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Thanks for satisfying my brain itch, that's the atrocity that hurt me.
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Sep 2, 2021 00:48
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I'm still looking for a story I posted about in this thread a while ago. I listened to it many times on an audio cassette in the early 90s but I don't know if it was a retelling of a folk tale or narration of a specific book. It was a short story about some sort of contest/trial/gauntlet. A king would send people through it (maybe to win the hand of his daughter?) and the story was about someone determined to win (maybe the daughter herself?). The gauntlet was well-known and people would train for it in advance. The first trial was to go into a pitch-dark cave and cross a chasm filled with snakes. There was a pillar in the middle (my childhood ears misheard this as "pillow" which really changed the story until I learned a new word) so people would practice blind-jumping the specific distance necessary to reach it. The second trial was a lion sleeping deeper in the cave. Its back and sides were full of eyes which it would slowly open. (I can distinctly hear the narrator saying "eye after eye after eye".) When the lion finished, whoever it gazed at would turn to stone. The protagonist defeated it by pulling out a mirror. I don't really remember the third trial but I want to say it was something simple and unremarkable, like "face an inner demon and grab the prize, you've won" because no one ever made it past the lion.
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Sep 2, 2021 01:06
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Matthew Reilly books are fun as hell, you just have to go in to them expecting the written version of an incredibly stupid action movie.
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Sep 2, 2021 02:31
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Also, lots of !!!!!! It's kinda like an old movie serial in book form.
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Sep 2, 2021 02:52
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When I was in middle or high school (so between 2004 and 2009) I read a series of horror books that I've been unable to identify and I was wondering if y'all could help me out. I believe the books were fairly new at the time I read them and there may have been more than the two or three I read. They were all set in the same town, and I remember each book had a cover that was mostly just one color on a black background (so one cover the scene and name was illustrated in blue on black, another yellow on black, etc). Despite reading more than one of these books the only scene I really remember is some (high school?) kids being in math class and the teacher either spontaneously combusting or otherwise dying very horribly - it was a very gruesome description. This probably isn't enough info but it's better than just looking through horror book pages on wikipedia.
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Sep 3, 2021 21:17
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Badger of Basra posted:When I was in middle or high school (so between 2004 and 2009) I read a series of horror books that I've been unable to identify and I was wondering if y'all could help me out. I believe the books were fairly new at the time I read them and there may have been more than the two or three I read. They were all set in the same town, and I remember each book had a cover that was mostly just one color on a black background (so one cover the scene and name was illustrated in blue on black, another yellow on black, etc). A bunch of Stephen King stories that were cheaply republished had that same type of scheme. I'm assuming you're not thinking about the most famous horror author in the world, so I'll guess... Bentley Little?
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Sep 3, 2021 21:39
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were they studying non-euclidian geometry?
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Sep 3, 2021 22:20
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Badger of Basra posted:When I was in middle or high school (so between 2004 and 2009) I read a series of horror books that I've been unable to identify and I was wondering if y'all could help me out. I believe the books were fairly new at the time I read them and there may have been more than the two or three I read. They were all set in the same town, and I remember each book had a cover that was mostly just one color on a black background (so one cover the scene and name was illustrated in blue on black, another yellow on black, etc). Graveyard School? Well written series.
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Sep 4, 2021 03:18
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This one's from my wife. She says it was probably a short story, possibly by Asimov or PKD, but can't rule out the possibility that she's conflating multiple stories or remembering a subplot of a longer work. Someone shows up in a time machine, and claims he's from the future. He has a bunch of advanced technology (in addition to the time machine itself) that seems to support this. However, it turns out that while the time machine and its contents are from the future, he isn't; he stole it from the original pilot a century in the past, and, not knowing how to control it, has been joyriding around time on autopilot, claiming to be from the future when he thinks he can get away with it. At some point -- I don't know if this is before or after his lies are exposed -- he fails to make it back to the time machine in time for its next automatic jump, and it leaves without him. The story is told not from the point of view of the traveler but from one of the natives of the time period he just arrived in.
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Sep 6, 2021 20:42
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ToxicFrog posted:This one's from my wife. She says it was probably a short story, possibly by Asimov or PKD, but can't rule out the possibility that she's conflating multiple stories or remembering a subplot of a longer work. If nothing else, this was an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Edit: A Matter of Time was the episode. Some very quick googling doesn't seem to indicate it was based on anything, but I stress the "very quick" part. Ornamented Death fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Sep 7, 2021 |
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Sep 7, 2021 02:20
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ToxicFrog posted:This one's from my wife. She says it was probably a short story, possibly by Asimov or PKD, but can't rule out the possibility that she's conflating multiple stories or remembering a subplot of a longer work. It has a few elements in common with Worlds to Barter by John Wyndham, The Toynbee Convector by Ray Bradbury, and something about it reminded me of that early-internet tale of someone who claimed to be from the future.
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Sep 7, 2021 15:21
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I thought I’d posted this here before, but maybe not. Book from probably the about 1990, it was a pop up book but definitely not for little kids - maybe aimed at about age 12? It followed a family as they explored the garden of a stately home, with a different member of the family being picked off by various unpleasantness as they progressed. People got grabbed by statues or lost in the maze or pulled into the pond or whatever. At the very end there’s just the son left, called Lionel or something, who slinks away as the last remaining member of the family. Other bits I think I remember: - I think all the text was in verse, and very brief - It was all in colour but very muted, with lots of vertical lines in the art - I think one of the pop- up elements was a weird claw-like statue, like the woman makes in Beetlejuice
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Sep 8, 2021 16:19
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Well I'd never heard of it before, but from the subject matter it had to be by Edward Gorey. Apparently he did do a pop-up book, The Dwindling Party. https://www.amazon.com/Dwindling-Party-Pop-Up-Random-House/dp/0394851293
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Sep 8, 2021 16:25
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That is exactly it, thank you so much. Incredible work. Edit: looking at pics my memory was really faulty so even more well done to you Sanford fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Sep 8, 2021 |
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Sep 8, 2021 16:33
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Ornamented Death posted:If nothing else, this was an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Yep, that's the one, thanks.
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Sep 8, 2021 18:02
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Hobnob posted:Well I'd never heard of it before, but from the subject matter it had to be by Edward Gorey. Apparently he did do a pop-up book, The Dwindling Party. i have a few of his books but certainly not ones for little kids, my toddler always wants to look at the Gashleycrumb Tineys but it's probably not the alphabet i think she should learn (reproduced here: https://www.brainpickings.org/2011/01/19/edward-gorey-the-gashlycrumb-tinies/)
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Sep 8, 2021 23:46
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branedotorg posted:i have a few of his books but certainly not ones for little kids, my toddler always wants to look at the Gashleycrumb Tineys but it's probably not the alphabet i think she should learn The Wuggly Ump was a favourite of mine when I was five.
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Sep 9, 2021 04:19
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsJmUHlAntw
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Sep 9, 2021 23:45
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In my experience, little kids adore ghoulish books. I grew up on, and could recite from memory, Matilda, who told lies and was burned to death.. Hilaire Belloc was the late 19th-century Edward Gorey.quote:That Night a Fire did break out --
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Sep 9, 2021 23:58
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Well, her pants were on fire. Seems to check out. 
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Sep 10, 2021 00:08
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Someone in the comments claims to have a copy at home! Scans may be coming! 
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Sep 10, 2021 00:36
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Arsenic Lupin posted:In my experience, little kids adore ghoulish books. I grew up on, and could recite from memory, Matilda, who told lies and was burned to death.. Hilaire Belloc was the late 19th-century Edward Gorey. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter Another family fave!
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Sep 10, 2021 00:43
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Also, isn't Giles pronounced "Jiles"? Or is that a Flemish/Dutch thing?
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Sep 10, 2021 00:48
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Arsenic Lupin posted:In my experience, little kids adore ghoulish books. I grew up on, and could recite from memory, Matilda, who told lies and was burned to death.. Hilaire Belloc was the late 19th-century Edward Gorey. My favorite poem to read to little kids, you get to the end and they expect her to have learned a lesson and have ice cream, no. Dead. If you can find a copy the version illustrated by Steven Kellogg is great.
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Sep 10, 2021 01:01
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Yeah, Amphigorey was one of the first books I bought my kid when he was little, they love creepy stuff. We're pretty big Gorey fans in my family though 
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Sep 10, 2021 01:10
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xcheopis posted:The Wuggly Ump was a favourite of mine when I was five. When she's five, not two a half she can have it!
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Sep 10, 2021 12:22
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Arsenic Lupin posted:In my experience, little kids adore ghoulish books. I grew up on, and could recite from memory, Matilda, who told lies and was burned to death.. Hilaire Belloc was the late 19th-century Edward Gorey. Harry Graham was another one: Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes Billy, in one of his nice new sashes, Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes; Now, although the room grows chilly, I haven't the heart to poke poor Billy. Father heard his Children scream, So he threw them in the stream, Saying, as he drowned the third, "Children should be seen, not heard!"
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Sep 10, 2021 13:58
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Runcible Cat posted:Harry Graham was another one: Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes Jesus christ 
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Sep 10, 2021 14:13
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George Orwell, in his essay on Charles Dickens, posted:"The early nineteenth century was not a good time to be a child. In Dickens’s youth children were still being ‘solemnly tried at a criminal bar, where they were held up to be seen’, and it was not so long since boys of thirteen had been hanged for petty theft. The doctrine of ‘breaking the child’s spirit’ was in full vigour, and The Fairchild Family [2] was a standard book for children till late into the century. This evil book is now issued in pretty-pretty expurgated editions, but it is well worth reading in the original version. It gives one some idea of the lengths to which child-discipline was sometimes carried. Mr. Fairchild, for instance, when he catches his children quarrelling, first thrashes them, reciting Dr. Watts’s ‘Let dogs delight to bark and bite’ between blows of the cane, and then takes them to spend the afternoon beneath a gibbet where the rotting corpse of a murderer is hanging.
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Sep 10, 2021 17:09
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Runcible Cat posted:Harry Graham was another one: Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes This led to an entire genre of "Little Willie" poems with horrible stuff happening to children: Little Willie, with a thirst for gore, Nailed the baby to the door. Said his mother, with humor quaint, "Willie dear, don't scratch the paint!" or ... Willie found some dynamite, Didn't understand it quite. Curiosity never pays: It rained Willie for seven days.
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Sep 10, 2021 17:59
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wizzardstaff posted:Someone in the comments claims to have a copy at home! Scans may be coming! Let's hope! I got in touch with the current headmaster of the primary school in which I read it, he referred me to the school librarian who was able to confirm that this book (at least the English version of it) was a school textbook and not available for sale. Given that most schools send all their old books for pulping, it's not surprising at all that there are very few copies left in existence. If this dude actually has an English copy of the book and scans it in full, that would be incredible.
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Sep 11, 2021 08:50
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I have a short story that I'm struggling to identify, but don't remember too many details. It's about a couple of people who meet and fall in love, but there are all sorts of details about them that are presented by the narrator of the story as if the reader couldn't possibly understand them.
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Sep 11, 2021 12:02
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Can you describe what you mean by that? I'm not sure I understand.
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Sep 11, 2021 19:36
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regulargonzalez posted:Can you describe what you mean by that? I'm not sure I understand.
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Sep 11, 2021 19:58
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Paperback I partially read back in the mid-90s. I think it had a sort of generic one word title like "The Thing" or "The Stranger". The cover was like a foresty scene with a black silhouette of an ominous looking man standing in the center. All I remember about the book was that there was some rumored scary outcast type man who lived in the woods and the main character got her rain boot stuck in a stump and was trapped until the man came and set her free and I don't know maybe they had tea or something at his house.
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Sep 13, 2021 00:46
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One of my high school teachers gave us this short story to read and it's stuck with me ever since then. I found it a while ago but never bought it or anything so I've forgotten again. I thought it was by Ray Bradbury, but I can't find it when I search through his stuff. It's about a young boy who lives in a house all alone and isolated from the world. He is a musical piano genius and he writes many beautiful pieces of music, which the Listeners listen to. He's not allowed to listen to any other music. One day, one of them come up to him and say your music is awesome, but you're music this thing that Bach (?) did, and gives him a piece by Bach to listen to. He listens to it and his mind is blown, so he creates music with this thing that Bach had. The authorities come and they say, your music was awesome because it was lacking this stuff that Bach had, so you no longer get to stay in this house and make piano music. They say you have to live in the world now, and give him a warning: don't make music anymore. So he goes off, finds a job, but either because of his job or because he walks by a piano or something, he starts playing and gets a bit of a following. The authorities come along and said, we warned you, and laser off his fingers. He becomes a janitor in a school (?) and while he's cleaning he starts singing. Eventually the authorities find out and visit him and say that we warned you and snip, take away his voice. The end of the story has him walking along the street and someone is singing one of his songs, making him smile. It's implied or stated that the authority figures are also people like him that couldn't stop being creative, and have similar mutilations like he had.
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Sep 13, 2021 02:18
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Zaphiel posted:One of my high school teachers gave us this short story to read and it's stuck with me ever since then. I found it a while ago but never bought it or anything so I've forgotten again. I thought it was by Ray Bradbury, but I can't find it when I search through his stuff. Unaccompanied Sonata by Orson Scott Card? Human Tornada posted:Paperback I partially read back in the mid-90s. I think it had a sort of generic one word title like "The Thing" or "The Stranger". The cover was like a foresty scene with a black silhouette of an ominous looking man standing in the center. All I remember about the book was that there was some rumored scary outcast type man who lived in the woods and the main character got her rain boot stuck in a stump and was trapped until the man came and set her free and I don't know maybe they had tea or something at his house. The Stranger by Caroline B Cooney?
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Sep 13, 2021 02:44
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wheatpuppy posted:Unaccompanied Sonata by Orson Scott Card? Card has a big loving Thing about abused children, doesn't he?
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Sep 13, 2021 02:53
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wheatpuppy posted:Unaccompanied Sonata by Orson Scott Card? Hmmm no I don't think so.
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Sep 13, 2021 03:17
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Card has a big loving Thing about abused children, doesn't he? Yeah, I read that answer and "oh of course it's loving Card that explains it".
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Sep 13, 2021 07:14
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