# 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:** 34
**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2020, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/661 "2020-07-01T19:02:44Z")
Hm, that’s a possibility! I’ll look around and see. ---
**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 1, 2020, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/662 "2020-07-01T20:26:53Z")
> [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#): > > This isn’t the novel I was thinking of. _Pandora’s Star_. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2020, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/663 "2020-07-01T21:14:10Z")
That’s the one. The aliens in that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. ---
**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 2, 2020, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/664 "2020-07-02T00:23:24Z")
> [@solost](#): > > I asked this in another story ID thread here; I might have even made my own thread about it. No luck getting it IDed then, but maybe I’ll have more luck here. It’s a short story I read as a kid. It has the feel of an Asimov story, but I’ve looked at descriptions of all his short stories and haven’t found anything that sounds like it: > > Some time in the future wormholes have been invented/discovered that allow people to travel great distances quickly. The main character uses his personal wormhole to commute to work-- he lives say, in Los Angeles and takes a short walk through the tunnel-like wormhole to his job in New York (I don’t remember the actual commute location and distance). > > He discovers a tear in the wall of his tunnel-like wormhole and curious, walks through the tear. It takes him to a desert where small (like inch-tall) people wearing primitive clothes are wandering. He continues to visit them day after day and they start to worship him. He like the hero worship and encourages it. Then he gets ahold of some texts they’ve created and gets the language translated by his work computer. It turns out to be ancient Hebrew, and the people in the desert turn out to be the Israelites led by Moses through the desert. So the tear in the tunnel took him back in time, and the man is mistaken for God by the Israelites. The reason the Israelites were so small is because of the expansion of the universe in that time period (I know that’s not how it really works). I don’t think it’s an Asimov - it doesn’t ring a bell for me unfortunately, but I’ll keep my eyes open for it. Sounds Sheckley-ish. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2020, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/665 "2020-07-02T09:27:29Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > I don’t think it’s an Asimov - it doesn’t ring a bell for me unfortunately, but I’ll keep my eyes open for it. Sounds Sheckley-ish. Yeah, it’s a bit too stupid for Asimov, so Sheckley sounds about right. ---
**Author:** ![Author\_Balk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Author\_Balk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Author_Balk)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2020, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/666 "2020-07-03T11:42:35Z")
There was a book my dad used to talk about. This is a second hand description, with very little information. And I could be mistaken about some of the information. This had to have come out prior to the 70’s. It would have been first person. Probably something happened to make it so life was going to end for everyone. It seems like the main character was protected and was going to be among the last of the people to die. (spoiler alert…) the book ends with the guy dying mid-sentence. And somehow it shows that by having a line down the page or something like that. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2020, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/667 "2020-07-03T14:59:48Z")
Sounds similar to [Level 7](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_7_(novel)). ---
**Author:** ![Author\_Balk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Author\_Balk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Author_Balk)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2020, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/668 "2020-07-03T16:45:58Z")
I think that’s right. The name does ring a bell. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2020, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/669 "2020-07-03T17:03:53Z")
I feel sure I’m being whooshed here, but isn’t that basically the plot of the Foundation series by Asimov? ---
**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 3, 2020, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/670 "2020-07-03T17:15:41Z")
You’re right (on both parts - It’s Foundation and Chronos is whoosing us) ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2020, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/671 "2020-09-13T02:23:09Z")
Ok got another one for you folks. It’s a world in which Judeo-Christian religious honorifics are used as college degree titles. The one I specifically remember is somebody in the early pages getting (or not yet having) their “Lordorate”. ---
**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:** [September 13, 2020, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/672 "2020-09-13T02:30:16Z")
“The Lost Millennium”, by Walt and Leigh Richmond? ---
**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:** [September 13, 2020, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/673 "2020-09-13T12:28:50Z")
Judging from what I’ve seen in Google, that’s right. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/674 "2020-09-14T06:30:38Z")
Two time travel short stories, I would have read both in the 70’s-80’s. 1. Some near barren world at the end of time, travelers from various species and worlds arrive, having basically set their controls to farthest possible future. Some came by drugs, some by meditation techniques, humans by a machine. The place is grim, Frogstar world B essentially, and they all realize and they’re all lamenting their grand civilizations all came to nothing in the end. It ends with them tying the human to his machine and hotwiring the controls to take him beyond this end point. 2. Guy runs a B&B in some nice tourist destination and rents the upstairs floor for the season to some nice enough, but weird, people. Eventually it’s revealed that they’re vacationers from the future. They’ve come here because it’s just about the nicest season on record, a summer of beautiful days, none too hot, or too much rain, and it turns out that people can go on similar trips to the nicest New England fall foliage or spring wildflower year that ever occurred. Ordinarily they never interact with the locals, because butterfly effect and all that, but this time there’s a devastating plague about to hit and it doesn’t matter, so they invite him up for drinks and music and talk. Thanks in advance ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/675 "2020-09-14T06:55:05Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > Guy runs a B&B in some nice tourist destination and rents the upstairs floor for the season to some nice enough, but weird, people. Eventually it’s revealed that they’re vacationers from the future. They’ve come here because it’s just about the nicest season on record, a summer of beautiful days, none too hot, or too much rain, and it turns out that people can go on similar trips to the nicest New England fall foliage or spring wildflower year that ever occurred. Ordinarily they never interact with the locals, because butterfly effect and all that, but this time there’s a devastating plague about to hit and it doesn’t matter, so they invite him up for drinks and music and talk. This one is “[Vintage Season](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vintage_Season)”, a 1946 story by “Lawrence O’Donnell” (which is one of [several pseudonyms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Padgett) used by the husband-and-wife team of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore). ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/676 "2020-09-14T07:04:21Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > …“Lawrence O’Donnell” (which is one of [several pseudonyms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Padgett) used by the husband-and-wife team of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore). To add to the above: “Vintage Season” was, reportedly, much more the work of C(atherine) L. Moore than it was of her husband, although no one is entirely sure at this point. ---
**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:** [September 14, 2020, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/677 "2020-09-14T08:41:07Z")
C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner began corresponding in 1936, met in 1938, and got married in 1940. They were both writers before they began corresponding, each having begun writing while working another job. Kuttner died in 1958. They apparently claimed that they often couldn’t even remember who wrote a particular story, since sometimes one would start a story but get up to do something else, so the other one would sit down and finish the story. There were stories published as being by Henry Kuttner, ones as being by C. L. Moore, and ones published as being by Kuttner and Moore. There were stories published under several pseudonyms, including at least Lewis Padgett, Lawrence O’Donnell, Hudson Hastings, and Keith Hammond. Writing for pulp magazines paid poorly back then, so it was necessary to turn out a lot of work every year. Often an author would have several stories in a single issue of a magazine, so it was necessary to use pseudonyms to avoid the appearance of one author writing most of an issue. Someone should write a definitive joint biography of them. ---
**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:** [September 14, 2020, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/678 "2020-09-14T09:59:01Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > Two time travel short stories, I would have read both in the 70’s-80’s. > > 1. Some near barren world at the end of time, travelers from various species and worlds arrive, having basically set their controls to farthest possible future. Some came by drugs, some by meditation techniques, humans by a machine. The place is grim, Frogstar world B essentially, and they all realize and they’re all lamenting their grand civilizations all came to nothing in the end. It ends with them tying the human to his machine and hotwiring the controls to take him beyond this end point. Nebogipfel at the End of Time? ---
**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:** [September 14, 2020, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/679 "2020-09-14T12:51:13Z")
Here are all the appearances of that story, which is by Richard A. Lupoff: [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?979335](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?979335) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/680 "2020-09-14T15:59:18Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > Guy runs a B&B in some nice tourist destination and rents the upstairs floor for the season to some nice enough, but weird, people. Eventually it’s revealed that they’re vacationers from the future. They’ve come here because it’s just about the nicest season on record, a summer of beautiful days, none too hot, or too much rain, and it turns out that people can go on similar trips to the nicest New England fall foliage or spring wildflower year that ever occurred. Ordinarily they never interact with the locals, because butterfly effect and all that, but this time there’s a devastating plague about to hit and it doesn’t matter, so they invite him up for drinks and music and talk. This reminds me of a movie, possibly late '70s or '80s, with an eclectic tour group in a smallish town that a townsperson dealing with the tour group (Inn owner?Tour bus driver?) figures out is (a) from the future, and (b) visiting that particular time and place to see a disaster. The part I remember particularly is that some fairly minor disaster takes place, with little or no loss of life, but after the townspeople relax that the disaster has come and gone, the protagonist notices that the visitors are still awaiting their disaster and somehow learns that the real disaster they’re there to see – the destruction of the local public school in a gas explosion, _a la_ New London 1937 – is imminent. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=33) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=35)