# 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:** 17
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2018, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/321 "2018-01-29T23:00:00Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > If it was in Playboy, that’s a big help, since that narrows it down considerably. Here’s a link [Issue Grid: Playboy Magazine](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/seriesgrid.cgi?24780) to a grid of issues of Playboy with SF in them (click on each link to see what SF was in that issue). Thanks for that link. Checked each month for the most likely time period (Seventies) but no title leapt out at me and of course there are no synopses to possible match title with plot. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2018, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/322 "2018-01-29T23:04:51Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > [_Two Minutes Fourty-Five Seconds_](https://talesofmytery.blogspot.com/2014/04/dan-simmons-two-minutes-forty-five.html?m=1) by Dan Simmons > [@Andy\_L](#): > > Published first in Omni [Title: Two Minutes Forty-Five Seconds](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?40751) Omni! Well, that would explain it–I also read that one but had my brain fixed that it was one of the small digest mags. And Dan Simmons, makes perfect sense. Thank you! ---
**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:** [January 30, 2018, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/323 "2018-01-30T00:00:14Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > The eyes referred to in my prior post are used, with some additional background, on the Portuguese cover of Poul Anderson’s “World Without Stars”, but that seems to be a novel, rather than a short story collection. This cover? [Publication: Mundo sem Estrelas](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?641072) Unfortunately, the ISFDB page for this edition doesn’t mention the artist’s name would could have been a clue. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2018, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/324 "2018-01-30T00:07:03Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > This cover? [Publication: Mundo sem Estrelas](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?641072) Unfortunately, the ISFDB page for this edition doesn’t mention the artist’s name would could have been a clue. The thought had occurred. The eyes are a dead-on match but the rest of the material is added. Probably a case of the author selling the same art twice. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2018, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/325 "2018-01-30T00:35:02Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > Omni! Well, that would explain it–I also read that one but had my brain fixed that it was one of the small digest mags. And Dan Simmons, makes perfect sense. Thank you! I may have read it originally in _Prayers to Broken Stones._ ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2018, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/326 "2018-01-30T01:08:46Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > The thought had occurred. The eyes are a dead-on match but the rest of the material is added. Probably a case of the author selling the same art twice. [Not](http://www.indiebooklauncher.com/resources-diy/gallery-of-clones.php) [unusual](https://blackplume.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/recycled-cover-art-in-ya-books/). I’ve seen one site showing something like a half dozen books with the same cover (possibly Woman Standing With Basket.) ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2018, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/327 "2018-02-03T21:04:23Z")
A long time ago I read a sci-fi story involving a race of telepaths. But when they communed with each other they would speak their names out loud repeatedly, since apparently they couldn’t tell who was sending. What I remember was that two of the characters were named Doyle and Erkbat. The first one was probably a human who had learned telepathy. Can you identify the story? ---
**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:** [February 3, 2018, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/328 "2018-02-03T21:07:12Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > A long time ago I read a sci-fi story involving a race of telepaths. But when they communed with each other they would speak their names out loud repeatedly, since apparently they couldn’t tell who was sending. What I remember was that two of the characters were named Doyle and Erkbat. The first one was probably a human who had learned telepathy. Can you identify the story? “Interstellar Patrol” by Christopher Anvil contains the story (Google for the win!); I don’t know if those characters are in all the stories in that collection though. [Publication: Interstellar Patrol](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?63538) has the list of stories ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2018, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/329 "2018-02-04T22:55:02Z")
You’re for real. I just bought the ebook. ---
**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:** [February 4, 2018, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/330 "2018-02-04T23:41:43Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > You’re for real. I just bought the ebook. Excellent. Anvil wrote some good stuff. I really liked “Pandora’s Planet.” ---
**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:** [February 5, 2018, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/331 "2018-02-05T00:47:32Z")
My favorite Christopher Anvil story is “Mind Partner”. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2018, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/332 "2018-03-19T14:58:00Z")
Here’s one–don’t remember if it is a novel or a shorter work from an SF digest (the latter seems more likely.) From the earlyish 1990s. Involves humans visiting/exploring a planet where there are a number of “mini-gaia” (my term, not theirs)–large collective consciousness organisms that have the ability to manipulate genes to build new “species” for specialized purposes. They compete with each other, stealing samples of genetic material from innovative new subunits from nearby collectives (including sampling DNA from human visitors with something like biting insects.) At least one of the collectives is conducting paleontology on the home planet, studying fossils from earlier collectives to look for useful design concepts. In the story a human makes a business deal with one of the collectives by giving it a sample of chlorophyll, something never evolved or invented on that world and promising a huge improvement in photosynthetic efficiency. (I was reminded of this by a mention of _Sentenced to Prism_ in another thread, but I don’t think that it is _Sentenced to Prism_.) ---
**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:** [March 19, 2018, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/333 "2018-03-19T15:02:17Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Here’s one–don’t remember if it is a novel or a shorter work from an SF digest (the latter seems more likely.) From the earlyish 1990s. Involves humans visiting/exploring a planet where there are a number of “mini-gaia” (my term, not theirs)–large collective consciousness organisms that have the ability to manipulate genes to build new “species” for specialized purposes. They compete with each other, stealing samples of genetic material from innovative new subunits from nearby collectives (including sampling DNA from human visitors with something like biting insects.) At least one of the collectives is conducting paleontology on the home planet, studying fossils from earlier collectives to look for useful design concepts. In the story a human makes a business deal with one of the collectives by giving it a sample of chlorophyll, something never evolved or invented on that world and promising a huge improvement in photosynthetic efficiency. > > (I was reminded of this by a mention of _Sentenced to Prism_ in another thread, but I don’t think that it is _Sentenced to Prism_.) “Legacy” by Greg Bear - a prequel to “Eon” and “Eternity,” I think. The planet’s name is “Lamarckia” ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2018, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/334 "2018-03-19T15:28:24Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > “Legacy” by Greg Bear - a prequel to “Eon” and “Eternity,” I think. The planet’s name is “Lamarckia” What took you so long?.. ---
**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:** [March 19, 2018, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/335 "2018-03-19T15:33:42Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > What took you so long?.. I blinked at an inopportune moment… ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2018, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/336 "2018-03-19T19:02:07Z")
Here is a long shot. A Creative Writing TA I had in College read this story to my class in the early 90s. It was a published story, not a student or teacher’s assignment. The lesson was on perspective. The story was written from the POV of a fish. The story uses very simplistic language (since Fish have primitive brains) and it is all about looking for food and eating. A line that keeps getting repeated (it is he first and last line, for example) is something like “I am hungry. I must eat”. Any ideas? Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/337 "2018-04-03T19:02:28Z")
Brought on by one of the options in [this](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=852281) thread, a novel that I read in the 1980s in MMPB (that could have been a reprint of an older book) where it is revealed that life is a game played by people from an “afterlife”, where after you die you remember all the details of the bigger reality and can shoot the shit with other currently dead people, comparing scores before you go back into the game. Bonus: a short story read in the 1990s where a depressed man kills himself and comes back into his true self to remember that he is an especially alien alien in an utterly hellish world where a (simulated, or whatever you want to call it) life on Earth is a reward for the greatest of citizens of the alien world, with even the worst life on Earth being like paradise in comparison to “the real world.” ---
**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:** [April 3, 2018, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/338 "2018-04-03T21:19:25Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > Here is a long shot. A Creative Writing TA I had in College read this story to my class in the early 90s. It was a published story, not a student or teacher’s assignment. The lesson was on perspective. The story was written from the POV of a fish. The story uses very simplistic language (since Fish have primitive brains) and it is all about looking for food and eating. A line that keeps getting repeated (it is he first and last line, for example) is something like “I am hungry. I must eat”. Any ideas? Thank you. Is this it ? > **[Day One: I Hatch. - I am a Fish.](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/11855/i-am-a-fish/chapter/135585/day-one-i-hatch)** > > Day one: > I use my beak-like lips to pierce through the soft shell that was my previous capsule. I am free, finally free. I feel the immediate sensation of cold against me, the warmth of the capsule I was (...) ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2018, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/339 "2018-04-03T21:47:16Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > Can you tackle a children’s story for me? > > It was a series, which is to say that there were at least two books by the same author with the same main characters. > > One main character was a little boy from Earth. The other was a little boy from the (i.e., Earth’s) moon. > > The totality of my recollection is that they visited the moon in one of the books and someone commented that while scientists on Earth were busy trying to learn more about the speed of light, scientists on the moon were trying to learn about the speed of _darkness_. > > I read them ca. 1976-78. Been curious about them for several years now. When this thread came back up a few months ago, it prompted me to pursue this on my own. Turns out it’s Jerome Beatty’s Matthew Looney books. I’m re-reading the second one now, which had the “speed of darkness” phrase that I knew would be the proof. As of about 1/3 of the way through, there’s no boy from Earth like I was remembering. It’s all about moon people and their exploration of the Earth. ---
**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:** [April 3, 2018, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/340 "2018-04-03T22:14:34Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Is this it ? > > [Day One: I Hatch. - I am a Fish. | Royal Road](http://royalroadl.com/fiction/11855/i-am-a-fish/chapter/135585/day-one-i-hatch) That certainly sounds like the same thing. > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Brought on by one of the options in [this](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=852281) thread, a novel that I read in the 1980s in MMPB (that could have been a reprint of an older book) where it is revealed that life is a game played by people from an “afterlife”, where after you die you remember all the details of the bigger reality and can shoot the shit with other currently dead people, comparing scores before you go back into the game. > > Bonus: a short story read in the 1990s where a depressed man kills himself and comes back into his true self to remember that he is an especially alien alien in an utterly hellish world where a (simulated, or whatever you want to call it) life on Earth is a reward for the greatest of citizens of the alien world, with even the worst life on Earth being like paradise in comparison to “the real world.” Both of these sound familiar. I’ll see if I can figure it out. First one makes me think of Chalker, but that’s probably not right. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=18)