# Ask the guy who is pretty good at SF Story Identification **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [September 7, 2008, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417 "2008-09-07T00:08:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![ianjohnson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a3d4f5/32.png) [@ianjohnson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianjohnson)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/241 "2009-09-15T01:05:22Z")
Thanks, I asked about this on Analog’s forum, and no one could give me a title or author. It’s interesting that it is Brin, he is my favorite (aside from Asimov and Clarke, any discussion of favorites comes after them). ---
**Author:** ![Gregor\_Samsa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a6a055/32.png) [@Gregor\_Samsa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gregor_Samsa)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/242 "2009-09-15T01:36:09Z")
I read a short story sometime around the late 1970s about a scientist (a botanist, maybe) who came across some kind of potion or drug that he took that slowed his metabolism down so much that he could finally see the violence in the plant kingdom. Plants fighting for water, choking each other out, etc. I think at the end of the story he was stuck and about to get choked out by vines or something. My memories are a little vague. Does that sound at all familiar? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/243 "2009-09-15T01:37:25Z")
> [@ianjohnson](#): > > Thanks, I asked about this on Analog’s forum, and no one could give me a title or author. It’s interesting that it is Brin, he is my favorite (aside from Asimov and Clarke, any discussion of favorites comes after them). According to ISFDB it was published in F&SF not Analog (I read it in Brin’s collection “Otherness” which is a great book) [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?47159](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?47159) ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/244 "2009-09-15T01:51:27Z")
> [@Gregor\_Samsa](#): > > I read a short story sometime around the late 1970s about a scientist (a botanist, maybe) who came across some kind of potion or drug that he took that slowed his metabolism down so much that he could finally see the violence in the plant kingdom. Plants fighting for water, choking each other out, etc. I think at the end of the story he was stuck and about to get choked out by vines or something. My memories are a little vague. > > Does that sound at all familiar? Amazingly enough, I found this one “Alien Earth” by Edmond Hamilton, published in 1949 [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?41675](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?41675) (I used some obvious keywords to find a thread on rec.arts.sf.written (USENET), and did some other googling to confirm) ---
**Author:** ![ianjohnson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a3d4f5/32.png) [@ianjohnson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianjohnson)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/245 "2009-09-15T02:03:04Z")
We subscribed to Analog, but once in a while I bought F&SF off the newstand, so this must have been in one of those. No wonder I could never track it down. Brin actually wrote a script based on it, but the production company that bought the option and commissioned it doesn’t have it listed as one of their projects in development. ---
**Author:** ![Jeu\_D\_Esprit\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b77776/32.png) [@Jeu\_D\_Esprit\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeu_D_Esprit_1)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/246 "2009-09-15T02:03:10Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > You say fantasy, but I’m remembering something similar, and it was SF. A human ship had been blown up in alien space and one of the aliens was raising a human child in order to give his people someone who might be able to communicate with the next humans that he was assuming would eventually come. > > There were movies and such from the ship to expose the child to, so it’s not like he thought that all humans would just be able to talk to each other. It wasn’t an assassin he was raising the boy to be, but something else, something with status within the alien society. They’re used as judges. I remember a flashback with the alien’s daughter saying something like, “Decide between me and \_\_\_\_”, a request which trapped him into attempting to train her as a whatever, even knowing that she’d fail and die. So what I’m remembering was not told from the boy’s perspective, at least no totally. > > Regarding the stones, not only was there a stone hidden under the fire in the room, (which was built on sand), but there was a stone hidden a foot under the stone hidden under the fire. Sorry that I don’t remember more. I think I read it in the late seventies or early eighties. Cukoo’s Egg, by C J Cherryh? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/247 "2009-09-15T21:50:48Z")
> [@Jeu\_D\_Esprit\_1](#): > > Cukoo’s Egg, by C J Cherryh? I haven’t read it, but based on the summary here [Cuckoo's Egg (book) - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo%27s_Egg_(novel)) that might be right ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2009, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/248 "2009-09-15T22:11:49Z")
I thought of a short story I’d like to read again, prolly from MF&SF or Asimov’s or Analog in the late 70s or early 80s. The story was long-ish, novella size, about a guy who lived inside a huge, planet-size spaceship and his journey thru it for something (power cells? medicine? can’t remember). It was so old that it was breaking down, I seem to recall, and travel thru it was rare, almost non-existent. Various levels has different dominant cultures and maybe even life forms. I seem to recall that he had discovered an old elevator system that he was using. I think the end was that he finally found a way out _onto_ the surface, where he confirmed that he was indeed inside something constructed. Also pretty sure that artwork on the cover was inspired by this story. Unfortunately, I lost a lot of my old SF mags while I was in college, and I’ve been unable to find this story in any compilation about artificial worlds since. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/249 "2009-09-16T00:37:55Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > I thought of a short story I’d like to read again, prolly from MF&SF or Asimov’s or Analog in the late 70s or early 80s. > > The story was long-ish, novella size, about a guy who lived inside a huge, planet-size spaceship and his journey thru it for something (power cells? medicine? can’t remember). It was so old that it was breaking down, I seem to recall, and travel thru it was rare, almost non-existent. Various levels has different dominant cultures and maybe even life forms. I seem to recall that he had discovered an old elevator system that he was using. > > I think the end was that he finally found a way out _onto_ the surface, where he confirmed that he was indeed inside something constructed. > > Also pretty sure that artwork on the cover was inspired by this story. > > Unfortunately, I lost a lot of my old SF mags while I was in college, and I’ve been unable to find this story in any compilation about artificial worlds since. Doesn’t ring a bell, and I haven’t found any useful hints online yet. Let me know if you think of any other facts about it, and I’ll keep thinking. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/250 "2009-09-16T00:57:26Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Doesn’t ring a bell, and I haven’t found any useful hints online yet. Let me know if you think of any other facts about it, and I’ll keep thinking. Here’s a link to a list of books with megastructures - one of them might be your novella (later expanded into a book)[http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/a594356f3c70b1af?hl=en&&q=“big+dumb+object”+spaceship](http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written/msg/a594356f3c70b1af?hl=en&&q=%22big+dumb+object%22+spaceship) ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/251 "2009-09-16T01:41:12Z")
Okay, this might be the hardest one of the lot to identify. Many years ago when I was at school I had a friend who was obsessed by all things science fiction. Anyway, he showed me a science fiction novel he had received as a birthday present. The thing was the text had a lot of weird effects, for example one one page the text was printed in a spiral so that you had to keep turning the book arouind to read it. Another page started with text in a great big font size, and gradually decreased the size so that you had to almost use a magnifying glass to read the last line. I didn’t read the novel, I just glanced at it briefly. I have no idea what the plot was about, or who the author was It might for all I know be some totally forgotten piece of trash that nobody read apart from my old friend. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/252 "2009-09-16T01:46:31Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > …The story was long-ish, novella size, about a guy who lived inside a huge, planet-size spaceship… An interesting but not uncommon SF trope: [Generation ship - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_ship#In_fiction) ---
**Author:** ![Weedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/weedy/32/301_2.png) [@Weedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weedy)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/253 "2009-09-16T03:17:29Z")
> [@Jeu\_D\_Esprit\_1](#): > > Cukoo’s Egg, by C J Cherryh? Based on the cover art, and the boy’s name, I’m pretty sure that’s the one. Amazing, thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/254 "2009-09-16T03:23:29Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > An interesting but not uncommon SF trope: [Generation ship - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_ship#In_fiction) Yes, I know… that’s why I’m having a hard time finding the story I’m looking for. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/255 "2009-09-16T03:25:57Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Doesn’t ring a bell, and I haven’t found any useful hints online yet. Let me know if you think of any other facts about it, and I’ll keep thinking. It was definitely a story about a Dyson Sphere, with people living on the inside and unaware or in denial about it. ETA: clicked on every link in **Elendil** ’s link, and it isn’t any of those. I even checked over the novels in there that I don’t own already. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/256 "2009-09-16T23:47:27Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > It was definitely a story about a Dyson Sphere, with people living on the inside and unaware or in denial about it. > > ETA: clicked on every link in **Elendil** ’s link, and it isn’t any of those. I even checked over the novels in there that I don’t own already. Did you check the link I gave? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2009, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/257 "2009-09-16T23:59:55Z")
Peter Morris, are you talking about _The Demolished Man_ perhaps?: > **[The Demolished Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demolished_Man)** > > The Demolished Man is a science fiction novel by American writer Alfred Bester, which was the first Hugo Award winner in 1953. An inverted detective story, it was first serialized in three parts, beginning with the January 1952 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction, followed by publication of the novel in 1953. The novel is dedicated to Galaxy's editor, H. L. Gold, who made suggestions during its writing. Bester's title was Demolition!, but Gold talked him out of it. > The Demolished Man is a science fi... ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/258 "2009-09-17T00:05:52Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Okay, this might be the hardest one of the lot to identify. Many years ago when I was at school I had a friend who was obsessed by all things science fiction. Anyway, he showed me a science fiction novel he had received as a birthday present. The thing was the text had a lot of weird effects, for example one one page the text was printed in a spiral so that you had to keep turning the book arouind to read it. Another page started with text in a great big font size, and gradually decreased the size so that you had to almost use a magnifying glass to read the last line. > > I didn’t read the novel, I just glanced at it briefly. I have no idea what the plot was about, or who the author was It might for all I know be some totally forgotten piece of trash that nobody read apart from my old friend. Two authors who did that kind of typographic stuff were Alfred Bester and Gahan Wilson. However, some Googling found this reference to a Harlan Ellison story, “The Region Between”, with spiral text [Sweets From Harlan Ellison : ANGRY CANDY \ by Harlan Ellison (Houghton Mifflin: $17.95; 324 pp. 0-395-48307-7) \](http://articles.latimes.com/1989-01-01/books/bk-36_1_harlan-ellison?pg=1) - I’d say, based on this description “includes rather childish, overly literal illustrations; columnar and mirror-image text and text arranged both left-to-right and up-to-down on the same page; another page with only one word on it; a paragraph in which lower-case letters that describe one character are interspersed with capital letters that describe a second; plenty of italics, bold-face and little squares of black ink; the word “this” printed as ‘tHiS’; and a maddening spiral of fine print that requires the reader either to rotate his copy of “Angry Candy” 16 times or (as Ellison would undoubtedly prefer) to place the volume on a pedestal and orbit 16 times around it” that I’ve found it. The story was first published in 1970 [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?51971](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?51971) ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/259 "2009-09-17T04:04:48Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Did you check the link I gave? Yeah, I did, **Andy**. I didn’t see anything there that rung a bell, but I did go and look up some of the stories under Dyson Sphere and related structures. Nothing there that sounds like the story I remember, not even close. Thanks tho. I’ll keep looking around. Now that I’ve put the request out there, it’s going to become somewhat of an obsession until I find it. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2009, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/260 "2009-09-17T19:20:10Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Yeah, I did, **Andy**. I didn’t see anything there that rung a bell, but I did go and look up some of the stories under Dyson Sphere and related structures. Nothing there that sounds like the story I remember, not even close. > > Thanks tho. I’ll keep looking around. Now that I’ve put the request out there, it’s going to become somewhat of an obsession until I find it. Good luck - I know from obsessions. If you think of any other details about the story (or if you find it), keep me updated - I’m interested. Since you had a vague memory of the cover art, you might want to browse through the covers displayed at ISFDB [Publication: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, January 1977](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?ANLGJAN77) is the format for seeing Analog covers [Publication: Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, January 1979](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?ASFJAN79) for Asimovs and [Publication: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1977](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?FSFMAR77) for F&SF [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=14)