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Okay... this is a short story, I think, about a priest being murdered in the church where he's... a priest... and while he's being murdered, he thinks about the concept of martyrdom. These details are kind of fuzzy, and it might actually be a poem. I really don't know, and googling hasn't done much.
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Jan 15, 2008 22:21
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Harkano posted:I read these books years ago and just got into Holt in the last year or so and I love him. My mind is broken. Damned authors and their psuedonyms. And glad to help! 
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Jan 16, 2008 00:14
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LittleSunshine posted:Wow, I didn't know that either! That's quite a change of pace he's got between his names... though I suppose The Walled Orchard proved he could do other than urban fantasy humour. Haven't read the Walled Orchard yet but the urban fantasy comedy and the epic fantasy do have a common link in that the Fencer is a discontented Lawyer and every one of his comedy books features at least one of the same (or an accountant).
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Jan 16, 2008 01:40
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1) A pawnshop owner is feeding demonic dogs he keeps books, and one of the characters starts buying up the books in town to save them from being destroyed. 2)God dies and falls into the ocean and the only thing people can figure out to do with the body is to build an amusement park on it.
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Jan 19, 2008 23:47
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Incitatus posted:1) A pawnshop owner is feeding demonic dogs he keeps books, and one of the characters starts buying up the books in town to save them from being destroyed.
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Jan 20, 2008 00:04
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LittleSunshine posted:I think the 2nd one's James Morrow's Godhead books, but I don't have a clue about the 1st. Thanks for the ID, I used to have the name of the first book on my old hard drive, but it has since been fried.
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Jan 20, 2008 00:26
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Help me find the name and author of a book. I read it a a kid and really liked it, I got through about 75% of the book, and for the past 3 years or so I've been trying to find the book. It is more or less about the following: Intelligent robots back in time. They get stranded and need to find a way back. They have to be real careful not to leave any trace of their existence least man find their remains thousands of years from "now" and find out about the future.
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Jan 20, 2008 21:04
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I'm looking for a book I really liked as a kid. I would love to read it again because it was basically the reason I became fascinated by history(which led to me now studying History, yay!). The book followed multiple generations, the first being settlers coming to America, starting a colony. Their leader may or may not have been called Murdoch. I remember that they nearly died out as they didn't know how to survive, those remaining after a harsh winter(or epidemic, can't remember) start traveling and then come into contact with a tribe of Indians. They end up living with them and at some point even ruling them, teaching them English and such. The next part of the book is about that tribe of Indians, who have now become a mixed breed of European and Indian. Their culture is also mixed, they speak something between English and their native language, have some weird customs and have developed a kind of religion around the Europeans. Their holy book is the journal the original captain(maybe Murdoch) kept about his adventures. At the end of the chapter the book becomes lost because the priest or something that took care of it died in the snow. The final part is about the Indian tribe being discovered by the Americans who start to study them but because of their contact with them the entire tribe is wiped out by the flu. (Also there was a steam boat...) I really want to read it again, it made such a big impression on me at the time that I can still remember the general storyline after 10 years or so... 
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Jan 22, 2008 14:09
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The book I'm looking for I read in the mid-90s. It was science fiction, about a technologically advanced matriarchal society. The twist was that they weren't organically matriarchal, instead the men had to follow all these rules designed to keep them placated and secondary. I specifically remember that the men were required to go to a special church (?) and scorge themselves until they bleed, as a way to work off their 'warlike' impulses. There was a very vivid description of the blood of all the men in the temple running down to a drain set in the middle of the floor. I also think that there may have been one of those gods-who-turn-out-to-be-satellite deals going on....
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Jan 22, 2008 23:12
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This is reaching quite a bit I should think, as I only ever read the blurb in a second-hand bookshop years ago. The story is set on a gigantic submarine, apparently on a mission of ome ludicrous duration, like 100/500 years, with a succession of increasingly insane captains taking command. The name was fairly unconnected, possibly even a made-up word, being the name of the submarine itself. The copy I saw had a 70s/60s style sci-fi style cover which depicted a metal whale, painted somewhat like a WW2 fighter, with the mouth detail etc. 67 and still making love fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Jan 23, 2008 |
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Jan 23, 2008 20:07
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Twanki posted:This is reaching quite a bit I should think, as I only ever read the blurb in a second-hand bookshop years ago.
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Jan 23, 2008 20:57
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LittleSunshine posted:That would be Profundis by Richard Cowper. Look familiar? You are not so much a Humyn as you are a tiny god. 67 and still making love fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Jan 24, 2008 |
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Jan 23, 2008 22:31
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Twanki posted:You are not so much a man as a tiny god. e: Serves me right! Runcible Cat fucked around with this message at 11:57 on Jan 26, 2008 |
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Jan 24, 2008 00:43
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I hope someone can help me with this: The book (or maybe short story?) is about a post-apocalyptic world (I think it may have been disease that killed off most of humankind, but I could be wrong). The main character is a man, and he finds a slightly older woman, then they find more people and form a small civilization. They live off of canned goods. The main character was an avid reader, and tries to teach his children to read, but they are uninterested. He also teaches them to make bows and arrows, so they would be able to hunt and fend for themselves when the canned food runs out, but again, they aren't very interested. Oh, and they use dogs to pull carts in order to get around. Thats all I can remember, but it has been bothering me for years. I read it around 2000 or 2001, I think. Thanks!
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Jan 26, 2008 00:19
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soap. posted:Thats all I can remember, but it has been bothering me for years. I read it around 2000 or 2001, I think. Thanks!
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Jan 26, 2008 11:59
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Harkano posted:Also HOLY CRAP What the loving gently caress. Are you serious?! I am ...amazed. If I had had to pick someone to be KJ Parker's real identity, Tom Holt would have been slightly below PG Wodehouse. What the gently caress.
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Jan 26, 2008 16:01
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LittleSunshine posted:Earth Abides by George Stewart? That sounds right. You're a master.
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Jan 26, 2008 21:13
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Two IDs for you detective 1) During the Destination Saturn thread in GBS some people mentioned a character from a Kurt Vonnegut book who's basically a hack science fiction writer who spends his days writing mediocre stuff similar to the one in the thread, anyone know which book that is? 2) I believe a goon mentioned a cyberpunk novel similar to Snow Crash where in the future everybody is named after the company they work for (ie Nike). I remember looking it up on Amazon but I've forgotten the title
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Jan 29, 2008 02:15
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Alan Smithee posted:2) I believe a goon mentioned a cyberpunk novel similar to Snow Crash where in the future everybody is named after the company they work for (ie Nike). I remember looking it up on Amazon but I've forgotten the title Sounds like Jennifer Government.
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Jan 29, 2008 02:22
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Alan Smithee posted:1) During the Destination Saturn thread in GBS some people mentioned a character from a Kurt Vonnegut book who's basically a hack science fiction writer who spends his days writing mediocre stuff similar to the one in the thread, anyone know which book that is?
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Jan 29, 2008 03:34
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This is a book I read probably 10-15 years ago where a lady (i.e., a woman of breeding) is taken hostage by a pirate (it wasn't one of those books, honest!). He has been shot, and the wound gets infected. She attempts to treat him, and goes digging for the musket ball. When she finds it and plucks it out it, a jet of foul-smelling pus is ejected from the wound, and his pain is relieved. The second is a random quote, and I'll be AMAZED, and exceedingly grateful, if anyone can identify it. it is from either a Victorian novel, or one written in that style. One of the characters uses "w" instead of "v" (I do love that - try using that in conwersation). Another character roars at him, "drat you and your "w"'s!". He might even add a "sir" to the end, but I can't remember. From which book, pliss?
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Jan 30, 2008 14:41
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therattle posted:The second is a random quote, and I'll be AMAZED, and exceedingly grateful, if anyone can identify it. it is from either a Victorian novel, or one written in that style. One of the characters uses "w" instead of "v" (I do love that - try using that in conwersation). Another character roars at him, "drat you and your "w"'s!". He might even add a "sir" to the end, but I can't remember. From which book, pliss? Might this be one of the Flashman books? Lord Cardigan (or Lucan I can't remember) is depicted as having a similar speech impediment.
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Jan 30, 2008 16:00
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yaffle posted:Might this be one of the Flashman books? Lord Cardigan (or Lucan I can't remember) is depicted as having a similar speech impediment. Oh! It could very well be - I am a great fan of the Flashman books, and that would probably be "Flashman at the Charge" (if memory of the title serves me correctly), which I read some time ago (long ago enough for it to fit the timeline I have in mind). i've just done an Amazon Search Inside and that hasn't found it, but I cannot imagine it is comprehensive, so that remains a prime candidate. If it isn't that book, it could well be another in the series. Thanks! therattle fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Jan 30, 2008 |
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Jan 30, 2008 17:22
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Ugh, I've had one stuck in the back of my mind for like 2 years now. It was a sci-fi novel, and it was a collection of 17 or so short stories. I think the title was "A Collection of Universes" or something along those lines, although I can't find a book by that title. I only remember a few of the short stories it contained, but they were all really good. One revolved around a planet completely barren of people, and farming robots suddenly realize there aren't any people and decide to set out to find some, although it just degenerates into the most advanced of the robots destroying the rest of them. Another one was about Earth, and how after space travel became wide spread every planet was named Earth in one form or another, to the point where no one knew the original Earth. Yet another revolved around a dystopian future where a huge percentage of the Earth was barren, and the wealthy elite lived in mansions on the last habitable bit of soil, while the "wilds" ran around and generally died out. The focus of the story was the crazy daughter of one of the wealthy elite meets up with a wild and they get it on. I've been really racking my brain trying to find this book, it was really good because all of the stories were in a specific sequence and supposed to represent a timeline of the universe!
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Jan 31, 2008 11:08
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mickey mousecapade posted:
This sounds a lot like 'Who can Replace a Man?' by Brian Aldiss, in which case the book ought to be in this list. But it might not be.
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Jan 31, 2008 11:19
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Unkempt posted:This sounds a lot like 'Who can Replace a Man?' by Brian Aldiss, in which case the book ought to be in this list. But it might not be. Holy poo poo, this is it! Galaxies Like Grains of Sand... Man I was way off. Thanks loads!
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Jan 31, 2008 11:25
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I remember this book I read in Junior High that I really liked for some reason. It was pretty short and it was about some new kid that came to a school and he was picked on. He had long black hair in a ponytail and wore a leather jacket, if I recall correctly. There was some sort of bully or mean-spirited kid who kept teasing him, calling him "human being" and beating him up with a bunch of his friends. If I remember right, his name began with an F. The other thing I remember is that there was some sort of fight or incident that took place by a large fountain outside. The cover of the book was black/white and had a picture of the bullied kid standing near a wall, looking somewhat "tough". I know it's not much to go on but I've been looking around for this thing forever. It's not The Outsiders even though some people have suggested that it's that in the past.
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Jan 31, 2008 20:11
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Here we go. First one is a book that I read back in the late 70's early 80's however I think it is much older than that. In fact the tone of the book feels as though it might have been written in the 20's. Protagonist is a teen boy who meets up with an old righ guy who happens to be an inventor/mad scientist type. He somehow invents an antigravity metal (it falls up) and his house is demolished in the process. They build some sort of airship with the remaining metal and travel the world, ending up on Krakatoa. The islanders have some sort of steam tech that draws on the volcano. However, like Atlantis, they go too far or something and cause the island to blow up as history shows. Our heros escape, naturally just in time. For some reason I am lead to think that one of the characters is a giant boy who grew to 20 odd feet tall because his digestive system is perfectly efficient and converts 100% of his food to nutrients. However, I'm not certain if he was in that book or just one I read contemperary to the Anti-gravity metal one. The second one I read more definitely in the early 80's. A space fighter pilot's fighter is hit just as he does some sort of warp to escape the battle in which he's fighting. He crashes on a backwater planet populated with viking like barbarians who worship him as a god. However, he tries to contact a city state he's heard of who might have a metalurgy tech base he has a chance of training up to effect repairs on his ship. He gives emisarries from that state a recorder with instructions of what he needs but they are killed by the Viking Barbarians because they had "stolen the god's voice" (the recorder). Frustrated by this, he takes a pill from his crash kit that puts one in hibernation until rescue arrives. Except he wakes up like 10,000 years later and well... I can't remember any more. The last one has been driving me nuts for years, well, they both have!
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Jan 31, 2008 22:26
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CaptainCrunch posted:Here we go. First one is a book that I read back in the late 70's early 80's however I think it is much older than that. In fact the tone of the book feels as though it might have been written in the 20's. Protagonist is a teen boy who meets up with an old righ guy who happens to be an inventor/mad scientist type. He somehow invents an antigravity metal (it falls up) and his house is demolished in the process. They build some sort of airship with the remaining metal and travel the world, ending up on Krakatoa. The islanders have some sort of steam tech that draws on the volcano. However, like Atlantis, they go too far or something and cause the island to blow up as history shows. Our heros escape, naturally just in time. For some reason I am lead to think that one of the characters is a giant boy who grew to 20 odd feet tall because his digestive system is perfectly efficient and converts 100% of his food to nutrients. However, I'm not certain if he was in that book or just one I read contemperary to the Anti-gravity metal one. You're combining at least three books here. The mad scientist who destroys his house with antigravity metal might be from The First Men in the Moon, by H. G. Wells. The stuff about Krakatoa is from The Twenty-One Balloons, by William Pene du Bois. I don't know where the other elements are from but it's not either of those.
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Jan 31, 2008 22:40
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HB posted:You're combining at least three books here. HAH! Thank you sir! Upon gazing the Wiki entry on him, I realized it was in fact a hodge-podge of 3 of his novels. The Twenty-One Balloons, Peter Graves(Had the anti-gravity metal) and The Giant I must have read them one after another because they all were certainly mashed together in my brain.
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Jan 31, 2008 23:19
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I'm shocked at the speed and accuracy in this thread. A few days ago, this guy told me the author/title of this book and the plot, but I wasn't paying as much attention as I should and I just have the plot. Old SciFi, envisions the internet, instant video chat, etc before it actually happens via wormhole control. This leads to the creation of a surveillance society where various cults decide to live either completely exposed, with no concept of privacy, or oppositely, in pitch black with no communication or self expression of any kind. Also, this has been rattling around in my brain for a while, I read this is a collection of short stories used in a writing class. SciFi, a group of explorers land on a planet in their rocket and find an empty city. The City wakes up, inhales ect, the explorers venture into the city, but they are killed and their bodies opened up, and their organs replaced with machines before being sent back to earth. Thanks in advance guys!
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Feb 1, 2008 03:00
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This one is a collection of short stories set in one timeline. The basic arc is the rise and fall and rise and fall of civilisations, but the stories are largely independent plot wise: - A group of humans take control of an alien spaceship where they are held prisoner - A large human spaceship crashes into a world where human civ has devolved back to living in the forest with nature etc. - A human trading spaceship discovers that a world they were heading to trade with has devolved to mostly medieval times with the exception of some military, and is chased by piston engine aircraft. - An exploration ship tries to find a group of refugees find their home star amongst a star cluster of millions of stars. I haven't really done it justice here, it was a good series.
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Feb 1, 2008 03:17
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Runoir posted:Also, this has been rattling around in my brain for a while, I read this is a collection of short stories used in a writing class. Sounds like "The City," from Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man". From the Wikipedia entry "A rocket expedition from Earth lands on an uncharted planet to be greeted by a seemingly empty City. As the humans begin to explore, they realize that the City is not as empty as it seems. The City was waiting for the arrival of humans; the contingency plan of a long dead civilization, put in place to take revenge upon Humanity after their culture was wiped out with biological weapons by humans long before recorded history. Once the City captures and kills the human astronauts, the humans' corpses are used as automatons to finalize The City's creators' revenge; a biological attack on the Earth." Seems kind of bland, but the descriptions of 'Space Adventurer' types getting sliced open so that robots could wear their skin and head back to Earth to get their revenge was at least discomfiting enough that I could spot the story you're thinking of. thrakkorzog fucked around with this message at 09:02 on Feb 1, 2008 |
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Feb 1, 2008 08:40
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Runoir posted:I'm shocked at the speed and accuracy in this thread. I don't know what you consider 'old', but this might be 'The Light of Other Days' by Arthur C Clarke and Stephen Baxter. edit: Zero Gravitas posted:This one is a collection of short stories set in one timeline. The basic arc is the rise and fall and rise and fall of civilisations, but the stories are largely independent plot wise: This could be Baxter as well; maybe this one? Does the name Xeelee for some of the aliens ring a bell? Unkempt fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Feb 1, 2008 |
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Feb 1, 2008 16:30
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thrakkorzog posted:Sounds like "The City," from Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man". Yes, this was it. Thanks a ton, constantly amazed at the accuracy here.
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Feb 1, 2008 19:10
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I'm trying to find an old literary textbook from back when I was in high school. It was relatively new looking back in 2000, about 1.5 inches thick. Some of the short stories and poems I recall were: Harrison Bergeron, The Scarlet Ibis, Fire and Ice (Robert Frost), All Summer In a Day, Homer's Odyssey and Iliad, Where The Red Fern Grows. It really was a school type book because it had questions at the end of stories and poems to analyze them. Also, if I remember correctly, the cover was Monet's Bridge Over Water Lilies, or something very similar (it may have had some willow like tree in the foreground). There were a lot of stories I liked but I don't remember the names of anymore and want to find them again. It's kind of a long shot with such little info, but I figured I'd give it a try asking goons.
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Feb 5, 2008 22:30
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I'm looking for the title of a science fiction book I read around 2000. It was kind of a modern "The Time Machine". The book starts out a man and wife very much in love. She gets sick with some incurable illness, and just before she dies he has her cyrogenically frozen. He takes a few years searching for the cure before deciding to freeze himself as well and join her in the future when a cure has been found. Throughout the rest of the book it follows him as he wakes up every 100; 1,000; 1,000,000 years. The first couple of times the cure has not yet been found and he tools around in the future and he gets frozen again. When he wakes up to find that the cure has finally been found, he discovers that his wife was either frozen improperly or frozen using an unperfected method, so the tissue damage is extensive. He has to freeze himself again, waiting for medical science to figure out a way to treat extensive cell damage. The book has all kinds of strange speculation; for instance, at one point the sciences have advanced so much that the jargon specific to each branch (medical, chemical, computer, etc.) has each become its own incomprehensible and separate language. Eventually, instead of being frozen, he is uploaded to some kind of super computer network to wait to be reunited with his wife. This is the important bit, but it's at the end and I don't want to ruin it for anyone. His wifes body was stored at a facility on or orbiting Pluto I think, and is lost when the facility is destroyed in an accident. He is heartbroken and despairs, having traveled thousands of years just to be with her again. He finds some theory relating to the fact that information is never truly lost or destroyed, and at the end of the universe all matter, energy and information will be compressed into a single point or something and effectively, he will be reunited with her "essence". It's kind of a scientific reconstruction of heaven. The title is one word (or "the" and one word), and that word is the term for the end of the universe when all information is attainable. The book was so-so; good ideas mixed with sappiness and ridiculous speculation. What bugs me is that I really want to know the title, not to find the book again, but because it was a word that I liked immensely. All internet searches for it just return Hitchhiker's references when I try.
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Feb 6, 2008 18:13
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There was a Larry Niven story with this storyline. The guy keeps going back into stasis and the world is getting weirder and weirder. He makes robots that maintain his stasis and now and then they pull him out when there has been an advance. Eventually they pull him out and the sun is huge and red in the sky, and he is rushed to a spaceship. They go to another planet. Next time they wake him the planet is populated with people that all look like they could be related to his girlfriend. Except they are all a bit green-ish, because the photo of his girl that the robots used as the basis for their genetic recreations had faded with time! The robots have now advanced to become a lifeform themselves. Very cool poo poo.
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Feb 6, 2008 19:02
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The Aphasian posted:The title is one word (or "the" and one word), and that word is the term for the end of the universe when all information is attainable. The book was so-so; good ideas mixed with sappiness and ridiculous speculation. What bugs me is that I really want to know the title, not to find the book again, but because it was a word that I liked immensely. All internet searches for it just return Hitchhiker's references when I try.
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Feb 6, 2008 20:08
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LittleSunshine posted:You're describing Tomorrow & Tomorrow by Charles Sheffield as far as I can tell, and the term used there is the Omega Point (from Teilhard de Chardin's books). Ring bells? Got it in one. I don't know why I thought it was a one-word title; I assume I saw the term "omega point" somewhere on the jacket or later just retconned my own memory to pick a more sci-fi title.
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Feb 6, 2008 22:45
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