# 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:** 56
**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:** [December 22, 2022, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1101 "2022-12-22T00:58:25Z")
Short story, late 60s / mid 70s: guy takes a bite out of a hamburger, then just before he takes another bite he notices something odd in the patty (IIRC, it looks like a raisin). He takes the second bite, and it turns out that the odd thing is a spore which takes over his body and makes it do all manner of unpleasant/illegal things. Unlike most “pod person / alien takeover” stories I’ve encountered, his personality isn’t destroyed: he’s perfectly aware of what’s going on, but powerless to stop 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 22, 2022, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1102 "2022-12-22T01:00:09Z")
Theodore Sturgeon’s The Cosmic Rape - also known as To Marry Medusa. Gurlick id the guy’s name and he’s a terrible person. Not a short story though - a short novel. > **[The Cosmic Rape](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cosmic_Rape)** > > The Cosmic Rape is a science fiction novel by American writer Theodore Sturgeon, originally published as an original paperback in August 1958. At the same time, a condensed or edited-down version of the novel was published in Galaxy magazine as a short novel, probably condensed by the editor, under the title To Marry Medusa. It was reprinted in 1977 by Pocket Books. > The book concerns an extraterrestrial hive mind named Medusa, which has assimilated many worlds and life forms and plans to absorb ... > **[Book Review: The Cosmic Rape, Theodore Sturgeon (1958)](https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2011/05/27/book-review-the-cosmic-rape-theodore-sturgeon-1958/)** > > 3.5/5 (Good) Theodore Sturgeon’s The Cosmic Rape (1958) is an unusual and refreshing take on the alien invasion trope — especially for a 1950s novel.  Unlike many other reviewers, I fou… > Gurlick, an alcoholic homeless man, accidentally ingests a seed of the Medusa (in a **half-eaten hamburger found in a trashcan** ). However, the Medusa does not immediately transform him. Instead, the Medusa’s ability to convey/carry it’s ultimate goal (to create a hive-mind) is restrained by the paltry abilities of Gurlick’s intellect. ---
**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:** [December 22, 2022, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1103 "2022-12-22T01:10:14Z")
That’s it (found **To Marry Medusa** at the Wikipedia link to the Internet Archive). Thanks, to put it mildly. ---
**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 22, 2022, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1104 "2022-12-22T01:10:48Z")
No problem - Sturgeon is a favorite of mine. ---
**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 24, 2022, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1105 "2022-12-24T14:19:02Z")
@solost > Blockquote > 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). > Blockquote Prominent Author by PK Dick [https://philipdick.com/mirror/websites/pkdweb/short\_stories/Prominent%20Author.htm](https://philipdick.com/mirror/websites/pkdweb/short_stories/Prominent%20Author.htm) ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2022, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1106 "2022-12-24T14:47:43Z")
Wow, didn’t think I’d ever get an answer to that one, thanks! I should make a resolution to (re)read the works of Philip K. Dick in 2023. I’ve read some, but by no means all of 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 24, 2022, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1107 "2022-12-24T15:18:35Z")
No problem. I ran across a reference to the story this morning and remembered your question, so now that’s one less open action item for me 😃 ---
**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 25, 2022, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1108 "2022-12-25T01:31:14Z")
I think that story may have come up in this very theread before. ---
**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 25, 2022, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1109 "2022-12-25T02:20:30Z")
The clumsy blockquote above was me quoting solost’s question from 2020 [Ask the guy who is pretty good at SF Story Identification - #659 by solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/659) (I started answering hisxquestion without making it an explicit reply. ---
**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2023, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1110 "2023-01-04T18:45:41Z")
I need the name of the TV show. I was thinking Time Tunnel, but that’s not it. The setup is that a band of people from various times are traveling together through time…probably fixing stuff, but I don’t remember their mission. The two members of the group that I remember are 1) a 50s scientist, starched white shirt, thin tie, probably glasses and pocket protector and 2) a late-60s or early-70s black guy with an afro. ---
**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:** [January 4, 2023, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1111 "2023-01-04T18:53:53Z")
Would it be The Fantastic Journey (1977)? I barely remember anything about it except it had a cool spherical aura that surrounded the travelers whenever they reached the right point to time-travel. ETA: Found the first episode on youtube. Pretty sure I never saw it, only a later episode or two: [![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-cIBc8WH5o) ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2023, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1112 "2023-01-04T19:54:40Z")
So my record when posting remembered stories here is not too good, but I’ll take that as being due to my poor memory of books read long ago. I’m gonna go again anyway. This novel or story (don’t remember which) had as a central setting some kind of mysterious extremely large enclosed space filled with (probably) spherical very large sub-spaces. Inside each of those spheres was a full, self-contained ecosystem with with a varied range of terrain. Our protagonist in this story knows or at least learns that he can move between these enclosed environments. As I recall it, he climbs a hill or small mountain and encounters the wall of this enclosed space. There is no door, but he can, with some effort, push his way through the wall into the void space between the environments. And then can push his way into the next environment over which is similar but not identical to the one he just left. As to the ‘why’ of all of this effort, I don’t remember at all. Sound familiar to anyone? ---
**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 4, 2023, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1113 "2023-01-04T20:10:56Z")
Sounds like this show; perhaps there was a novelization?: [The Starlost - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Starlost) ---
**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 4, 2023, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1114 "2023-01-04T20:55:21Z")
Agree ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2023, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1115 "2023-01-04T21:27:33Z")
That is amazingly close to what I recall except as I look at clips, I am confident that I never saw that show. Did any novelization or short story make it into print? I sort of recall I came across it as part of an anthology. Edit: looks like it was novelized as [_Phoenix without Ashes_](http://mporcius.blogspot.com/2017/06/phoenix-without-ashes-by-edward-bryant.html) but what I can tell from that summary is that the part with the airlocks and the transit between ecospheres doesn’t jibe with my memory of the sphere’s being pliable, with semi-permeable walls. Hm. ---
**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:** [January 5, 2023, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1116 "2023-01-05T00:30:19Z")
> [@Pork\_Rind](#): > > This novel or story (don’t remember which) had as a central setting some kind of mysterious extremely large enclosed space filled with (probably) spherical very large sub-spaces. Inside each of those spheres was a full, self-contained ecosystem with with a varied range of terrain. [“The Monkeys Thought Twas All in Fun”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkeys_Thought_%27Twas_All_in_Fun) by Orson Scott Card. Explorers find a gigantic thing in space. They call it the Trojan Object. It is divided into cells, each with a habitable environment that humans can survive in. Each cell contains a lake, a hill, a light source, fertile soils and it rains for 20 minutes twice per day. The walls are solid, but they can be pushed through to the next cell. [Here’s a Google Books preview](https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Monkey_Sonatas/X9z-l1Gb_y0C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22agnes+and+danny+stood+on+a+mountaintop%22+inauthor:orson+inauthor:scott+inauthor:card&pg=PT199&printsec=frontcover) in which they explore the object. ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2023, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1117 "2023-01-05T00:43:02Z")
Yup, that’s the one. And it’s from a collection that I know I had. I think I’m not 1 for 4 here. On a roll! ---
**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:** [January 5, 2023, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1118 "2023-01-05T01:11:01Z")
consider it a gift. Happy cake-day. ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2023, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1119 "2023-01-06T03:54:18Z")
Wow. A double whammy! Thanks for the well wishes ,on this most auspicious of days. I may dig into the archives and pick one of my unsolved requests and see if I have better luck this time. ---
**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:** [January 24, 2023, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1120 "2023-01-24T19:13:32Z")
Looking for a story that I heard about, but haven’t read. It’s quite likely I heard about it in this very thread, but I can’t find it on a quick search. If not this thread, then a similar one on some forum. A teenage boy enters an endurance race. Contestants have to keep walking to a certain pace. Those who fall behind or collapse from exhaustion are shot. Last man standing wins a big prize. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=55) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=57)