# 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:** 25
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2019, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/481 "2019-04-29T03:12:11Z")
Someone I don’t know on Facebook gave this description: > [@](#): > > As I recall, Ray Bradbury wrote a story about a scientist who invented a device that could reveal any moment in the past. He happened to zero in on Abraham Lincoln—and witnessed Lincoln and his wife murdering somebody in the White House. Aside from this ghastly revelation, he realized his that wife wanted nothing more than to obsessively spend the rest of her life watching their dead son. He wound up destroying the machine. I googled “Ray Bradbury Abraham Lincoln” and got only one hit, a story nothing like the one described above, called “Downwind from Gettysburg” from a TV show called _Ray Bradbury Theatre_, so Bradbury’s authorship of this story is a little doubtful. Nevertheless, does anybody recognize it? ---
**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:** [April 29, 2019, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/482 "2019-04-29T09:02:02Z")
This sounds to me like a muddled version of a story by Isaac Asimov called “The Dead Past”: > **[The Dead Past](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past)** > > "The Dead Past" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov, first published in the April 1956 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. It was later collected in Earth Is Room Enough (1957) and The Best of Isaac Asimov (1973), and adapted into an episode of the science-fiction television series Out of the Unknown. Its pattern is that of dystopian fiction, but of a subtly nuanced flavor. > Asimov extrapolates the twin trends towards centralization of academic research and scientifi... In this story, a scientist realizes that if his wife gets hold of a time machine, she will spend all her time watching the life of their daughter, who died as a baby. ---
**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 29, 2019, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/483 "2019-04-29T11:06:55Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > This sounds to me like a muddled version of a story by Isaac Asimov called “The Dead Past”: > > [The Dead Past - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past) > > In this story, a scientist realizes that if his wife gets hold of a time machine, she will spend all her time watching the life of their daughter, who died as a baby. I agree. ---
**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 29, 2019, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/484 "2019-04-29T11:12:05Z")
This list of “Time-Viewer” stories [Time viewer - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_viewer#Science_fiction) mentions “E for Effort” in which a time-viewer causes trouble when it reveals the hidden motives and actions of many heroes of history - which might be another part of the story mentioned in post 486 ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2019, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/485 "2019-05-14T13:03:08Z")
An aquaintance thought I might know what story this was, but I’m drawing a blank. * * * …an an SF story in which humans are on an alien world, working with intelligent aliens who are like big cats (think panther) but which have tentacles (think multiple elephant trunks). The humans (privately) call the aliens “Octopussies”. Also on the world are animals who look like humans, referred to as “Yahoos”; two human sociologists attempt to raise two orphaned yahoo babies, believing that the yahoos are suppressed humans, and if raised as human children will grow to have human intellects, etc. * * * I don’t have an approximate year, but the details seem specific enough that may not be necessary. ---
**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:** [May 15, 2019, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/486 "2019-05-15T13:58:39Z")
I’m trying to remember in which of John Scalzi’s _Old Man’s War_ series of sf military/diplomatic books this chapter appears: Colonial Defense Forces soldiers mount a commando raid on an alien capital city, capturing and purposefully sterilizing the child of the monarch, to force the monarch to marry someone more to the CDF’s liking and have a child with him/her/it. They contact the monarch with the child still in their hands as a hostage and the monarch, although outraged and heartbroken, reluctantly agrees to do what they ask. > [@Asuka](#): > > …Aliens come to Earth and pose us a challenge. Beat them at their version of a board game and if we win we gain the knowledge of how to beat all diseases… Intrigued they thank him for the fun and give us our prize and go off to another planet to challenge them to a high-stakes poker game. Do they give us all that advanced medical knowledge before they go? ---
**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:** [May 15, 2019, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/487 "2019-05-15T14:04:17Z")
> [@Meurglys](#): > > An aquaintance thought I might know what story this was, but I’m drawing a blank. > > * * * > > …an an SF story in which humans are on an alien world, working with intelligent aliens who are like big cats (think panther) but which have tentacles (think multiple elephant trunks). The humans (privately) call the aliens “Octopussies”. > > Also on the world are animals who look like humans, referred to as “Yahoos”; two human sociologists attempt to raise two orphaned yahoo babies, believing that the yahoos are suppressed humans, and if raised as human children will grow to have human intellects, etc. > > * * * > > I don’t have an approximate year, but the details seem specific enough that may not be necessary. Overproof? ---
**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:** [May 15, 2019, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/488 "2019-05-15T15:22:24Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I’m trying to remember in which of John Scalzi’s _Old Man’s War_ series of sf military/diplomatic books this chapter appears: > > Colonial Defense Forces soldiers mount a commando raid on an alien capital city, capturing and purposefully sterilizing the child of the monarch, to force the monarch to marry someone more to the CDF’s liking and have a child with him/her/it. They contact the monarch with the child still in their hands as a hostage and the monarch, although outraged and heartbroken, reluctantly agrees to do what they ask. Pretty sure this is “The Ghost Brigades” ---
**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:** [May 15, 2019, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/489 "2019-05-15T15:24:02Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > I’ve mentioned this before, but i’ll try again. Is probably a kids book of some kind but if so, surprisingly mature themes. From the 70’s, what I remember: > > Protagonist is a baseball player, has great eye/spatial coordination. War breaks out, his brother is presumed dead. The aliens have a single eye that emits a powerful laser. Holes in the hull are plugged by expanding balls shot from guns. Sort of what incapacitated Mr. Incredible. > > The protagonist and an alien are on a moon together and stuff is moving around in slow motion because of the low gravity, but the human can tell the alien is going to be crushed because the protagonist has great baseball/spatial skills. He sacrifices himself to save the alien. > > He wakes up in the hospital and sees his brother standing over him. The war is over, the guy saved the alien and it turns out the powerful lasers from the aliens are actually communication beams and the war started accidentally. Sounds exactly like TRAPPED IN SPACE, by Jack Williamson. ---
**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2019, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/490 "2019-05-15T21:56:36Z")
SF Short Story that’s been bugging me for some reason. Read it mid-1990’s in middle school as part of a SF story collection. Premise is an astronaut on a long relativistic journey to explore a distant world ends up getting met upon landing by a human parade/party in his honor. During his voyage, technology had advanced so much that subsequent journeys were made in a fraction of a time, enough for a colony to be fully established for many years. This isn’t exactly a novel concept- tvtropes has a whole list of them under “lightspeed leapfrog” , but none of them seem to feature a party/parade for the arriving “explorer”. ---
**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:** [May 15, 2019, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/491 "2019-05-15T22:40:46Z")
> [@YamatoTwinkie](#): > > SF Short Story that’s been bugging me for some reason. Read it mid-1990’s in middle school as part of a SF story collection. > > Premise is an astronaut on a long relativistic journey to explore a distant world ends up getting met upon landing by a human parade/party in his honor. During his voyage, technology had advanced so much that subsequent journeys were made in a fraction of a time, enough for a colony to be fully established for many years. > > This isn’t exactly a novel concept- tvtropes has a whole list of them under “lightspeed leapfrog” , but none of them seem to feature a party/parade for the arriving “explorer”. I think this is Far Centaurus by Van Vogt. Do you remember something about electron psychology? ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2019, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/492 "2019-05-16T00:49:27Z")
Oops. Wrong thread. ---
**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:** [May 16, 2019, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/493 "2019-05-16T00:51:01Z")
NM ---
**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2019, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/494 "2019-05-16T12:24:34Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > I think this is Far Centaurus by Van Vogt. > Do you remember something about electron psychology? I read the synopsis of Far Centaurus (it’s one of the tropes under “lightspeed leapfrog”), but didn’t see anything about a massive celebration/parade to greet the astronaut on landing. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2019, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/495 "2019-05-16T12:38:34Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Overproof? Thanks for that; seems to be correct. ---
**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:** [May 16, 2019, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/496 "2019-05-16T20:19:32Z")
> [@YamatoTwinkie](#): > > I read the synopsis of Far Centaurus (it’s one of the tropes under “lightspeed leapfrog”), but didn’t see anything about a massive celebration/parade to greet the astronaut on landing. Correct. There’s no such celebration/parade in that 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:** [May 16, 2019, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/497 "2019-05-16T20:40:18Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Correct. There’s no such celebration/parade in that story. Ah. Then it’s not that story. Sorry about that. ---
**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:** [July 23, 2019, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/498 "2019-07-23T14:46:46Z")
Triggered by [this](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=879088) thread, a short story or subplot in a novel (late 80s-early 90s) where a character owns a small ecosphere-type object except instead of being a couple of shrimp and some algae it it is a very complex engineered ecology, viewed under magnification and nobody suggest _Microcosmic God_. ---
**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:** [July 23, 2019, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/499 "2019-07-23T15:03:37Z")
[Surface Tension](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Tension_(short_story))by James Blish? A bit earlier than the 80’s, I know. ---
**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:** [July 23, 2019, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/500 "2019-07-23T15:13:57Z")
That one Halloween episode of _The Simpsons_? Can you give any more detail? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=24) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=26)