young to pick up on the ickiness of Anthony as an author. Years later, I picked up Ian Watson's Queenmagic, Kingmagic hoping that that was the book, but although it was somewhat similar and I recalled having read it in the later 80s, that wasn't it. I rather suspect that I don't remember much about the plot because there wasn't much of one. My attempts at researching haven't been too useful with so little to go on, so my main hope is that someone else in the thread read one of these and remembers more than I do. I do vaguely remember the geography of the library at that time: Book 1 would have been shelved somewhere in the first half of the alphabet but multiple letters in (C-K, perhaps), while Book 2 would have been around half-way or an aisle or two of shelves past that. I doubt that will be useful for anything besides confirmation.
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Jul 31, 2021 16:24
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regulargonzalez posted:Have you read King's "Revival"? If not, you should. Possibly a worst metaphysical fate than The Jaunt I haven't, and I will. Thanks!
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Jul 31, 2021 17:34
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This one's a weirdy. It's something my parents bought as a used hardback, with a slipcover, some time in the 1960s or 1970s, meaning it can't have been published after then. As I remember, it was in a hardback format shorter than normal; it was the same size as the John Buchan reissues, if you have any of them. It was a novel about a man living alone who wasn't very good at society. A young woman with a somewhat rakish lifestyle wound up on his doorstep and he took her in. She turned out to be pregnant (not by him) and he became very excited about raising the baby; bought some baby supplies. One morning, she was gone, there was a nasty smell, the baby was in the furnace, and the cops were at the door. The last sentence is what haunts me. It was (paraphrasing wildly) he wondered what would happen to his thoughts, and would they be like the dreams of his childhood, which hovered around the bedposts.
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Jul 31, 2021 20:08
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Captain Monkey posted:This is a good suggestion and that book unnerved me a lot at the big reveal. I don't yet know what the big reveal is, but I just checked the book out from openlibrary.org and I'm already over 40 pages in. I read a spoiler free synopsis, and am already dreading poo poo. Thank you all so much for the suggestion, I'm hooked already.  if it's not too much of a derail, I'll post back when I'm done.Edit: this story is taking me places, the worst being sweet, teenage moments, because I know, just from posts ITT, poo poo gets extremely grim. It's compelling. I'm compelled, y'all. Rupert Buttermilk fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Aug 1, 2021 |
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Jul 31, 2021 21:27
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E: ^^ ha, never mind the rest of this post. I don't want to spoil anything but King does some interesting things with the plotting. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts when you're doneRupert Buttermilk posted:I haven't, and I will. Thanks! If you're into audiobooks I can vouch for the audio version, the reader does a great job. Fine in print too, but the audiobook was the version that gave me the heebie-jeebies. regulargonzalez fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Aug 1, 2021 |
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Aug 1, 2021 00:52
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Seconding the audiobook. I forget who read it but he was great.
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Aug 1, 2021 01:12
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Oh, nice; David Morse, he was in The Langoliers, and was more famously "Brutal" from The Green Mile. Speaking of the Langoliers, let me tell you about a book that is EXACTLY as cheezy and dumb in book form as it is as a network tv miniseries. I mean, wow. I loved the premise behind it, but good god. Edit: oh god... something happened. Edit 2: "I was lying down, reading a book, and then suddenly found myself standing in a corner, facing the walls". gently caress, I still don't really know what's going on, but this gave me chills. Rupert Buttermilk fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Aug 1, 2021 |
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Aug 1, 2021 01:16
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I'm trying to remember four short stories or excerpts that were part of my English 101-level course in 2009. The general theme was horror in pre-20th century literature, and we read Frankenstein, Dracula, and various short stories by Edgar Allen Poe. I believe, but am not quite sure that these works were written in the 20th century. 1. This one is the one that feels most like to have been an excerpt and was written in third person. It was historical fiction, it took place in I think the antebellum South, certainly 19th century America. It involved female vampires operating out of a brothel. The main character was newly brought into the brothel, and may have been an orphan or an escaped slave. The part that we read for class involved her becoming a vampire. These three are all short stories, as they felt self contained, and were all first person. 2. The main character was working at an erotic, airplane themed restaurant and supported his two sisters and their children. His dead female relative, probably his mother, shows up as a ghost and tries to get the family to shape up and get a better life. 3. The main character was working as a Neanderthal in a history themed amusement park. The place terrible and there is a fee on disposing poo. He gets his Neanderthal actress co-worker fired. She is then replaced by someone who has had plastic surgery for the brow ridge 4. There is a syndrome that makes people suicidal, that the main character suffers from. It's able to be controlled, and there are also certain people, mostly women who are able to calm the suicidal urges. She visits a group home, or some other type of in-patient facility for those who have suffered from this syndrome and finds her mother.
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Aug 1, 2021 06:41
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I finished Revival. Holy shiiiiit. Based on what was said about the plotting, I kept trying to guess what was going to happen, and kept thinking that somehow Jamie was going back and forth through time, maybe, being able to change history through his memories or something. But wow. It's The Jaunt, except with torture. Good god. 
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Aug 2, 2021 04:18
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Glad you liked it! It's a fun change that the really dark, evil poo poo isn't even mentioned for the first 80% of the book (and that the book is compelling enough on its own merits up to that point). And it's interesting that it's one of the few King novels that doesn't end with the good guys to some degree beating the bad guys. I guess Pet Sematary would also fit, and Thinner. Not many others. Imagining myself in the story, I mean even before you die it would be the worst thing ever. 1, you know everyone you love is being tortured for eternity. Not for a million years, or a billion. loving eternity! And then knowing you're heading for the same fate. You'd be exercising every day to try and stave it off, taking every supplement on the market, knowing it's all futile. The Jaunt except it happens to everyone. Great story. regulargonzalez fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Aug 2, 2021 |
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Aug 2, 2021 07:27
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regulargonzalez posted:And it's interesting that it's one of the few King novels that doesn't end with the good guys to some degree beating the bad guys. I guess ... Thinner. Not many others. [/spoiler] It's been a long time since I read Thinner but didn't the protagonist run over a Romani lady while getting his dick sucked? Not sure that's a 'good guy'.
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Aug 2, 2021 13:23
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