# 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:** 40
**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:** [February 11, 2021, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/781 "2021-02-11T00:15:02Z")
I don’t know whether I’m hoping or fearing that the godseyes used by the wizards are the yarn-and-sticks things… ---
**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:** [February 11, 2021, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/782 "2021-02-11T00:34:23Z")
I googled a bit, but got what you might expect on Googling “godseyes” and “Unborn” ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2021, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/783 "2021-02-18T17:34:34Z")
Short story set in the 1980’s I think, but the idea was that the Space Race/Cold War was all actually a massive conspiracy because every single satellite or even manned space craft completely disappears the moment it reaches the official boundary of space, as in completely disappears from even visual means of observation, and this completely terrifies the US and Soviet governments. ---
**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:** [February 18, 2021, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/784 "2021-02-18T17:40:12Z")
That does sound vaguely familiar. I’ll think on it. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2021, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/785 "2021-05-08T06:10:34Z")
[This thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-physical-geography-of-the-world-and-our-historical-timeline-are-being-supernaturally-changed-as-i-type-this/941576/) brought up a memory of a time travel short story. I hope it still exists in this timeline! Some scientists invent a time machine and someone goes back in time to the far past and makes a small change, and it causes changes in the present (no, _not_ ‘A Sound of Thunder’, but similar in some ways). They try to work out if anything has changed or not, but each time they go back the changes only get worse. They try a few times, and in the last paragraph of the story the scientists are now all blue octopus-like creatures, but they agree with each other that nothing has changed, everything is exactly the same as it always was. Can anyone identify it? ---
**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:** [May 8, 2021, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/786 "2021-05-08T06:40:09Z")
[_Brooklyn Project_](https://www.you-books.com/book/W-Tenn/Brooklyn-Project) by William Tenn. > “See,” cried the thing that had been the acting secretary to the executive assistant on press relations. “See, no matter how subtly! Those who billow were wrong: we haven’t changed.” He extended fifteen purple blobs triumphantly. “Nothing has changed!” ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2021, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/787 "2021-05-08T07:07:57Z")
Yes, that’s the one. Thanks for the quick reply. I remembered it slightly differently, but that can’t possibly be due to my unreliable memory. Something tells me reality must have changed. 😁 ---
**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 8, 2021, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/788 "2021-05-08T10:55:53Z")
I snooze, I lose (the chance to answer this one)… ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2021, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/789 "2021-06-03T13:52:07Z")
I’m pretty sure this story or novel is from sometime after 2000. The story features rejuvenation technology controlled by a corporation that demands _all_ of their patients’ assets, every last penny, to get a rejuvenation. The company charges a minimum price in the millions of dollars, so only the very well-heeled can afford it. Of that few who can afford it once, only the truly driven can manage to start from zero and make a new fortune from scratch to afford their next rejuvenation. ---
**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:** [June 3, 2021, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/790 "2021-06-03T13:56:48Z")
That sounds like _Buying Time_ by Joe Haldeman (1989). Those who buy the procedure create an informal network to financially help the impoverished newly-rejuvenated among them, paying it forward until they will themselves need the same help. A portable AI is a key character in the book, which is set in a near-future and crime-ridden America. A pretty good book, as I recall, but the ending sucked (Haldeman sometimes has problems with his endings). ---
**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 3, 2021, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/791 "2021-06-03T14:01:00Z")
Yeah, absolutely _Buying Time_ - agree about the ending. ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2021, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/792 "2021-06-03T15:39:29Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > That sounds like _Buying Time_ by Joe Haldeman (1989). > […] > but the ending sucked Thanks! I was really off on the year; I guess I didn’t notice the book was an older one when I read it. I don’t recall being disappointed in the ending; perhaps I’m not as critical. I’m also wondering if maybe I read a shorter version that was later expanded into a novel? I tried to google to see if the novel was an expansion of a shorter work, but didn’t find anything that said so. Here’s what I remember about the ending: A group of scientists successfully re-discovered the research that the powerful company had suppressed that lead to the development of the rejuvenation technology, and they found that the limit on the rejuvenated subject’s lifespan was totally artificial. ---
**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:** [June 3, 2021, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/793 "2021-06-03T15:48:55Z")
That sounds about right. I don’t remember the ending with any specificity except that, at the time, I thought it sucked. ---
**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 3, 2021, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/794 "2021-06-03T15:53:39Z")
That’s part of the ending - but the part that I was disappointed in was the sudden superpowers developed by the hero, due to being hit with the stasis chemical after having been given the life extension treatment - that came out of nowhere ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2021, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/795 "2021-06-03T16:01:05Z")
I don’t remember that bit at all, nor the bit about the AI. I’m really starting to suspect now that I read some kind of abridged version. ---
**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 3, 2021, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/796 "2021-06-03T16:02:52Z")
It was also published under the title _The Long Habit of Living_ (but I’m not sure if that was abridged) ---
**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 3, 2021, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/797 "2021-06-03T16:05:10Z")
P.S. I don’t remember the AI either… ---
**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:** [June 6, 2021, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/798 "2021-06-06T19:23:03Z")
It’s been a long time since I read it, but IIRC the AI was in some kind of carrying case that the hero took along with him on the run. I remember one scene where the hero and a woman (his girlfriend?) were talking to the AI, which could think so much faster than the man could speak that its thoughts appeared as a stream-of-consciousness wall of text with the **bolded** words of the man sprinkled only intermittently throughout. An interesting way to contrast a computer’s internal workings with a man’s agonizingly-slow-by-comparison speech. I also still, after all these years, remember the title of an American primetime TV porn show that’s mentioned in the book: _Holes and Poles._ Haldeman can often be clever that way. ---
**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 6, 2021, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/799 "2021-06-06T20:55:52Z")
Maybe I should reread it. Wait, was the AI an uploaded person (with uploading being a not-very-popular alternative to the rejuvenation process)? That tickles a braincell or two. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2021, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/800 "2021-06-07T01:18:28Z")
I’ll bet this one is easy: a con man sells tickets for flights to another planet. The conditions for the passengers are horrific, freezing I think. Anyway, the con man ends up on a flight, with the specter of an unwelcome arrival. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=39) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=41)