# 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:** 54
**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 24, 2022, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1061 "2022-11-24T00:39:12Z")
From this [description](https://kasmana.people.cofc.edu/MATHFICT/mfview.php?callnumber=mf724) that sounds right > In the story, Professor Henry Mudge, by thinking about negative dimensions, comes up with “Equation C”, at which the mere sight one gains the ability to teleport just by thinking of the destination. Unfortunately, the teleportation happens whether or not you actually wish to go. Mudge has great difficulty controlling himself, but by forcing himself to work out “Equation D” he gains control. ---
**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:** [November 24, 2022, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1062 "2022-11-24T00:42:05Z")
Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s it, and it was indeed written by Hubbard. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2022, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1063 "2022-11-24T00:58:27Z")
Now here’s me asking about someone else’s vague recollections of a SciFi novel! (Heard it on a podcast) Jesus is an alien who’s been banished from his planet for being a criminal. He’s thrown into Earth because it’s seen as a complete backwater with no technology for him to escape. He winds up charming the locals and is able to do miracles because he’s an alien with some tech still on him. He becomes the Jesus we all know of him as, and his race is secretly monitoring him and when he willingly sacrifices his life the aliens decide to beam him back up, revive him, and now Alien Jesus becomes their new leader because it was all secretly a test to find which alien was actually the most “pure” of them all. ---
**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 24, 2022, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1064 "2022-11-24T01:07:40Z")
Thought it might be The Briefing by Randall Garrett [https://archive.org/stream/Fantastic\_v18n06\_1969-08#page/n7/mode/2up](https://archive.org/stream/Fantastic_v18n06_1969-08#page/n7/mode/2up) but it’s not a novel - and it doesn’t quite fit ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2022, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1065 "2022-12-05T10:32:24Z")
I suspect this one is easy but my google fu is failing me - I have a bad feeling I’ve asked this before but if so I can’t find it on a search. There is a base on a weird planet that has an odd orbit around twin or multiple suns, and when it is in a certain part of its orbit, everyone’s brain is affected and everything goes surreal. I don’t remember any details other than it being hilarious. I suspect it was basically a shaggy dog story, in the end. Probably 70’s or 80’s. Well, that’s when I would have read it thanks ---
**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:** [December 5, 2022, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1066 "2022-12-05T11:03:32Z")
It’s a classic, reprinted in many anthologies. [“Placet is a Crazy Place” by Frederic Brown](http://maxima-library.org/year/b/360939?format=read). ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2022, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1067 "2022-12-05T11:47:19Z")
Thanks I knew it wouldn’t be a tough 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:** [December 5, 2022, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1068 "2022-12-05T13:39:54Z")
I’m pretty sure this one was published in F&SF sometime after 2005. The story is set a few decades after the world is struck with an odd plague that stopped all humans from aging, no matter what age they were when they caught the disease. The story centers on a girl and her friends who were age-frozen as pre-teens. A major aspect explores how spending decades stuck at this or that physical age might affect one’s outlook in life and their career path. ---
**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:** [December 5, 2022, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1069 "2022-12-05T13:47:20Z")
Start the Clock by Benjamin Rosenbaum > **[Fiction: Start the Clock, by Benjamin Rosenbaum](https://benjaminrosenbaum.github.io/stories/start.the.clock.html)** > > Love, friendship, and real estate, thirty years after we all stop aging. ---
**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:** [December 5, 2022, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1070 "2022-12-05T14:06:16Z")
Awesome, that was quick! ---
**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:** [December 5, 2022, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1071 "2022-12-05T15:10:36Z")
I was lucky enough to know that one off the top of my head ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2022, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1072 "2022-12-05T18:05:53Z")
Okay this is more of a supernatural horror novel written in the 90s iirc, but basically this guy living in a small town in America is at a bar watching TV when there’s a bunch of news broadcasts about giant strange clouds appearing all over major cities. Suddenly during the broadcast out of the cloud emerges a bunch of weird creatures (aliens, ghosts, demons, something like that) and they brutally kill the reporters on the scene all over the world. Immediately everyone in the bar panics and runs home and barricades their doors. Eventually the strange creature reach the main characters town and then it turns into a religious horror type thing because this Demon creature starts showing up in front of the main character and taunting him about how he’s going to die and so is all his family. It’s basically a religious apocalypse novel with some science fiction elements. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2022, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1073 "2022-12-05T18:47:15Z")
I am not going to try to read, skim or even search this thread (because searching an endless thread in Discourse is futile), so excuse me if this has been asked and answered before. It’s a couple of short stories, that I read in the 70’s or possibly 80’s. They are probably from anthologies, perhaps from magazines (e.g. Magazine for Fantasy and Science Fiction). Possibly one of those Alfred Hitchcock presents or something by Asimov, where they possibly put their names on things to help sales. Not for younger readers, I think. Might be written a loot earlier. So here they are. A young couple, possibly in London, meets a strange man., Story happens. The twist at the end is that he doesn’t age, because he has no limitation on his life in time, only on space (as opposed to the rest of us, we’re of course limited in time, not in space). At the end the couple have aged and are now senior citizens, while the stranger is basically down to a city block. The morality of the story, if there was one, as that living forever might not be such spiffy idea if your living space kept shrinking. Some guy meets a djinn/god/supernatural entity at his dying moments and wishes for eternal life. He gets his wish. The twist here is that he keeps living through the final minutes (seconds?) of dying people, being spliced in an infinite cavalcade: being chewed on by a great white, falling out of a plane and plummeting, being electrocuted, drowning, being burned in a car wreck. He never dies, but the life/lives he gets to live are… horrific. A family in what must be seen as 50-60’s suburban America buys a new car to the envy of all neighbors. Plot twist: there’s almost no gas, and it’s only reserved for the 1 percent of the 1 percent. How can he have this gas guzzling V8 land yacht that roars down the road? This time the plot twist is that it’s done by wind up springs and the engine sound is from a speaker. The last one is horribly dated and deals with how we’re basically drowning in more and more information. Libraries fill up. Archives are bulging with documents. The twist here, if that’s the word, is that the story is written with more and more abbreviations, initialisms, acronym, to the point where the end is incomprehensible. Thanks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2022, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1074 "2022-12-05T18:53:44Z")
> [@Charlie\_Tan](#): > > A family in what must be seen as 50-60’s suburban America buys a new car to the envy of all neighbors. Plot twist: there’s almost no gas, and it’s only reserved for the 1 percent of the 1 percent. How can he have this gas guzzling V8 land yacht that roars down the road? This time the plot twist is that it’s done by wind up springs and the engine sound is from a speaker. As luck would have it, that same question was asked on another forum recently. Answer: [Harry Harrison’s “Speed of the Cheetah, Roar of the Lion”](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?50749). ---
**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:** [December 5, 2022, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1075 "2022-12-05T18:54:57Z")
The last one may be > **[MS Fnd in a Lbry](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Fnd_in_a_Lbry)** > > MS Fnd in a Lbry (probably intended to be understood as "Manuscript Found in a Library") is a satirical science fiction short story about the disastrous effects of the exponential growth of information. The story was written by Hal Draper in 1961. Its title is a play on the Edgar Allan Poe story "MS. Found in a Bottle." > The story is in the form of a report written by Yrlh Vvg, an anthropologist from an alien civilization who investigates the remains of human civilization approximately 175,000 yu... ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2022, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1076 "2022-12-05T19:13:50Z")
Wow. Yes to both. They also match up with he time I would’ve read them, and the publications. Thanks again. ---
**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:** [December 12, 2022, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1077 "2022-12-12T02:29:48Z")
Here’s one I read probably around 1974, but may be older. As I recall it, a guy is investigating native life on an alien planet. There are some small insect-like creatures who go through a life cycle in which they start as small bipedal creatures. Then at some point in its life, some other members of the hive or whatever wrap it in a cocoon and force-feed it some stuff that induces a metamorphosis into another, maybe spider-like? form. One day the guy wakes up to find that the creatures have apparently decided that he himself must be a larger version of the creature’s first form, and they have cocooned him and are going to feed him the metamorphosis-inducing substance. I don’t remember much else, except that the story gave me nightmares for years. ---
**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:** [December 12, 2022, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1078 "2022-12-12T12:27:58Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > Okay this is more of a supernatural horror novel written in the 90s iirc, but basically this guy living in a small town in America is at a bar watching TV when there’s a bunch of news broadcasts about giant strange clouds appearing all over major cities. Suddenly during the broadcast out of the cloud emerges a bunch of weird creatures (aliens, ghosts, demons, something like that) and they brutally kill the reporters on the scene all over the world. Immediately everyone in the bar panics and runs home and barricades their doors. Eventually the strange creature reach the main characters town and then it turns into a religious horror type thing because this Demon creature starts showing up in front of the main character and taunting him about how he’s going to die and so is all his family. It’s basically a religious apocalypse novel with some science fiction elements. Sounds like Stephen King’s _The Mist_ > **[The Mist (novella)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mist_(novella))** > > The Mist is a psychological horror novella by American author Stephen King. First published by Viking Press in 1980 as part of the Dark Forces anthology, an edited version was subsequently included in King's 1985 collection Skeleton Crew. In the story, the small town of Bridgton, Maine is shrouded in a dense mist that conceals otherworldly creatures. The protagonist and narrator David Drayton, who has taken refuge with his young son in a supermarket, tries to survive against not only the creature... ---
**Author:** ![Orville\_mogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/aeb1de/32.png) [@Orville\_mogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orville_mogul)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2022, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1079 "2022-12-12T12:56:50Z")
Great thread idea. Here is an easy one. I think I know the author and title, but cannot find the anthology it appeared in. Unless I remember very incorrectly, the short story is by Ray Bradbury and is called “In the X-ray”. I was pretty sure it was in one of Bradbury’s short story collections that I read as a kid in the early 80s, but I recently googled his whole list of stories and cannot find it anywhere. So maybe I did get the title wrong (or even the author??). The main character of the story is a woman, who had a twin sister who was crazy and hateful. The twin dies of an apoplectic seizure. Soon after, the surviving sister has some pain/swelling in her ankle and goes to her doctor, who xrays it. A bit later the woman starts getting a sore throat, and (I forget the storyline a bit after that), the woman eventually chokes to death. The twist in the story is revealed when her doctor looks at the x-ray of the woman’s ankle and sees the bones of a hand wrapped wrapped around it. That story gave me chills as a kid, and I still remember it fondly. Can anyone confirm the title and tell me where I can find 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:** [December 12, 2022, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1080 "2022-12-12T15:53:11Z")
“In the X-Ray” by Fritz Leiber > **[FRITZ LEIBER HORROR STORIES](https://horrordelve.com/2014/05/17/fritz-leiber-horror-stories/)** > > Fritz Leiber (1910-1992) was a prolific writer who won multiple prestigious awards during his long career. He was also an actor, poet and champion chess player. His work has been adapted to film (T… > **5- “In the X-Ray” (1949)** – A woman goes to her doctor after her ankle begins to swell. He’s astounded by what he sees in her X-rays. She tells him about her vindictive identical twin sister who recently died. This is a fantastic, creepy little story. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=53) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=55)