# 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:** 65
**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 20, 2023, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1281 "2023-08-20T16:02:29Z")
And then there’s Warhammer 40k, where (as I understand it) the hyperspace dimension was literally Hell. ---
**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:** [August 21, 2023, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1282 "2023-08-21T08:07:03Z")
Something similar in C J Cherryh’s “Chanur” series where various species have to be drugged to go through the space jump. If you aren’t drugged the experience sends you insane. ---
**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:** [August 21, 2023, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1283 "2023-08-21T12:50:42Z")
Of course there is a related trope: > **[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place - TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace)** > > There are very few things about space that are not freaky. Contemporary space shuttles ride pillars of fire and launching one involves spraying 1100 cubic meters of water on the pad as a muffler to keep the craft from being damaged by the noise. ---
**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:** [August 22, 2023, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1284 "2023-08-22T03:42:01Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And then there’s Warhammer 40k, where (as I understand it) the hyperspace dimension was literally Hell. That’s the premise of the movie _Event Horizon,_ too, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1285 "2023-08-22T05:33:35Z")
Yes, the screenwriter, Philip Eisner, was a big Warhammer 40K player and acknowledged it as an influence. ---
**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:** [August 22, 2023, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1286 "2023-08-22T14:28:55Z")
In George R.R. Martin’s intriguing sf short story “The Stone City,” a foxlike alien race’s FTL drive ultimately drives them all crazy. It seems to be something about the drive itself, and not exposure to hyperspace, that does it, though. ---
**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:** [August 22, 2023, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1287 "2023-08-22T14:54:11Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > a foxlike alien race’s FTL drive ultimately drives them all crazy. Crazy like a foxlike? ---
**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:** [August 22, 2023, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1288 "2023-08-22T14:58:24Z")
Kinda. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1289 "2023-08-27T02:44:48Z")
I’m for a couple of anthologies They were in my HS library, so no later than 1978, and probably before then. They were named something like Best (or great or similar) Ghost/Horror/maybe\_something\_else\_that\_I\_can’t\_remember Stories I know that “The Bottle Imp” was in one of them as well as “Voice in the Night” And I think there were relevant illustrations in the stories ---
**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 27, 2023, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1290 "2023-08-27T03:23:43Z")
Presumably you mean “The Bottle Imp” by Robert Lewis Stevenson and “The Voice in the Night” by William Hope Hodgson. ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2023, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1291 "2023-08-27T04:02:13Z")
Yes, I should have included that info ---
**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 27, 2023, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1292 "2023-08-27T05:26:04Z")
Here are some places where the two stories appeared: [https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?91831](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?91831) [https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?58911](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?58911) ---
**Author:** ![Bashorian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bashorian/32/3546_2.png) [@Bashorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bashorian)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2023, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1293 "2023-09-20T04:09:32Z")
A large ship, very large I think, that travels through time linearly from the far past to the far future. I read it around 1993 - 1997, so was written before then. I thought it was Frederik Pohl but looking through his bibliography I don’t see it. ---
**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:** [September 20, 2023, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1294 "2023-09-20T04:22:17Z")
> **[Marrow (novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marrow_(novel))** > > Marrow is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert Reed published in 2000. > When a jovian-sized, artificially-created structure enters the galaxy, a society of technologically advanced humans (capable of interstellar flight and functionally immortal) are the first to intercept and investigate it. Finding it to be an intergalactic ship, they decide to convert it into a cruise ship, inviting alien races to join them in its massive, uncharted interior as it makes a slow circumnavigation of... ?? ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2023, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1295 "2023-09-20T05:04:31Z")
Sounds vaguely like a couple different stories Poul Anderson did (and one of which, I believe, referenced in a Futurama episode) - “Flight to Forever” in which the universe is cyclical so the travelers end up back where they started but also “Tau Zero” where the universe experiences a series of Big Bangs and Crunches but not really cyclical as in the other story. > **[Flight to Forever](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_to_Forever)** > > Flight to Forever is a science fiction novella by American writer Poul Anderson, first published in serial form in Super Science Stories in November 1950, and then published again in paperback in 1955. This is one of many science fiction works written during the 1950s that involved time travel. > In 1973, physicist Martin Saunders test drives a time machine that Saunders, his girlfriend Eve, and his colleague McPherson have constructed. Martin and his friend Sam Hull set the time machine to the ye... > **[Tau Zero](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau_Zero)** > > Tau Zero is a hard science fiction novel by American writer Poul Anderson. The novel was based upon the short story "To Outlive Eternity" appearing in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1967. It was first published in book form in 1970. The book is a quintessential example of "hard sci-fi", as its plot is dominated by futuristic technology grounded in real physics principles. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1971. > Tau Zero follows the crew of the starship Leonora Christine, a coloni... ---
**Author:** ![Bashorian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bashorian/32/3546_2.png) [@Bashorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bashorian)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2023, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1296 "2023-09-21T01:41:18Z")
It occurred to me after I asked that it may be Poul Anderson. Tau Zero doesn’t sound familiar, however. But I’m going to read it because it sounds like fun. And it may be 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:** [September 21, 2023, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1297 "2023-09-21T02:01:58Z")
What do you mean by "travels through time linearly from the far past to the far future. " ---
**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:** [September 21, 2023, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1298 "2023-09-21T02:03:57Z")
Yeah, that’s the way most of us travel through time. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2023, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1299 "2023-09-21T07:12:22Z")
> [@Bashorian](#): > > It occurred to me after I asked that it may be Poul Anderson. Tau Zero doesn’t sound familiar, however. But I’m going to read it because it sounds like fun. And it may be it! IIRC, Tau refers to the denominator of the formula for converting the energy needed to reach lightspeed. [https://enculturation.net/1\_2/calvin/tau.htm](https://enculturation.net/1_2/calvin/tau.htm) [http://www.tauzero.com/Rob\_Tow/tau\_zero.html](http://www.tauzero.com/Rob_Tow/tau_zero.html) Aha - found something about it. If the denominator gets to zero, the whole formula evaluates to infinity - infinite mass, zero time passing, or something. The point being it’s basically impossible to reach light speed. I found the story quite depressing, actually. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2023, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1300 "2023-09-21T07:17:19Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > I found the story quite depressing, actually. So did I, but I didn’t want to prejudice anyone who hasn’t read it yet. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=64) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=66)