# 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:** 62
**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:** [July 21, 2023, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1221 "2023-07-21T12:00:57Z")
When did you read the story? That gives us some limits on when it was published. Here’s a list of post-nuclear war fiction in various media: > **[List of nuclear holocaust fiction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_holocaust_fiction)** > > This list of nuclear holocaust fiction lists the many works of speculative fiction that attempt to describe a world during or after a massive nuclear war, nuclear holocaust, or crash of civilization due to a nuclear electromagnetic pulse. > 2018 (latest) ---
**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:** [July 21, 2023, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1222 "2023-07-21T12:11:02Z")
That’s actually a fairly common idea - any more details would be helpful ---
**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:** [July 21, 2023, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1223 "2023-07-21T18:17:44Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > Post-Apocalyse story, I think there’s like a nuclear war at the start of the book that among other things knocks out all power. Almost guaranteed NOT the book you’re seeking, but if you like that kind of thing you would probably enjoy Stirling’s two series, both of which involve modern folks suddenly deprived of technology — the “Emververse” series that starts wtih _Dies the Fire_ ; and the Island in the Sea of Time with 1st book having that same title. Hmm, I see he did quite a few other series and given his inclination to return to that general theme of “watch modern folk cope, or not cope, with sudden loss of technology”, the one you seek might be among them sure enough. ---
**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:** [July 24, 2023, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1224 "2023-07-24T19:13:31Z")
Have a look, if you please: ["Loosely patterned after a Greek myth," Joe Haldeman wrote](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/loosely-patterned-after-a-greek-myth-joe-haldeman-wrote/987364) ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2023, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1225 "2023-07-25T00:23:50Z")
Also 1632 by Eric Flint ---
**Author:** ![AZRob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/azrob/32/3003_2.png) [@AZRob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AZRob)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2023, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1226 "2023-08-01T01:43:30Z")
This is a great thread; thanks to you all. I have a vague memory of a novel I would have read in the late 70s or early 80s. It’s told from the perspective of a teen boy and opens with a mysterious, black-clad, stranger arriving at a settlement on a non-Earth planet. [Shades of both Rangers of the North and Joey Starrett from Shane.] I believe that the geography between settlements is a grey mist and people from the settlement don’t travel into the unknown much. We learn that the stranger wields enormous power and isn’t altruistic or there to help the settlement. I think the boy must go with the stranger on a journey because the story moves on to larger settlements and towns. As the story unfolds it is revealed that the stranger (and some other people) wield power because they are genius mathematicians and the planet is formed, and societies controlled, through complex mathematical formulae. Thoughts? ---
**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:** [August 1, 2023, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1227 "2023-08-01T01:53:13Z")
Except for the bit about the protagonist being a teen boy, this sounds like the Soul Rider series by Jack Chalker. ---
**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:** [August 1, 2023, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1228 "2023-08-01T02:01:08Z")
Sounds like something I would like a lot. No idea what it is ---
**Author:** ![AZRob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/azrob/32/3003_2.png) [@AZRob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AZRob)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2023, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1229 "2023-08-01T02:06:23Z")
So that took what, 9 minutes? : ) I think that’s it. I’ll have to find a used copy to be sure. Since I was a teen boy I must have misremembered the protagonist as a boy. Thanks Ponderoid! ---
**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:** [August 1, 2023, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1230 "2023-08-01T02:17:30Z")
And Ninja’d! ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2023, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1231 "2023-08-01T02:52:59Z")
My piano teacher was a big fan of esoteric science fiction, the Asimov-type stuff. I recall one cryptic novel on her bookshelf. I never read it, but the cover art was of a big brown-pillar statue-ish creature with eyes, named “Cat,” maybe 15 feet tall. The book-cover back blurb said something like, _“Cat was a creature frozen in place for many thousands of years, immovable, as punishment. One day, a visitor asked him to do a favor. Cat agreed, but he had his price.”_ (My recollection is very fuzzy since I only glanced at the the covers of the book and this was 20 years ago.) Do you recall by any chance? I’m pretty sure Isaac Asimov was NOT the author, but it was some author similar to his style. I think it was maybe a 1970s or 1980s book. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2023, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1232 "2023-08-01T13:35:37Z")
_Eye of Cat_ ?? ---
**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:** [August 1, 2023, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1233 "2023-08-01T14:54:10Z")
I assume you mean this one by Roger Zelazny: > **[Eye of Cat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_Cat)** > > Eye of Cat is a 1982 science fiction novel by American writer Roger Zelazny. It was among his five personal favorite novels from his own oeuvre. > When the galaxy's most skilled hunter is asked to use his skill to protect an important political mission, he realizes that he needs specialized aid. Thus Billy Singer must seek the shape-shifting telepathic creature only known as "Cat", whom he had caught and trapped for a museum. Cat agrees to help on the condition that, once the mission is over, he... ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2023, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1234 "2023-08-01T17:31:01Z")
Ah, yes, thanks, may be that! Yeah, I really misremembered, only had vague notions. ---
**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:** [August 2, 2023, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1235 "2023-08-02T00:21:57Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > esoteric science fiction, the Asimov-type stuff In what sense were Asimov’s stories esoteric? ---
**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:** [August 2, 2023, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1236 "2023-08-02T01:19:48Z")
At a guess, Asimov rarely provides a mundane setting as his starting point (particularly in his novels) - the plot opens with a city-wide planet, or a few thousand years in the future, or outside of spacetime, and the reader just has to deal. ---
**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:** [August 2, 2023, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1237 "2023-08-02T01:32:20Z")
Pebble in the Sky starts in the present-day, with a main character who’s mysteriously transported millennia into the future. ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2023, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1238 "2023-08-02T02:27:51Z")
I have a request: Short SF story; published some time in the early 1960s. The point-of-view character is an alien; to judge by the description, some kind of mollusk-like creature. He and many others like him are crawling along, basically just eating what is on their path, barely surviving. Then the “protagonist” encounters an obstruction in its path. Although no truly recognizable description is provided, it becomes clear that it is a rocket or a probe, implied to be from Earth. The probe ends up exploding (although the main character survives). Any clue as to title/author? I would love to find it again and reread 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:** [August 2, 2023, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1239 "2023-08-02T02:45:51Z")
I know I’ve read that one - the species is highly territorial, as I recall. When I get home later this week I’ll check some places for it. Something makes me wonder if it was nominated for a retroHugo in the last few years ---
**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:** [August 2, 2023, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1240 "2023-08-02T02:49:10Z")
I know of it, too. I think it was in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame collection. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=61) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=63)