# 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:** 55
**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:** [December 13, 2022, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1081 "2022-12-13T03:35:29Z")
It’s been a couple years – might as well try again. > [@SCAdian](#): > > > [@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:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1082 "2022-12-13T15:49:04Z")
There was a paperback anthology of horror stories circa 1968 in which one of the stories was about someone buying a can with no label at a supermarket at discount and then horror ensued. I’ve never been able to track the book down. ---
**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 14, 2022, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1083 "2022-12-14T00:00:08Z")
There’s a Brin short story about a mysterious plague of paralysis, but it’s from 1980 or so, and doesn’t fit otherwise. Do you remember what the real cause is? ---
**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:** [December 14, 2022, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1084 "2022-12-14T17:30:02Z")
No. I have a vague feeling it might have been an Ace Double, though I looked at a list of those and none seemed to fit. And to narrow it down a bit, I think I read it around 1964. ---
**Author:** ![Eclipse\_Chaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Eclipse\_Chaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eclipse_Chaser)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2022, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1085 "2022-12-15T09:07:39Z")
This is a short story I read about 30 years ago. A nice couple are living in a nice small American town. One day a new family with a little boy move in next door, they seem very pleasant and friendly and the wives make friends. The first wife does notice however that the new friend seems very scared of water. When the first wife is in her house and asks for a glass of water, the new friend fills it from the tap like it is dangerous. One day the neighbours go out in the car, the first wife is watching when they come back, just as it starts to rain. The family start to run frantically from the car to the house, the rain suddenly intensifies … and the family melt like they are being dissolved. ---
**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 15, 2022, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1086 "2022-12-15T10:01:00Z")
[Rain, Rain, Go Away by Issac Asimov](https://www.npsd.k12.nj.us/cms/lib/NJ01001216/Centricity/Domain/564/Rain_Rain_Go_Away_Text.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![Eclipse\_Chaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Eclipse\_Chaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eclipse_Chaser)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2022, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1087 "2022-12-15T18:20:43Z")
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:** [December 15, 2022, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1088 "2022-12-15T21:21:28Z")
Odd but memorable story. After all these years, I still remember the line about their despairing look upwards as the heavens open. ---
**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:** [December 16, 2022, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1089 "2022-12-16T02:48:38Z")
Kinda weird that Asimov felt that he needed to describe in detail what cotton candy is. ---
**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 16, 2022, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1090 "2022-12-16T03:39:24Z")
I’m British, and over here we call it _candyfloss_. Without his explanation I might not have known that _cotton candy_ meant the same. ---
**Author:** ![gre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d78d45/32.png) [@gre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gre)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1091 "2022-12-20T22:06:46Z")
I read a story probably in the 80s or early 90s where a group succeeded in bringing a man to the present from the future for a short time, like half an hour or two hours or so. They were excited that he was an educated man, but his specialty turned out to be something weird and narrow and meaningless and maybe not even technical. He mentioned a teaching machine for his kids, but knew no more than the general appearance of its innards from when he’d looked over the repairman’s shoulder when it was being worked on. He had zero practical knowledge of his world that they could use. ---
**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 20, 2022, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1092 "2022-12-20T22:21:59Z")
Sounds like one of the two stories from here > ---
**Author:** ![gre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d78d45/32.png) [@gre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gre)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2022, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1093 "2022-12-20T23:13:55Z")
Wow! Thank you! I’d tried to find the answer now and then over the years and never got anywhere, and you found it in a second! So it was T. E. D. Klein’s Renaissance Man, which the Internet Archive has in Microcosmic Tales. And I was wrong about the teaching machine — it was his son’s antigravity belt. Now I just need to figure out my time belt one… ---
**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 20, 2022, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1094 "2022-12-20T23:55:45Z")
Glad to help. ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2022, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1095 "2022-12-21T00:37:57Z")
I’m going to cross-post in this epic thread because my dedicated OP several months ago got no replies. The story is not quite sci-fi, but involves telepathy and I was once positive it was Ray Bradbury. Here goes, fwiw: - I read this as a kid in the early 1970s; it was a book of my mom’s which I assumed was at least 10 or 20 years old at the time. - Short story length; not a novel; part of a collection of short stories. - I always had an idea it was Ray Bradbury, but no longer think that. - The story is about telepathy, and may have a reference to telepathy in the title. - In it, an accused wife-killer is brought to trial. He’s pretty obviously guilty, but one woman juror has doubts. She stares into his handsome, handsome face and feels they have a telepathic connection – he is pleading with her to believe in his innocence. - She is the holdout juror for acquittal, and successfully brings the rest of the jury around. - She and the acquitted man marry. She is proud of herself when she reveals, after their marriage, that she has a fair amount of money, which she has carefully saved up despite a modest income. He is pleased but not surprised, because she is clearly frugal and prudent, which is why he loves her. - In a moment of tenderness he accidentally, telepathically reveals that he murdered his first wife for her money, and is now about to do the same thing again. ---
**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 21, 2022, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1096 "2022-12-21T01:04:12Z")
It’s the kind of think that Fredric Brown would write - but I read a complete collection of his short works recently, and don’t recall this one. I’ll keep thinking ---
**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 21, 2022, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1097 "2022-12-21T09:16:00Z")
wow, I definitely got that wrong. I was so sure it was Bradbury. Thanks for setting me straight. Strange thing is that I have never before heard of Fritz Leiber. I definitely didn’t have any of his books. I wonder how I came across that story. It doesn’t seem like the sort of story they would assign in school… ---
**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:** [December 21, 2022, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1098 "2022-12-21T13:30:17Z")
> [@Orville\_mogul](#): > > I wonder how I came across that story. Did you try looking up the story in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDb)?: [https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?78249](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?78249) This is the standard place to look up all the places where a particular science fiction, fantasy, or horror story has appeared. It’s appeared in a few anthologies. I don’t know whether the ISFDb lists the school textbook anthologies that stories have appeared in. ---
**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:** [December 21, 2022, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1099 "2022-12-21T15:18:23Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > I don’t know whether the ISFDb lists the school textbook anthologies that stories have appeared in. I don’t think it does… I just checked by looking up Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains”, which I know I read in a school textbook, but I don’t think the textbook was listed (there was one anthology that might have been a textbook, but it also contained multiple Clarke stories, and I’m sure I would have remembered if a textbook I’d read had had multiple SF stories). ---
**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 21, 2022, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1100 "2022-12-21T22:14:03Z")
I’m almost positive I read “Arena” (by Fred Brown, and later adapted into the ST episode) in “The Weekly Reader” but that’s not listed in the ISFDB either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=54) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=56)