# 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:** 70
**Author:** ![El\_DeLuxo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_deluxo/32/9043_2.png) [@El\_DeLuxo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_DeLuxo)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2024, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1381 "2024-01-10T03:28:09Z")
How about this one: a sailor who’s a bit of a drunk ends up marooned on an island somewhere. There are intelligent mutant sea worms living there too, and they take care of him, even making him a drink out of the scanty materials that are available. Eventually he becomes their king. I swear I am not making this up. ---
**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:** [January 10, 2024, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1382 "2024-01-10T03:55:56Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > That reminds me a little of Tunnel Through Time That was going to be my guess! I was going to ask @Eclipse_Chaser if it involved a “Doc Tom” and a prehistoric cave gal named Gina who called him “Die Tie”. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2024, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1383 "2024-01-10T05:31:05Z")
Okay, this is not for a Book. There was a show on Amazon, it was about people suddenly playing their own Fantasy Computer Games characters- for real. But of course they werent very good at it, and no one (at first had magic) and their super duper magic items were just mundane versions of the item. ---
**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:** [January 10, 2024, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1384 "2024-01-10T08:05:40Z")
I think I know this one, just can’t remember the title. I think you are right about it being 70s or 80s and I think it is a female writer, possibly Anne McCaffrey or Zenna Henderson? ---
**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:** [January 10, 2024, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1385 "2024-01-10T08:11:53Z")
I found it! “Mists of Dawn” by Chad Oliver. ---
**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:** [January 10, 2024, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1386 "2024-01-10T16:00:53Z")
I think this is it: “The Bear with the Knot on His Tail” by Stephen Tall. The crew of the starship detected the civilisation’s distress call in the form of music which got increasingly urgent as they approached the system. There was also a sort of psychic, an elderly woman, on the ship who painted pictures showing increasing distress. [https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?52502](https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?52502) ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2024, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1387 "2024-01-10T16:28:17Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Okay, this is not for a Book. There was a show on Amazon, it was about people suddenly playing their own Fantasy Computer Games characters- for real. But of course they werent very good at it, and no one (at first had magic) and their super duper magic items were just mundane versions of the item. This is like a whole genre of anime. Was the Amazon show live action? ---
**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 10, 2024, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1388 "2024-01-10T21:23:50Z")
> [@Eclipse\_Chaser](#): > > I think this is it: “The Bear with the Knot on His Tail” by Stephen Tall. > The crew of the starship detected the civilisation’s distress call in the form of music which got increasingly urgent as they approached the system. There was also a sort of psychic, an elderly woman, on the ship who painted pictures showing increasing distress. > [https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?52502](https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?52502) That title doesn’t sound right, but I’ll look into it. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2024, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1389 "2024-01-10T21:25:26Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > This is like a whole genre of anime. Was the Amazon show live action? Live action, yeah, not anime at all. ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2024, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1390 "2024-01-10T23:14:49Z")
[Nightmare Island by Theodore Sturgeon](https://sffremembrance.com/2023/10/06/short-story-review-nightmare-island-by-theodore-sturgeon/) ---
**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 10, 2024, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1391 "2024-01-10T23:39:38Z")
Here’s a [description](http://mporcius.blogspot.com/2016/04/1971-stories-by-larry-niven-joanna-russ.html?m=1) > The plot: _Stardust_ is in orbit near Luna, listening to a mysterious and untraceable transmission of alien music. None of the ship’s technology can figure out where the transmission is coming from, but the crazy painter has an intuition that she expresses in her latest painting, a canvas depicting the constellations. The evocative music is, she senses, coming from the direction of Ursa Major’s tail, so thither flies the _Stardust_ . The transmission turns out to be the swan song, dirge and S.O.S. of an alien civilization whose sun is about to go nova–the _Stardust_ arrives just 33 hours before this intelligent species is about to be exterminated! The narrator’s sexy wife communicates with the aliens via the universal language of music (she is a guitarist) and the _Stardust_ takes aboard the recorded history and culture of the doomed aliens, and a box full of tiny larval aliens, to be planted on a suitable planet so this noble race will not truly expire, but be reborn on a new world . ---
**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 11, 2024, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1392 "2024-01-11T15:15:15Z")
Yes, that does sound like it, thanks. I’ve ordered it from my library. ---
**Author:** ![El\_DeLuxo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_deluxo/32/9043_2.png) [@El\_DeLuxo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_DeLuxo)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2024, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1393 "2024-01-12T04:12:00Z")
That’s it, thank you very much! ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2024, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1394 "2024-01-12T15:49:46Z")
I cheated - i used google !! ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2024, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1395 "2024-01-12T22:13:01Z")
This is probably easy enough that I could Google it, but: A short story, told in the first person by a tree, who’s been rooted by the side of a road since horse and buggy days to the present, and then a car crashes into the tree… Absolutely brilliant story. Read it decades ago and it’s never left me. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2024, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1396 "2024-01-12T22:16:18Z")
Now that I think of it, another short story that’s decades old: A Jesuit (?) scientist on an interstellar expedition to study the remains of a supernova some two millennia in the past, what he learns about the civilization that was obliterated, and just when the system’s star blew up. Very short story; so powerful. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2024, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1397 "2024-01-12T22:17:56Z")
The Star, by Clarke. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2024, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1398 "2024-01-12T22:35:14Z")
Okay, not strictly sci-fi, but… Decades ago, I found a compilation of old ghost stories (one very clever one by Rudyard Kipling). But the one that stuck in my head was about a ghostly maiden who haunted the lord of a stately mansion built on a headland above the crashing sea. She had killed herself by jumping to her death, to escape an arranged marriage, and was condemned to appear before the lord of the manor the stroke of midnight, and stay with him for one hour. I can’t recall if her once-yearly visit was on Christmas, or New Years, or the anniversary of her death; but in any case, some time in winter. Since she drowned, her appearances always drenched whatever room her victim choose with floods of water, which was both unpleasant for him and ruined the flooring and walls of the room. This happens for several years and several masters, one of whom engages her in conversation, which is when she tells her story. Eventually the house is acquired by a clever young man who comes up with a solution, after getting a bad cold in her first visitation; the next year, he greets her outside on the snowy lawn, clad in a wetsuit and fur-lined rubber outerwear. As they stroll and chat, she gradually freezes, but warns him that she will only return again the next year, but this time with ice-water. He’s thought of this, though, and tells her that when she freezes through, he will pack her in ice and put her in a refrigerated warehouse. The last movement she makes is a tear, trickling from her eye. It was a well-written story, with no real villainous characters - the reader comes to feel sympathy for both the ghost and her victim - and I’d love to find out if it was as good as I remember. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2024, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1399 "2024-01-12T22:49:35Z")
Oh! I remembered enough to track the tree story down! It’s by Ursula Le Guin, “Direction of the Road.” If you haven’t read it, you should. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2024, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1400 "2024-01-12T23:32:42Z")
Ursula at her best was damn good indeed. Great story. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=69) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=71)