# 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:** 44
**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:** [October 24, 2021, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/861 "2021-10-24T21:47:21Z")
This reminds _me_ of a comic-book Star Trek episode titled “Kelly-Green, Planet of Death”, in which spores from the local vegatation would turn anyone into a plant; and where the plants were carnivorous and herded some (somehow spore-unaffected) humanesque cattle to be eaten by hungry plants. I think the end up nuking the whole planet from orbit, just to be sure, at the end. ---
**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 25, 2021, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/862 "2021-10-25T16:39:15Z")
“Make it so, Number One.” Ka-BOOM. ---
**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:** [October 25, 2021, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/863 "2021-10-25T17:05:32Z")
So much for the Prime Directive (never really watched TNG, so I don’t know whether that oft-ignored figment made the transition). Onward … Man is on vacation with his wife in the woods, goes hunting / for a walk and is captured by the humanoid crew of an alien spaceship while exploring a cave (he might have been waiting out a rainstorm). The next section is the crew’s story: they were surveying planets during Earth’s prehistory when something went wrong with their ship and they were stranded. They removed the cold-sleep pods and hid them in said cave and used drugs to go into hibernation, in hopes that when they woke the world would have developed technology sophisticated enough to allow them to get home (never mind the time that would have passed). Man tells them, sorry, but you woke too soon. By this time (not sure how this is explained) the man has been gone so long that he’s been declared dead and his wife has remarried, so he no longer has ties to the world. They find enough residue in one of the syringes to recreate the hibernation drugs and he joins the crew; when they wake and emerge from the cave it’s just in time to see a massive spaceship rise from beyond the hills, bound for someplace “out there.” Fade to black. ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/864 "2021-11-10T00:33:53Z")
This is going to be an easy one, but the name of this story just completely escapes me. A guy is on a muddy planet and he encounters an invisible wall that he cannot cross. The whole point of the story is how he figures out a way to get free of the labyrinth (or whatever) he is trapped in. I think it’s called “The Walls of [Something]” and it’s pretty well-known. ---
**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:** [November 10, 2021, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/865 "2021-11-10T00:47:20Z")
“In the Walls of Eryx” by H. P. Lovecraft and Kenneth J. Sterling, Weird Tales, October 1939:: > **[In the Walls of Eryx](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Walls_of_Eryx)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > "In the Walls of Eryx" is a short story by American writers H. P. Lovecraft and Kenneth J. Sterling, written in January 1936 and first published in Weird Tales magazine in October 1939. It is a science fiction story involving space exploration in the near future. > The story, written in first-person narrative is Lovecraft's first and only foray into science fiction, and depicts the life and death of a prospector on the planet Venus who, while worki... ---
**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:** [November 10, 2021, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/866 "2021-11-10T00:47:49Z")
Solved before I even got here - thanks Wendell. ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/867 "2021-11-10T01:00:09Z")
```auto Excellent! Many thanks! ``` ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2021, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/868 "2021-11-10T01:57:07Z")
Easy since I already know the author but I always wanted context. I remember my dad telling me of a Stephen King story of a blind man stuck in a house with knives/sharp objects pointing out of all the walls/furniture and he has to somehow feel his way out of the building. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2022, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/869 "2022-01-25T14:29:46Z")
I’m trying to recall the title of a SF book I read in high school. The conceit is that the Chinese have occupied the US with the help of advanced technology, one of which is a type of ray gun that makes people have seizures (I think it’s called the “epileptogenic ray”). A resistance movement emerges, and they invent their own magical technology, and they present themselves as a religious cult to conceal their efforts to organize. The security screen of their “temples” is a ray technology that knocks people unconscious, but only if they have Chinese DNA in their blood. It would have been in the late 80’s that I checked this out from my high school library. It reads like a pulpy Heinlein but I don’t think it’s one of his. ---
**Author:** ![SunUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SunUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunUp)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2022, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/870 "2022-01-25T14:33:37Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > It reads like a pulpy Heinlein but I don’t think it’s one of his. It is. _Sixth Column_. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2022, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/871 "2022-01-25T14:35:16Z")
> [@SunUp](#): > > It is. _Sixth Column_ . Oh. Well there we go. Thanks. ---
**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:** [January 25, 2022, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/872 "2022-01-25T14:50:02Z")
Yep, definitely. ---
**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:** [January 25, 2022, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/873 "2022-01-25T14:59:37Z")
I need to respond more quickly. ---
**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:** [January 25, 2022, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/874 "2022-01-25T15:10:43Z")
Yeah, Andy, how dare you spend half an hour doing something other than being online? ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2022, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/875 "2022-01-25T15:19:01Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > I need to respond more quickly. The thread’s only been running for 15 years, this is no time to start coasting. ---
**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:** [January 25, 2022, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/876 "2022-01-25T15:24:25Z")
Focus, people, focus! ---
**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:** [January 25, 2022, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/877 "2022-01-25T18:24:05Z")
That sounds really, really, really, really bad. ---
**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:** [January 25, 2022, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/878 "2022-01-25T18:27:16Z")
Ironically enough, this is the novel that Heinlein based on an earlier unpublished Campbell work - and apparently Heinlein toned down the anti-Chinese aspects ---
**Author:** ![ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chockfullofheadygoodness/32/511_2.png) [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2022, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/879 "2022-01-25T18:28:40Z")
I just read the plot summary on Wikipedia. Yikes! And I thought his drooling references to Deety’s nipples on every other page of _Number of the Beast_ was his most cringe-inducing low point. ---
**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:** [January 25, 2022, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/880 "2022-01-25T18:38:01Z")
I see that it was originally published in 1941. Which makes it less mind-blowing than if it had been from the 1980s. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=43) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=45)