# 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:** 19
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/361 "2019-03-05T14:46:28Z")
> [@Pushkin](#): > > There’s a story I remember reading as a kid in the 80s, the plot is about aliens invading and conquering Earth to plunder it… It’s far enough in the future that when they stumble upon some forgotten weaponry, they don’t know what USAF means. > > Eventually the aliens leave, having had their fill of whatever they took from Earth. The protagonist though, manages to kill one of the alien’s highers up in one on one combat. > > … Also, the alien killed by the protagonist has a bit of a chat with him, and a translation machine reveals that the aliens call humans “rats” and they actually translate the word human as rat when the protagonist tries to correct him. > [@aaebig](#): > > Maybe one of the Huntsman Trilogy by Douglas Hill? It sounds a bit like the last book in the series - Alien Citadel. I’d suspect it isn’t, but it sounds like L Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth. I can see how one would want to forget! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/362 "2019-03-05T14:51:55Z")
A story for identification: A total conversion machine is invented that can turn any matter into anything else. It’s the universal replicator. You can use simple rock as the base matter. Concerns are raised that eventually you’ll run out of earth to convert, but the concerns are pooh-poohed, because the earth is so big! There is an epilogue where scientists in the far future are discussing the theory that in the long ago past the earth and the moon were not always the same size, and that the earth was several times larger. . ---
**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:** [March 6, 2019, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/363 "2019-03-06T01:23:39Z")
I’ve read that short story, Just Asking Questions. I think it’s in one of the early (say, between the late 1940’s and the early 1960’s) science fiction anthologies. It’s possible though that it’s in a more recent anthology that contains some older short stories. Andy L, do you know 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:** [March 6, 2019, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/364 "2019-03-06T01:25:55Z")
Doesn’t ring a bell unfortunately, but I’ll do some searching. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2019, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/365 "2019-03-06T01:59:03Z")
_The Dwindling Sphere_, by Willard Hawkins? ---
**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 6, 2019, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/366 "2019-03-06T02:02:39Z")
Heres a review of that story [Birthday Reviews: Willard E. Hawkins’s “The Dwindling Sphere” – Black Gate](https://www.blackgate.com/2018/09/27/birthday-reviews-willard-e-hawkinss-the-dwindling-sphere/) ---
**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:** [March 6, 2019, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/367 "2019-03-06T02:16:11Z")
I think that’s the short story I was thinking about, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2019, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/368 "2019-03-06T15:50:53Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > _The Dwindling Sphere_, by Willard Hawkins? That’s it! Amazing (or should I say, _[Astounding](https://www.jamierubin.net/2011/03/20/vacation-in-the-golden-age-episode-9-march-1940/)_? 🙂 ) I don’t think I own any of the collections it was published in, so I must have checked it out of the library decades ago. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2019, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/369 "2019-03-09T01:17:29Z")
Here’s one that’s bugging me. I read it a long time ago so I might not have all the details right. A long term space mission sets out for a planet orbiting another star. The crew is a bunch of scientists, and to pass the time they are given some math/science problems to work on. It later turns out that the whole mission is a sham – there is no planet at the destination and the only point of the mission was to isolate the scientists so they could focus completely on these important problems. The fact that the crew will perish when they reach the nonexistent planet is considered acceptable by the mission planners. The crew makes astounding progress during the mission, and radios some of their results back to earth. Eventually they discover the ruse but by then they have advanced so far beyond earth science that they are able to survive anyway (I think that they actually CREATE a planet when they arrive at the destination star). One specific incident I recall is they radio one of their most important results (controlled fusion or something of that order) as a Godel-encoded number, and one of the crew comments that the Earth people are probably “too dumb” to de-Godelize it. Anyone got this one? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2019, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/370 "2019-03-09T01:23:01Z")
The Gold At The Starbow’s End. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2019, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/371 "2019-03-09T01:26:12Z")
Answered in 6 minutes! 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:** [March 9, 2019, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/372 "2019-03-09T01:28:50Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > The Gold At The Starbow’s End. Or in novel form “Starburst” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2019, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/373 "2019-03-09T16:14:30Z")
Yet another one I could have answered, had I seen it quickly enough. ---
**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:** [March 11, 2019, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/374 "2019-03-11T18:59:05Z")
ISTR that Arthur C. Clarke wrote several interlinked short stories about a multi-ship, international Moon exploration mission. What were the stories’ titles, and where can I find them collected these days? ---
**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 11, 2019, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/375 "2019-03-11T19:11:52Z")
“Venture to the Moon” [Series: Venture to the Moon](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?9801) - six interconnected stories The Starting Line Robin Hood, F.R.S Green Fingers All That Glitters Watch This Space A Question of Residence all in Clarke’s collection “The Other Side of the Sky” ---
**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:** [March 11, 2019, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/376 "2019-03-11T19:31:35Z")
Many thanks! ---
**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 12, 2019, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/377 "2019-03-12T02:23:17Z")
No problem. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2019, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/378 "2019-03-12T02:54:11Z")
Not exactly Sci-Fi, but alternative history novel set decades after WW2 ended in an Axis victory. Nazi Germany uses vast slave labor for their work force and is having a shortage of it, so at the start of the novel Germany forces Italy to reclassify Sicilians as “Untermensch” so they can be used as slaves or else Germany was going to classify ALL Italians as non-white. This isn’t either Man in the High Castle nor the Draka series though similar events happen in both. ---
**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 12, 2019, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/379 "2019-03-12T03:03:06Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > Not exactly Sci-Fi, but alternative history novel set decades after WW2 ended in an Axis victory. Nazi Germany uses vast slave labor for their work force and is having a shortage of it, so at the start of the novel Germany forces Italy to reclassify Sicilians as “Untermensch” so they can be used as slaves or else Germany was going to classify ALL Italians as non-white. > > This isn’t either Man in the High Castle nor the Draka series though similar events happen in both. The Ultimate Solution by Eric Norden > **[The Ultimate Solution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ultimate_Solution)** > > The Ultimate Solution is a 1973 alternate history novel by journalist and former Playboy interviewer Eric Norden (pen name for Eric Pelletier), set in a world where the Axis forces won World War II and partitioned the world between them. The novel is noted for its particularly grim tone. Norden later wrote the 1977 Adolf Hitler-related science fiction novella The Primal Solution. > A New York policeman is charged with finding a Jew who is reported to have suddenly appeared in the city decades afte... "At the time of the plot, following the recent death of Benito Mussolini, who had to some degree resisted Nazi policies, the Germans are contemplating “a change in the racial classification of Italians”, and North Italians are desperately trying to save themselves by sacrificing the “Sicilian Ayrabs” to the Nazis. " ---
**Author:** ![BlueInfinity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BlueInfinity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlueInfinity)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2019, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/380 "2019-03-12T10:48:56Z")
If challenges instead of requests for identifications are okay, here’s one… 1. A time traveler knows how he’s supposed to die, but doesn’t like the details, so he refuses to go along with the “script” and instead dies somewhere else in time. 2. Time starts to unravel because of the paradox of this guy dying twice. His best friend must resolve the conflict or else all life on Earth will end. 3. Also includes a love triangle, going to jail on purpose, and time machines built into wristwatches. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=20)