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A book I read ten years ago or more. Some kind of sci-fi, there was a war going on. Due to the immense distances involved forces would reach a destination to find that the whole scope of the conflict had changed, and many thousands of years had passed since they started their journey. I can't remember if this was due to stasis/sleep chambers or relativistic affects of lightspeed travel (or both). The main characters were a couple, seperated by the war and I think they each accepted that the other was probably dead. The woman possibly begins a lesbian relationship because everyone else is doing the same, but she's not really into it. By some huge concidence they both survive and end up in the same region of space and time. By this time heterosexual relationships are all but unheard of and their coupling is seen as a somewhat grotesque abberation. I think they retire to a planet/region specially set aside for ex-soldiers who have been seriously displaced in time. Some, all or most of these details may be incorrect. Any ideas?
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May 17, 2011 14:04
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That's it! Thanks guys 
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May 17, 2011 14:28
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Children's book that I would have read in the late 80s. I have so little info here but this thread has not let me down yet. - Main character is called Philip. Human boy from the regular world. - Secondary character, which I think was a humanoid hamster or guinea pig or something, couldn't pronounce Philip correctly and called him "Flipip". - There was a bird, I think a robin, involved. Maybe it died, or was seriously injured. - In the end, some evil character (a witch?) is trying to persuade Philip to do something. The robin states "Flipip knows the word. Flying, flying" causing the main character to remember a dream(?) where he was flying and saw two islands that spelled "NO" when seen from above. He says no to the witch and wins the story, or saves the day, or whatever. I think this final scene happened in a library. - There may have been a sequel. Or this was a sequel. Or not. As always, some, none or all of these details may be incorrect! The only bit I definitely remember is "Flipip knows the word. Flying, flying" but given the time since I read it, that is highly unreliable. Thanks for any insights offered.
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Jun 8, 2011 15:48
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A young boy is taken by his grandfather to visit the graves of his great-grandfather, who was 7 feet tall, and his great-great-grandfather, who was almost 8 feet tall. I think the boy rode on the grandfather's shoulders at one point. Probably British, probably released in the late 70s or early 80s. That's all I have. Anyone?
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Jul 7, 2011 21:37
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There was a series of books (or possibly a single book with several stories) set in a near-future dystopian UK. They were very technology-heavy and virtual reality programs were inprinted on feathers. Androids gained sustenance by putting these feathers into a special 'mouth' on their stomachs. I think the feathers were blue, and turned brown once they were used. I think androids and humans could interbreed, and possibly dogs too? And... something about a DJ with a hand made of butterflies. I hope someone can help, this is bugging the hell out of me.
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Jul 26, 2011 19:41
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I read a book, or series of books, 20 to 25 years ago. It was called [Somethings] and [Somethings]. the first something's looked like a cross between pineapples and lizards, and were mean and grumpy. The second something's looked like koalas, and were happy and friendly. I think it was set in Australia, but that might just be the koala thing. That's really all I remember. Maybe something about a typewriter, and something about a crown? Anyone?
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Mar 21, 2012 21:12
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eating only apples posted:Bottersnikes and Gumbles? Brilliant, thank you. Now to buy them all!
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Mar 21, 2012 22:44
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Another one, based on some memories stirred up by earlier discussion in the thread. It was a short story, post apocalypse world. A guy comes out of the wilderness to a deserted city, and exerts a huge amount of effort to get a battery into a power node that turns on all the lights, sets the walkways moving and so on. It's the closest he can get to what it was like when he wasn't alone. After a very short amount of time, the power runs out and everything shuts down again, and he leaves. He was sad because he realised he wouldn't be able to do it many more times, because the batteries were running out or he was getting too old to move them or something. That's it. I just told my fiancée about it she says it sounds like the saddest thing, so now I need to find it and read it to her.
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Mar 24, 2012 22:13
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I remember a short story from a sci-fi anthology (that seems to be a theme in this thread). It was written in the first person, with the main character fleeing through space from a group he called the Usurpers, until he finds a world that seems totally untouched by them. He hides there and realises this is the place he first met them, and shared his knowledge. He hides but they find him and run him to ground, declaring that the world is a sacred place and he may not be there. Resigned to his fate he asks, in a pitiful fashion, "But why? I am God!". The Usurper replies "Yes. But I am Man. Now come". End of story. Any ideas?
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Jan 30, 2013 22:55
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Action Jacktion posted:"Evensong" by Lester del Rey. Brilliant, thank you. I just found an online version, and the story is about one hundredth the length I had remembered. Poor God 
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Jan 31, 2013 08:38
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JingleCreb posted:I've got a very hazy recollection of a concept from a book I guess I must have read 15-20 years ago in my early teens. There's a group of people and they all have to get in a circle. Then some kind of force called "The Fury" comes along and goes round and round the circle, possessing them one by one. They each go crazy with rage while it has hold of them. Eventually it settles on one of them and that is bad for that person in some way. The Last Human by Doug Naylor. The 3rd(?) Red Dwarf book, and the first written solo rather than as one half of Grant Naylor, with Rob Grant.
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Feb 10, 2013 10:30
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A friend and I both remember a book where the conquered populace of a defeated country (planet?) agree to surrender on the condition that their libraries and art galleries are not destroyed by the occupying army. The leader of the occupying force gets around this by sorting all the individual letters from the libraries into alphabetical order, and sorting all the individual pigment fragments of the artworks into colour order. Thus he punishes the populace without (technically) breaking his word. Can't remember a single drat thing more about the story.
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Dec 17, 2013 22:08
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Some sci-fi thing where a certain species of alien has hardly any sense of taste, and so values foodstuffs on texture instead. I want to say Larry Niven but I'm not sure.
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Feb 13, 2014 01:20
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Is the second not Needful Things by Stephen King?
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Jul 16, 2014 23:56
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regulargonzalez posted:Wouldn't happen to be The New Mutants comic by chance? You described the first year or so of that comic fairly well. Did the guy with the hand thing in New Mutants get shot and go into like a chrysalis thing, and when he came out he had one hand that could kill by touching, and the other could heal/resurrect? If that is New Mutants then you just identified the story I was coming here to ask about before I'd even done so. Big coincidence and I think probably a new best, even for this thread.
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Aug 23, 2014 22:55
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I have a couple, one sci-fi, one fantasy. The sci-fi was a short story and a simple premise. When the guy went downstairs, he travelled back in time. Upstairs, forwards in time. I think there might have been some kind of inter-dimensional administrative agency trying to fix whatever problem was causing it. The fantasy one is more difficult. It was perhaps spread across more than one book. A group had to collect something (gems?) to stop A BAD THING from happening. The plot was incredibly contrived and more like the plot of a video game ("Aha, we have captured the gem of the centaur king! Now to challenge the leader of the swamp lords for his gem!"). One of the main party of characters was female and specialised in knives and knife-throwing. I think that the big bad they were trying to stop was also female. And that's all I have.
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Apr 29, 2015 22:01
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Nope, nope and nope, but thanks for trying. I remembered another aspect of the sci-fi story - when he went back in time, there weren't any stairs, so he had to run up a little hill to travel forwards in time again. I think he was getting chased by cavemen and may have brought a spear or something back with him to the present. Oh and the fantasy story wasn't a kids book. Maybe YA but more likely it was aimed at adults.
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May 2, 2015 10:25
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When I was a kid my brother had a talking book from the local library about a green rabbit. I thought it was called Taffy Apple of Toffee Apple but googling turns up nothing. I also kind find anything on Wikipedia's list on fictional rabbits. This would have been mid eighties, in the UK. It's driving me crazy that I can't remember it as he listened to the cassette at least seven million times. Edit - if anyone cared, the book I asked about a while ago: Sanford posted:The fantasy one is more difficult. It was perhaps spread across more than one book. A group had to collect something (gems?) to stop A BAD THING from happening. The plot was incredibly contrived and more like the plot of a video game ("Aha, we have captured the gem of the centaur king! Now to challenge the leader of the swamp lords for his gem!"). One of the main party of characters was female and specialised in knives and knife-throwing. I think that the big bad they were trying to stop was also female. And that's all I have. was Orcs by Stan Nicholls. Sanford fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Jul 28, 2015 |
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Jul 28, 2015 23:52
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Tardigrade posted:Years ago, I ran into a book in a bookshop that was about dragons. It was written in a realistic field notes style with sketches and all, with the protagonists landing on an island and discovering loads of weird animals. I remember the dragons being pink with pterosaurian heads, gills, and light balloon-like bodies. There was also some kind of living bear-trap creature. One of the several Dragonology books by Dugald A. Steer?
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Aug 20, 2015 19:58
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Science fiction novel, probably late 80s or early 90s? I think it was a series but I stopped reading it because it got a bit rapey. A woman is held prisoner by the captain of a freighter who has a device that makes her all hot and ready for sex. She escapes, gets taken in by another captain who thinks she loves him but now she's using the device to conceal her revulsion at having sex with him. She gets pregnant, has the baby which is grown to adulthood in the space of a few hours, and then has the woman's memories implanted into its brain to make up for all the growing up it missed. There must have been more to it than this or I wouldn't have read it, but it's all I remember.
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May 26, 2016 15:32
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May 26, 2016 15:32
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Clipperton posted:Taking another run at this. It's a collection (or possibly a couple of collections I'm mixing up) of (mostly ghost) stories for kids, probably published in the UK in the 1970s or 1980s. Some of the stories: I remember this. My version of the book was green and had the doll story on the front cover. More info that probably won't help: - the WWII one involves a plan to bomb Birmingham which makes the kid think of burning ham because he's hungry. It ends with him opening the shed where the glowing mushrooms are, and someone yelling "Put that light out!" - the doll repair was a woman, she took the lovely hair from one doll, and distinctive skin from another. She said the "child" was her niece, whose parents had died. It's an ill wind that blows no-one any good said the other parents, and shook their heads. - it contained an extract from "Dangleboots" by Dennis Hamley about a boy who lives three days out of order. Edit: Magnet Book of Sinister Stories. Sanford fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Jun 2, 2016 |
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Jun 2, 2016 03:04
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Clipperton posted:Out of curiosity, how did you find it? Insomnia? Looking at my search history from 3am, it was "Dangleboots Hamley" that found it, with the cover somewhere down the list of GIS results. There are boring personal reasons I remember that title, but it was your description of the mushroom and doll stories that brought it to mind. Looking at the list, the only other story I remember is "The Parrot"; none of the others ring a bell at all. Still, not bad over 30 years of memory. Edit: I just bought a copy from Amazon for 96p so if you want to read it again, PM me! Sanford fucked around with this message at 10:41 on Jun 2, 2016 |
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Jun 2, 2016 07:29
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oldpainless posted:Are you sure it's a comic and not MY LIFE? More like oldbabeless 504 posted:This book is a comic, I saw it at the library but didn't take it at the time, now I can't remember what it is called. More details please! Single issue or graphic novel, colour or b&w?
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Jun 20, 2017 19:55
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A colleague and I both remember a book with a female character who will only have anal sex, claiming that in her youth she masturbated with a glass bottle which shattered and left her with terrible scars. It transpires she's actually transgender and I think had botched surgery. Don't think this was a key element of the plot, just an aspect we both remember. Edit: we think it's probably Acid House by Irvine Welsh. Sanford fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Aug 3, 2017 |
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Aug 3, 2017 16:46
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Captain Monkey posted:Weird longshot about a probably short story but maybe book during a discussion in the car with the wife - child, unsure of gender, falls into a mathemagical world (not a typo, magical math stuff) and ends up eating 'subtraction soup' that makes them hungrier but they were too dumb to realize it and ate a ton and were starving. Mostly just want to know if I imagined it or not. Phantom Tollbooth?
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Aug 4, 2017 14:23
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A book that appears to be set in medieval times but is revealed at the end to be contemporary but isolated. It might have been in South America and there might have been references to a city of glass that was assumed to be heaven but turned out to be just a modern city. Sorry it's so vague; half a memory from 15 years ago when I was reading 3-4 novels a weeks so some or all of the scant details I've got may be wrong.
Sanford fucked around with this message at 14:03 on Sep 7, 2017 |
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Sep 7, 2017 13:54
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RC and Moon Pie posted:After several years, I was finally able to identify a book from my childhood. I had asked about it in the thread a couple of times. Wow that's great, I would love to read that. Do you actually have a copy? Take a pic of the page with the biggest wrong fact!
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Sep 25, 2017 20:45
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Yes! I asked the same question.Piell posted:Sounds like The Forever War. I believe at the end of this they actually find each other again despite the time displacement stuff, but it still sounds like what you’re looking for.
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Dec 3, 2017 10:14
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Standard "probably from an anthology of sci-fi short stories". There has been some kind of radioactive event that leads to all kids being born all messed up. The narrator of the story repeatedly refers to her baby not being affected ("not my baby, my perfect little girl"). At the end someone else goes to change the baby's nappy or dress her or something and can't get her leg through the leg hole. He quickly realises the baby hasn't got any arms or legs, and the mum is just bonkers. Any takers?
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Feb 22, 2018 16:16
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Runcible Cat posted:That Only a Mother, Judith Merril. Three minutes, seriously? Edit: Also, thanks!
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Feb 22, 2018 16:20
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I’ve got a couple that I may have posted before, but never got an answer. Edit: probably about 1990 The first was a duo of sci-fi CYOA books, but not CYOA branded. They were thin, high-quality, A4-sized softback books with good quality full colour artwork on every page. The books were in the same setting which I think was a ship or AI of some kind laying out the quest objectives at the beginning. There may have been four books total in the series - I think there were four pictures on the back of each book. The only things I remember about the books - one of the “moderate good” endings was to ascend to a higher plane of existence (didn’t complete your quest but still p. good). The art was white T-shaped beings with green eyes. The ultimate bad ending was being put in a suspended animation tube thing and placed in a museum/prison for tourists of all species to visit for entertainment. The art was looking down towards a pair of feet, with the viewer inside a bronze tube that is being filled with green liquid. The text described your body going numb and you can still see and hear but otherwise are frozen in time, and goes on to describe your tube being placed in the [museum/prison thing]. It has just occurred to me that my dad might have got these through his job as a headteacher and it’s possible they were never properly released. Any publishing people know if that’s a possibility? The second book will be much easier to explain with a picture so I’ll come back later and oh my god I’ve just realised that maybe these never got a full release either. I’ve got to ring my dad and ask him about this. Sanford fucked around with this message at 18:15 on May 3, 2018 |
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May 3, 2018 18:10
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Two I read at school in the UK in the early to mid nineties, but may have been published long before. 1) A local hill/lake/wood has tales about people going there and never being seen again. I think fairies were involved in these legends? A local man has six fingers on each hand, and seems to know what’s going on. At the end, the protagonist is offered the chance to take a brief walk through either of a pair of magic doors - one leads to a sea cliff with the waves crashing below, and the other a perfect English walled garden, full of roses. He declines, realising that if he spends five minutes there a hundred years will pass in the real world. This is where the tales of people disappearing come from. 2) On every planet a different species rose to sentience; on earth apes, but elsewhere cats, dogs, toads, etc. A boy discovers the tomb of a mighty cat hero, for some reason buried on Earth. The dog race is evil, and they are trying to find the tomb and the treasures within. The boy first realises something is up when he sees a dog standing on its hind legs against a fence and notices that rather than its paws resting on top, it has long, black fingers that are gripping the wire. The boy defeats the dogs using one of the tomb’s treasures - a golden egg containing a red paste that gives him uncanny agility and endurance. At the end the cat race comes to take the tomb away to hide it again, and they reward the boy with the gift of peak physical fitness - he climbs on something and one of the cats shouts “the ape is an ape once more” or somesuch. (That bit about the dog’s fingers made my skin crawl as I typed it, and I suddenly remember how disquieting I found it 25 years ago. Funny how things take you back!)
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Aug 26, 2018 00:47
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A story about a boy whose mother is dying and for some reason he has to travel across America to the coast which is repeatedly referred to as “the place where the sea meets the sky”. He can sidestep into another dimension, and I think he was special because he doesn’t have an alternate self there. This means he steps into the equivalent place to where he is now, rather than to where his double is in the other dimension. This bit is really really confusing to me and I can’t work out how it worked, but I believe it was a major theme. I think a villain had a club foot in one or other dimension, because when the hero switched between the two he noticed tracks in the sand where the villain had been dragging his foot around. If anyone knows what I’m on about and can tell me how the whole dimension hopping thing worked that would be great. Edit: I think he eats a spliff so the police don’t find it on him and gets really ill. Might be a different book I’m thinking of. Sanford fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Sep 25, 2018 |
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Sep 25, 2018 19:52
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Take the plunge! Okay! posted:Talisman by Stephen King Haha what the gently caress dude I hadn’t even finished posting Edit: I just read the synopsis on wikipedia. Is it as bad as it sounds? I read it aged about 10 and remember being enthralled. Sanford fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Sep 25, 2018 |
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Sep 25, 2018 19:55
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I’ve got an Audible credit and roadworks have currently blessed me with an hour each-way commute, so I’ll give it a go. Thanks!
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Sep 25, 2018 20:11
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A book I listened to on cassette borrowed from a library in the UK in the mid to late 80s. A girl living by the sea somewhere tropical discovers a secret reef teeming with life. The “spirit” of the reef is embodied by some massive fish that lives there, either a manta ray or a whale shark. The girl’s brother is a fisherman and he and his crew secretly follow the girl to the reef, and catch all the fish. There is a very graphic sequence describing the girl discovering all the dead and dying fish her brother’s boat has left behind, ignored because their catch was so big.
Sanford fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Nov 2, 2018 |
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Nov 2, 2018 22:52
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Easy-Bake Coven posted:I found: I'm astonished. I never would have found that. What a weird mix of books my library had in the children's audiobook section 30 years ago!
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Nov 5, 2018 09:33
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Also looking for a sci-fi story - humans make contact with a race of duck-like aliens. They are kind and generous but also gluttonous and annoying pricks. Everyone has had enough of them until some die in a fire and nearby humans can’t resist the smell of the roasting aliens. Then the humans either eat them all or start to and the rest leave.
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Dec 5, 2018 20:43
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Kid goes to a boarding school for... vampires and warlocks and that? One by one his classmates get "accepted" by the school which they show by wearing a special ring. Once this happens, they are weird and distant and there is a definite "us against them" mentality. Right at the end the protagonist has gone through whatever ceremony was needed and now he's got the ring, and he sees everything clearly and it's all cool and good. I remember reading it and thinking "ah right he just got it wrong, turns out it was fine" but I'd like to have another look and see if it comes off as more nuanced 30 years on.
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Jul 16, 2019 12:38
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