The identify that story/book thread: Home of the gas pump boy

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The identify that story/book thread: Home of the gas pump boy

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

Garenas posted:

Ah, this is perfect. I read a short story online a while ago with the same basic idea being explored as The Scorpion House. It involved the story of an aging man who had a clone who's body he would place his brain in in order to prolong his life and 'start fresh.' I believe the title was "The Extra" or something along those lines, but I can't find a trace of it anywhere. Anyone know, or possibly have a link to it? I know I read it online...

http://eidolon.net/?story=The%20Extra

# ¿ Apr 8, 2010 10:42

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 04:44

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

Yeah it is, there's a lot more than 3 of those books though.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2010 19:22

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

Shonagon posted:

I hope this is OK to ask here: I need a quote identified! Only I can't remember either the quote or the speaker.

It's some tough nut American writer (of the 'bottle of whisky a day' type) and he said something along the lines of "I'd rather let the stableboy gently caress my wife than an editor touch my writing." Only that's not it, and googling similar words has got me nowhere, and I can't find it, and it's really annoying me. Anyone??

William Faulkner. Google gave me:

"I get drunk, I get mad, I get thrown from horses, I get all sorts of things. But I don't get edited. I'd rather see my wife get hosed by the stable boy."

plus a whole lot of sites about guys who want other men to sleep with their wives.

Doctor Zero posted:

The first is a book I read as a kid (long time ago). The cover was green & black from what I can remember (paperback). I think it was aimed at young adults. The story involved a young boy who may have been orphaned. He went to live in this old creepy house that I think was on an Everglades-like swampy area. There were marshes, and reeds, and the boy would take a rowboat or canoe out into the swamps. There was something vaguely creepy going on, that might have involved searching for treasure. I think there was a girl living near by that he befriended or something. I vaguely recall a scene at night with a lantern out on the swamps. Very vague, I know. This probably describes 50,000 different books, but I would dearly love to read it again as an adult. It was probably terrible, but I liked it at the time.

This actually sounds a bit like a book someone was asking about on the previous page which turned out to be Swampland by S. R. Martin.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2010 20:10

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

A boy lives alone with his mother because his father is a solider and is away fighting. The boy becomes overly attached to the mother because that's who he spends all his time with. Father returns from fighting and has post-traumatic stress disorder. He spends a lot of time in bed and gets angry at the loud noise the boy makes playing etc. Because the mother spends most of her time with the father now the boy gets jealous and tries to sabotage their relationship. At the end the mother gets pregnant again and has another baby. Now she spends all her time with that and the father and son are both jealous together and start to bond.

It was a short story.
Pretty sure it was set in Britain and by a British writer.
The war was either WWI or WW2.

I can remember the plot exactly but have no idea who wrote it.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2012 12:49

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

King Pawn posted:

I think I read this in some sort of sci-fi short story anthology a very long time ago, but I don't remember many details at all.. set in the future, everyone has a personal device constantly monitoring their health. And for some reason, a man turns into a unicorn (?) while his device bleeps YOU ARE ILL at him. Pretty vague, but is it ringing any bells for anyone?

'Mythological Beast' by Stephen Donaldson.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2012 13:18

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

Satire.
Reverie.
Insurance.

Sounds a bit like 'Something Happened', Joseph Heller.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2013 12:35

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

Those events happen in 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay'.

Novel though, and a long one.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2013 12:39

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

What's that one terrible story where future america is basically hell because of capitalism but it's okay because the main character wins the lottery or something and goes to australia which doesn't have capitalism so everything is free and the people are like gods with magic virtual reality powers.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2013 11:13

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

BatteredFeltFedora posted:

"Manna" by Marshall Brain http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

Ta. This started off better than I remembered but the Australian super society is just so ludicrous that the story falls apart when it gets introduced imo.

# ¿ Jan 1, 2014 00:37

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

Operation Juicebox posted:

I am looking for a children's/pre-teen's book I read as a kid that I would like to pass on. Here is what I remember about the plot, can't for the LIFE of me remember the title or author.

The plot is about a girl around her early teenage years who is a tomboy. She loves football (believe the setting of the book is the UK, so that would be soccer otherwise). Her younger sister who I think is called Rose is their mother's baby. Rose is pretty, a talented singer, dancer and actor and it's really clear that she is the apple of her mother's eye and everything in their family revolves around making Rose a superstar.

One day the protagonist kicks her football and smashes the window of a lady who happens to be a ballet instructor. The instructor wants the protagonist to take ballet lessons as penance, believing she has the physical build and form to make a great dancer. However their mother pushes Rose on her instead because she does not believe that the protagonist could ever be better than Rose.

In the end the protagonist loves dancing and has great talent at ballet, but gives up the starring role in their production to the sister who is okay but not as good as her due to pressure from their mother and her own issues surrounding her identity. I cannot remember how the book ends but I do believe it was bittersweet.

Hi There, Supermouse. Jean Ure.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2014 10:16

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

It's been a long time since I've read those books but I don't remember the plot of Otherland being anything like that.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2015 11:08

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

I spent a minute google for you and found a guy on a bukowski forum saying it was from a poem but he doesn't say which one and according to wikipedia Bukowski wrote like a billion collections of poetry. I guess have a look at the titles and see if any of the names ring a bell or ask on that forum and someone might know.

http://bukowskiforum.com/threads/was-bukowski-bisexual.111/page-2

# ¿ Jul 31, 2015 11:02

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

Sci-fi story, pretty short.

A rich guy has made a time machine. The narrator tests it out with him and they go either very far into the past or very far into the future, like either the big bang or the end of the universe. At one point something sees/attacks them and I think it's described as being like a shark in some way.

# ¿ Nov 20, 2015 11:09

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:

Got it! In The Abyss off Time, by Stephen Baxter.

That's the one, thank you.

# ¿ Nov 21, 2015 11:20

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

It's a short story that I'm pretty sure I read after someone else asked about it in this thread.

I think it's sci-fi but I can't really remember why I think that. The plot is something to do with a military leader returning to his home after fighting in some sort of massive battle. Some other soldiers turn up and make trouble and he is forced to kill them. I know that's vague but I think the story was purposefully vague and short of details itself.

# ¿ May 7, 2016 19:02

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

mcustic posted:

It's the one of the best genre stories ever IMO: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/quietwar.htm

That was fast, thanks!

It's a really good story. Do you know if the rest of his writing is as strong?

According to wikipedia his most recent novels have been Star Trek stuff and something called 'The Dragon Hammer, Wulf's Saga Book 1' which looks like the most generic kind of fantasy possible. It seems kind of bizarre that he's writing that sort of stuff given how impressive A Dry, Quiet War is.

# ¿ May 7, 2016 19:42

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

ZoeDomingo posted:

1) A female reporter is invited by a billionaire Steve Jobs type to ride in a space ship or time machine or something on its maiden voyage. The ship is buried in a cave or in the ground, but is able to "travel" by some sort of shift of space time. I think there's something about a necklace or pendant the billionaire has hung near his seat to keep him focused or to demonstrate how the ship is moving.

In the Abyss of Time by Stephen Baxter. I asked this thread for the same story a few years ago and someone remembered it for me

https://the-eye.eu/public/Books/Sci...20Of%20Time.txt

# ¿ Mar 16, 2019 11:49

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

That's the right time/genre/basic plot for Otherland by Tad Williams.

The characters do change bodies iirc and I have very faint memories of a bad guy with unusual eyes but it's been too long to remember the details.

# ¿ May 26, 2020 10:08

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

D. Ebdrup posted:

Still looking for a childrens book about two cats who go out on a fishing boat in a storm and get served meatballs by a friendly chef when they finally get home - it's told from the point of view of one of the cats, if memory serves.

This sounds familiar but I can't find anything that matches it exactly.

The Mousehole Cat is a famous children's book about a cat who goes on a fishing boat in a storm and has a big pie at the end.

The Quayside Cat is about two cats who go out to sea and at one point there is a storm. Don't remember any meatballs though.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2020 16:41

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

Human Remains by Elizabeth Haynes possibly.

It doesn't exactly match your description but it's fairly close.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2020 10:58

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

The story is just called 'A Fine Rainy Day' and it's in the collection 'The Most Beautiful Book in the World: Eight Novellas' by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2021 12:04

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

Hobnob posted:

This one was a not-very-good medical drama from the 80s‐ish with a fantasy twist. Kind of felt like a Robin Cook novel, but not one of his from what I could see. Set in America, probably a US author.

A (young, idealistic?) protagonist doctor is volunteering at a free health clinic when a hobo dies. As he dies he grabs the doctor who feels a weird electric shock from him. The hobo appears to have died from a long history of alcohol or drug abuse.

The next day, at about the same time, the doctor is doing a routine exam on a patient at a hosptial. He feels the same kind of shock, which the patient complains about, but then says hey doc, whatever you did fixed my backj completely.

After a bit of plot to-and-fro, the doctor works out that for an hour each day, he can cure people of anything by touching them. Initially he can't predict when it happens, and gets suspended from the hospital for trying to demonstrate his power to the board, and failing. Eventually he ties his "hour of power" to the time of the local high tide. As he he heals more people, his own health starts to suffer. He gets pursued by crowds of people wanting him to heal them.

There's a rich lady with young autistic(?) child as part of the plot, and the final act has him cure the child but give himself some kind of stroke in the process. The epilogue has the child wandering in the garden bringing a dead bird(?) back to life.

Not a good story or anything, but I was reminded of it the other day and wonder if anybody recognizes it.

The Touch by Francis Paul Wilson.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2022 12:56

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

ScienceSeagull posted:

Trying to remember a nonfiction book I've heard of. It's a collection of articles/essays by authors with different areas of expertise, all describing the same small location (a town or street) with attention to their particular interests. E.g. one writes about trees, one about insects, one about place names, etc. Might have been called something like "Ten Walks"?

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15803166-on-looking

# ¿ May 31, 2022 09:38

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

PurpleXVI posted:

Trying to remember a novel I read in grade school, which by now is about 20 years back.

It starts off with a poor kid, obsessed with spending what little money he gets on fast food at a place that's a poorly-disguised pastiche of McDonald's. One day the franchise has a contest to design their new slogan, and the winner gets a super prize. The kid has a great start to his new slogan but can't finish it(he tries to get advice from people, but anyone he asks is either incompetent or unsympathetic, like his dad, who instead makes up a rhyme about the burgers being full of chopped rats and horse meat), so he has someone's uncle hypnotize him and, in his hypnotized trance, he makes the ULTIMATE SLOGAN and wins the FAST FOOD PRIZE of getting to travel to FAST FOOD LAND, which at first seems to be a utopia, but slowly turns out to have a sinister underbelly.

In the last chapter, he escapes FAST FOOD LAND, and the train leaving starts just travelling into an empty, meaningless void... and as he sits there, staring into the void, the other passengers muttering meaningless garbage, he hears the echo of the hypnotist from the first chapter muttering: "gently caress, I can't snap him out of it," implying that the whole thing has been his brain spiralling in on itself while he's been trapped in the hypnotic trance.

I can't remember if it was particularly good or bad, but it's just one of those books that occasionally pops into my mind and now I want to see what it was actually like.

Holiday in Happy Street. Jon Blake.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2022 11:50

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

Kosmo Gallion posted:

A book I read about six years ago but it's probably a bit older than that. Set in the UK, it's bunch of letters between old friends who have drifted apart. One dude is a total rear end in a top hat and is cheating on his wife with one of the female friends. They have sex in a tent in a public park and are nearly caught when a dog walker stumbles on them.

Two of the male friends exchange letters and there are some really funny exchanges where they're both oblivious to how gay they are and they eventually end up in a loving relationship with eachother.

I think the group initially start writing to eachother because one of their old female friends died in mysterious circumstances?

I read this the same time I read The Curious Case of The Dog in the Nighttime.

I doubt this is it but maybe 'Unfaithfully Yours' by Nigel Williams.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2023 22:13

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

Purple trillium posted:

I read this book a few years ago on mybooks so it is out of print and was written in the 1800s possibly early 1900s.

It�s about a man who is falsely accused of a crime or framed or something by his friend. I think they are both lawyers. He is sent to Australia and is a convict and the friend steals his fianc�e. The convict eventually makes his way to India, I think, and gets a job as a bookkeeper.
There he reunites with the girl but she doesn�t recognize him and now she is engaged to the backstabbing friend who works for her father�s shipping company.

The fianc� is importing 2 boats from India, one carrying lead and one carrying gold, but arranges for the cargo to be switched for an insurance scam and plans to sink the boat carrying �gold�. The fianc�e is supposed to travel back to England on the boat that isn�t going to sink, but she gets sick and misses it so she gets on the other boat instead. The convict also gets on the boat. When it sinks they end up shipwrecked and fall in love. Meanwhile her father goes on a mission to search for her and finds them and then eventually they both return and the fianc�/backstabbing friend gets his comeuppance at the end.

Ring any bells? Please help.

'Foul Play' by Charles Reade and Dion Boucicault.

This was hard to find.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2023 12:59

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 04:44

Lot 49: Dec 7, 2007; I'll do anything
For my sweet sixteen

Opopanax posted:

Nobody in the horror thread responded so maybe someone here knows. I definitely read this in the last 2 years but I don't see it in any of the anthologies I read, might have been an online thing

Are you sure it was a work of fiction?

A "real" haunted house had it's waiver leaked a few years back and it went viral. Here's a reddit thread talking about it with links to some of the more extreme clauses.

https://www.reddit.com/r/horror/comments/dn0sef/mckamey_manor_waivers_leaked/

# ¿ Feb 16, 2023 10:36

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The identify that story/book thread: Home of the gas pump boy