# 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:** 26
**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, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/501 "2019-07-23T15:14:31Z")
Nope, not that. It is definitely a manufactured novelty item–possibly a younger character who received it as a gift, but I’m not solid on that detail. ---
**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, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/502 "2019-07-23T15:38:05Z")
OK, it being a manufactured item one might buy and give as a gift narrows it down. Does the complex ecology include any sapient creatures? ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/503 "2019-07-23T15:44:04Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > 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_. Isn’t that somewhere in something by Delany? In any case, FWIW, I remember it too. ---
**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:** [July 23, 2019, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/504 "2019-07-23T16:02:32Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > 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_. Charles Sheffield’s “Destroyer of Worlds” is about the creation of biospheres large enough to maintain human life, but it’s possible that smaller ones are used for demonstration purposes in the story and its from 1989 (published in Asimov’s) so it’s the correct period. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/505 "2019-07-23T16:20:48Z")
Samuel Delaney, Star Pit. I didn’t on a fast search find the text of the section directly, but it’s quoted part way down the page [here](http://blog.worldswithoutend.com/2018/03/reading-the-pulps-7-the-star-pit-by-samuel-r-delany/) – not the first description of an “ecologarium”, but the second, the one preceded by > [@](#): > > The last doll in the nesting is An, for Androcles, a Golden. He has another ecologarium, this one a small sphere he wears around his neck, with a tiny microscope built onto it. I won’t quote the whole description in this post; but it’s definitely the one I’m remembering. ---
**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, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/506 "2019-07-23T20:36:44Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > I won’t quote the whole description in this post; but it’s definitely the one I’m remembering. Also the one I remembered. I could have read it in the original issue of _Asimov’s_ or in [this](https://books.google.com/books?id=ub6FBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA212&dq=ecologarium&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjI9aWn8MvjAhWNVc0KHb0iAHAQ6AEwAnoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=ecologarium&f=false)–I’ve had both. ---
**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, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/507 "2019-07-23T20:48:46Z")
Hm. The original is from 1967, so that 1994 collection is where I read it. Not sure what [the use of the word in _Asimov’s_](https://books.google.com/books?id=zEUrAQAAIAAJ&q=ecologarium&dq=ecologarium&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiKq6u79MvjAhWOGM0KHQJTAXYQ6AEwBXoECAMQAQ) is about. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/508 "2019-07-23T21:22:44Z")
Isn’t the character talking about the same one described in my cite? And he also refers back to the earlier passage in the same cite. ---
**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, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/509 "2019-07-23T21:32:18Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Isn’t the character talking about the same one described in my cite? > > And he also refers back to the earlier passage in the same cite. Maybe. (I’m on my phone, clumsy to dig very deep.) But if so, why is [the 1967 story](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?43765) doing in a 1990s issue of _Asimov’s_? ---
**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:** [July 23, 2019, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/510 "2019-07-23T23:45:29Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Maybe. (I’m on my phone, clumsy to dig very deep.) But if so, why is [the 1967 story](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?43765) doing in a 1990s issue of _Asimov’s_? The word appears to be used in an April 1992 novelette by Gene Van Troyer called “Kayla, Lost.” The use of that same word may be an homage to Delany. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2019, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/511 "2019-07-24T01:35:11Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Maybe. (I’m on my phone, clumsy to dig very deep.) But if so, why is the 1967 story doing in a 1990s issue of _Asimov’s_? Huh. I seem to have clicked on the wrong link the first time, and it took me to the 1967 story. I take back my previous comment. I’d also think the use in the later story is an homage to Delany. From the little bit I can see of the 1992 story, I think Delany’s a lot better writer; though it may be unfair to judge by those few lines. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2019, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/512 "2019-07-24T12:20:25Z")
There is a short story on a semi-related theme, where an eccentric scientist goes off to a desert island to do research. Periodically he is contacted by an industrialist who gets his inventions and commercializes them - one is a cure for the common cold. It turns out the scientist is studying some organism he created who moves and therefore evolves much faster than humans, and gets his inventions from the organisms. The scientist divides them into colonies, and starts crushing the colonies with moving walls, so the organisms invent toughened aluminum. Can’t remember the name of the story or the author, but I don’t think it is Asimov. Anyone? Regards, Shodan ---
**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 24, 2019, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/513 "2019-07-24T14:48:02Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Shodan** : > > There is a short story on a semi-related theme, where an eccentric scientist goes off to a desert island to do research. Periodically he is contacted by an industrialist who gets his inventions and commercializes them - one is a cure for the common cold. > > It turns out the scientist is studying some organism he created who moves and therefore evolves much faster than humans, and gets his inventions from the organisms. The scientist divides them into colonies, and starts crushing the colonies with moving walls, so the organisms invent toughened aluminum. Can’t remember the name of the story or the author, but I don’t think it is Asimov. > [@](#): > > Quoth **Darren Garrison** : > > and nobody suggest Microcosmic God. The irony. ---
**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:** [October 6, 2019, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/514 "2019-10-06T23:28:54Z")
> [@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 read an old story today that has that theme - “…So They Baked A Cake” by Winston Marks [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51414/51414-h/51414-h.htm](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51414/51414-h/51414-h.htm) "I stood in the port breathing the warm air redolent with exotic new scents and yawped like an idiot, trying to make sense of the huge banner strung a hundred yards across one whole side of the little village. The banner read: WELCOME, HANS! WELCOME ALBERT E. WE KNEW YOU WERE COMING, SO— And near the center of the banner was the largest chocolate cake, or facsimile thereof, in all creation. It must have been ten feet high and twenty feet in diameter." ---
**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:** [October 6, 2019, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/515 "2019-10-06T23:32:56Z")
Just to toss it out there, an interesting use of “lightspeed leapfrogging” was in Alan Steele’s “Coyote” series. ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/516 "2019-10-11T19:40:53Z")
There was a story I ready like 20 years ago, where Earth is attacked by a race of Cyborgs who steal the Earths sun and capture some Humans for some alien zoo and use some age accelerator on some families kids. ---
**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:** [October 11, 2019, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/517 "2019-10-11T20:15:25Z")
> [@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… > [@Andy\_L](#): > > Pretty sure this is “The Ghost Brigades” Just found it, and you’re right. Thanks! It’s in Chapter 7 of that book. The aliens are the Eneshans. ---
**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:** [October 11, 2019, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/518 "2019-10-11T20:55:09Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > There was a story I ready like 20 years ago, where Earth is attacked by a race of Cyborgs who steal the Earths sun and capture some Humans for some alien zoo and use some age accelerator on some families kids. Story or novel? ---
**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:** [October 17, 2019, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/519 "2019-10-17T23:27:19Z")
This should be an easy one. It was a short story or possibly novel, almost certainly by Heinlein. In the scene I’m remembering the author presciently describes how the US (I think) mail works in the future, where each letter is printed with a human readable address as well as a machine readable bar code. A character sends a letter to a secret address by altering the machine readable code but leaving the human readable address as a kind of decoy. I’m wondering if this story predates any real use of machine readable mail labels. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/520 "2019-10-17T23:44:34Z")
Good guess; it is Heinlein. A short story, Gulf, which first appeared in Astounding November and December 1949. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=25) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=27)