# 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:** 32
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/621 "2020-04-27T01:41:54Z")
Mmm. Helen McCloy’s Number Ten Q Street, thorny? ---
**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 27, 2020, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/622 "2020-04-27T02:05:35Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > No; can’t be. This is something I read as a child or young teenager; I hadn’t really run into science fiction yet, and I remember being puzzled by it. It must have been published by the mid-60’s at the latest. > > It occurred to me years later that it might have been meant as a satire on drug laws; but it might have been meant to criticize the beginnings of ultra processed foods. Understood. > [@kitap](#): > > Mmm. Helen McCloy’s Number Ten Q Street, thorny? That seems right - here’s a link to that story > **[The Singing Diamonds and Other Stories](https://books.google.com/books?id=rEEYAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT22&lpg=PT22&dq=%22Number%2BTen%2BQ%2BStreet%22&source=bl&ots=VPTyUnDaII&sig=ACfU3U0uer1ddcijpyCEVOMvobwKJHyXOA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiDjbeSwofpAhVRlnIEHcZdAQgQ6AEwAHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Number%20Ten%20Q%20Street%22&f=false)** > > In this collection of eight stories by one of America's most gifted writers, Helen McCloy takes the reader into a world of mystery and imagination.In the signature story - 'The Singing Diamonds' - Mathilde Verworn enlists the help of Basil Willing, a... and further info [What's the Name of That Book??? - SOLVED: Adult Fiction: SOLVED. Science fiction(?) - someone visits Q St to buy real steak [s] Showing 1-11 of 11](https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/19233667-solved-science-fiction---someone-visits-q-st-to-buy-real-steak-s) ---
**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:** [April 27, 2020, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/623 "2020-04-27T03:02:23Z")
Got it! The whole story’s not there in the link; but the excerpt has very much the flavor\* of what I remember. And its being in Ellery Queen makes perfect sense – my mother subscribed to that and I read it also. And in 1963 I would have been 12. Thanks! ( realized after having written “very much the flavor” that the choice of words was probably influenced by the story -) ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/624 "2020-04-27T06:59:37Z")
Hey, I posted in that Goodreads thread! ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/625 "2020-05-09T02:00:38Z")
In high school, late 80s to early 90s I read a short story. I’m pretty sure it was from a sci-fi/fantasy anthology book, but I can’t be certain. If not it must have been from a magazine. A man encounters an old guy on New Years Eve who tells him he’s the avatar of the preceding year. He will die at midnight and be replaced by a newborn who will live their entire life over the course of the next year. He thinks he’s just a nut job and doesn’t make much of it at first. But then his pregnant wife gives birth at exactly midnight and now he thinks his baby is Baby New Year. ---
**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 9, 2020, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/626 "2020-05-09T13:04:42Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > In high school, late 80s to early 90s I read a short story. I’m pretty sure it was from a sci-fi/fantasy anthology book, but I can’t be certain. If not it must have been from a magazine. A man encounters an old guy on New Years Eve who tells him he’s the avatar of the preceding year. He will die at midnight and be replaced by a newborn who will live their entire life over the course of the next year. He thinks he’s just a nut job and doesn’t make much of it at first. But then his pregnant wife gives birth at exactly midnight and now he thinks his baby is Baby New Year. That sounds familiar, but only because I think I’ve seen someone else looking for it. Sorry. ---
**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:** [June 5, 2020, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/627 "2020-06-05T16:13:13Z")
Here’s an identification question: Story (rather sexist as I remember it, in the casually sexist way of many old stories) in which Things Are Going Wrong and the protagonist takes his girlfriend out to the country to hole up somewhere relatively safe while things go to hell all over the place. Or maybe she becomes his girlfriend in the course of the story and starts off as somebody he met while trying to get away – I think one of the weird things that keeps happening is that people are taking their clothes off in public for no apparent reason and maybe she’s one of them and in a Gentlemanly Fashion he wraps her up in something? The protagonist talks about things working in cycles and a lot of different cycles have coincided at a bad point. In any case, everything seems to be finally improving, most of the cycles are moving into better territory, protagonist is starting to think that they’re going to make it after all. And then he realizes something astronomical is about to happen, and everybody’s Utterly Doomed. This isn’t something recent, but I don’t remember how old – might be anywhere from 1940’s to 1980’s, I think. ---
**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:** [June 5, 2020, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/628 "2020-06-05T16:22:00Z")
The Year of the Jackpot, by Robert Heinlein [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?56242](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?56242) ETA: Your memory is correct - the hero (mathematician) meets the girlfriend when she strips in public (part of a cycle of strange behavior). ---
**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:** [June 5, 2020, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/629 "2020-06-05T18:56:55Z")
Thanks, Andy L; I found a pdf, and that’s definitely it. – hey, it’s got a reference to Chief Justice Roberts. Accidental prescience – ---
**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:** [June 5, 2020, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/630 "2020-06-05T19:01:00Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Thanks, Andy L; I found a pdf, and that’s definitely it. > > – hey, it’s got a reference to Chief Justice Roberts. Accidental prescience – No problem - I like the ones I can answer off the top of my head. ---
**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:** [June 11, 2020, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/631 "2020-06-11T20:12:41Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Story or novel? Story ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2020, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/632 "2020-06-11T22:00:12Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > Book I read back in the '60s. People are being mysteriously paralysed (frozen in position, I think, though I couldn’t swear to it, and unresponsive). For some reason Our Hero is thought to have some sort of contagious disease that is the cause of the paralysis. He goes on the run, but manages to find out the real cause. The only scene I remember clearly is where he writes down the details – cause and cure – and gets the letter to the officer in charge of an Army patrol that’s looking for him. The officer opens the letter, and since it’s a single page, glances at the signature at the bottom. When he sees that it was written by Our Hero, he throws it into the campfire without reading it. Anybody? ---
**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:** [June 11, 2020, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/633 "2020-06-11T22:42:24Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > Anybody? Half of this sounds like David Brin’s Coexistence (also published under the title “River of Time”) - it’s got the paralysis and one guy figuring it out, but the rest is not similar at all ---
**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:** [June 11, 2020, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/634 "2020-06-11T22:52:06Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > In high school, late 80s to early 90s I read a short story. I’m pretty sure it was from a sci-fi/fantasy anthology book, but I can’t be certain. If not it must have been from a magazine. A man encounters an old guy on New Years Eve who tells him he’s the avatar of the preceding year. He will die at midnight and be replaced by a newborn who will live their entire life over the course of the next year. He thinks he’s just a nut job and doesn’t make much of it at first. But then his pregnant wife gives birth at exactly midnight and now he thinks his baby is Baby New Year. Richard Matheson “Deadline”. Here’s some covers. The protagonist is a Doctor. [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/titlecovers.cgi?93416](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/titlecovers.cgi?93416) ---
**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:** [June 12, 2020, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/635 "2020-06-12T00:12:19Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > Richard Matheson “Deadline”. Here’s some covers. The protagonist is a Doctor. > > [All Covers for Deadline](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/titlecovers.cgi?93416) Cool. Thanks for finding that. ---
**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:** [June 12, 2020, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/636 "2020-06-12T00:39:58Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Cool. Thanks for finding that. I’ve read much of Matheson’s short story output many times. The only stumbling block here was remembering the story title. (This one would have made a great Twilight Zone ep.) ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/637 "2020-06-13T13:47:08Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > Richard Matheson “Deadline”. Here’s some covers. The protagonist is a Doctor. > > [All Covers for Deadline](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/titlecovers.cgi?93416) Thanks. That’s a short story, though, and I remember it as a novel. The library doesn’t seem to have it, so I’ll have to wait for a used-book store to reopen to look for it. ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/638 "2020-06-13T14:26:13Z")
I’ve been looking for a short story, likely a 1960s anthology paperback. Asimov’s magazine perhaps? Anyway, the story deals with a very wealthy man, who is kind of bored. He decides to collect the very best item out of every collectible category in existence. I get confused here, but it seems he acquired something inhabited by tiny people? Somehow this lead to his demise. May be mixing up a couple stories, it’s only been a half century since I read 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:** [June 13, 2020, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/639 "2020-06-13T14:55:48Z")
> [@campp](#): > > I’ve been looking for a short story, likely a 1960s anthology paperback. Asimov’s magazine perhaps? Anyway, the story deals with a very wealthy man, who is kind of bored. He decides to collect the very best item out of every collectible category in existence. > > I get confused here, but it seems he acquired something inhabited by tiny people? Somehow this lead to his demise. May be mixing up a couple stories, it’s only been a half century since I read it. Asimov’s magazine didn’t start until the late 1970s. This bears some similarity to Henry Kuttner’s “Housing Problem” - and that story is collected in a collection called “Little People!” [Publication: Little People!](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?20487) ---
**Author:** ![ChrisM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/47e85d/32.png) [@ChrisM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisM)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2020, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/640 "2020-06-13T20:10:44Z")
> [@campp](#): > > I’ve been looking for a short story, likely a 1960s anthology paperback. Asimov’s magazine perhaps? Anyway, the story deals with a very wealthy man, who is kind of bored. He decides to collect the very best item out of every collectible category in existence. > > I get confused here, but it seems he acquired something inhabited by tiny people? Somehow this lead to his demise. May be mixing up a couple stories, it’s only been a half century since I read it. I think this might be “None Before Me” by Sydney Carroll, which was included in an anthology edited by Ray Bradbury called _Timeless Stories for Today and Tomorrow._ It was reprinted several times in the 1960s. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=31) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=33)