# 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:** 72
**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 28, 2024, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1421 "2024-01-28T22:34:11Z")
Just the one I was coming in to suggest. Available here [The Project Gutenberg eBook of Make Mine Homogenized, by Rick Raphael](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24119/24119-h/24119-h.htm) ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2024, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1422 "2024-01-28T22:49:01Z")
Yep, that’s the one I was thinking of. I probably read it in _Analog’s Lighter Side_ in 1983. ---
**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 29, 2024, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1423 "2024-01-29T03:23:07Z")
There’s a Speed Queen in the story, so that must be the one. Now if I can just remember the anthology or magazine I read it in… ---
**Author:** ![Chelonaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@Chelonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chelonaut)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1424 "2024-01-31T16:16:30Z")
Short story: two men smugly discuss their work at a facility, where people whose jobs have become obsolete are somehow (drugs maybe?) kept under the illusion that they still are employed and affluent. Zinger at the end: the two men drive away in what they think is a shining new sportscar. But is revealed to be a pedal driven cart, they themselves have been drugged/hypnotized to believe they are better off than they are. ETA: I read it in an old anthology, don’t remember title. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2024, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1425 "2024-02-01T01:38:14Z")
It sounds awfully sad. ---
**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:** [February 1, 2024, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1426 "2024-02-01T20:49:55Z")
This sounds like I should know it - darn it ---
**Author:** ![Chelonaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@Chelonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chelonaut)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2024, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1427 "2024-02-01T23:19:12Z")
I remember it felt a bit like PK Dick (theme) or Ballard (style), but it was someone else. ---
**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:** [February 1, 2024, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1428 "2024-02-01T23:30:19Z")
Sheckley, maybe? ---
**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:** [February 2, 2024, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1429 "2024-02-02T00:33:03Z")
It’s vaguely like the story “The Store of the Worlds” by Robert Sheckley in which a man pays for a chance to experience a boring pre-apocalyptic life that’s still better than any post-apocalyptic one. ---
**Author:** ![Chelonaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@Chelonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chelonaut)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2024, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1430 "2024-02-02T09:14:42Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > It’s vaguely like the story “The Store of the Worlds” by Robert Sheckley in which a man pays for a chance to experience a boring pre-apocalyptic life that’s still better than any post-apocalyptic one. > [@Andy\_L](#): > > Sheckley, maybe? The Sheckley stories that comes to my mind (“Monster”, “Human mans burden”) are more immediately absurd than what I recall of the story . But looking up “The Store of the Worlds” I see that Sheckley explored themes about the nature/perception of reality. It’s not the story I’m looking for, but I think I probably read that once too. Also, I see that wikipedia links to a lot of his old short stories by way of magazine scans on the internet archive (“Galaxy” etc.). FSM, a carbon based lifeform could waste a lot of time checking them out. ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2024, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1431 "2024-02-02T11:19:27Z")
The general idea seems like the world of Lem’s [The Futurological Congress - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Futurological_Congress), but that is an entire novel and not a book (and does not contain this specific scene). ---
**Author:** ![Chelonaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@Chelonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chelonaut)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2024, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1432 "2024-02-02T11:29:27Z")
I thought about Lem and that novel. But as far as I can tell he didn’t write any short stories on that theme. ---
**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:** [February 2, 2024, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1433 "2024-02-02T14:41:09Z")
I’ve seen the 2013 film _The Congress_, which is based loosely on _The Futurological Congress_. ---
**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:** [February 2, 2024, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1434 "2024-02-02T20:39:54Z")
Hmm, looks interesting! Did you like it?: [The Congress (2013 film) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Congress_(2013_film)) ---
**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:** [February 2, 2024, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1435 "2024-02-02T22:23:07Z")
I thought it was fairly good but not great. ---
**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:** [February 4, 2024, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1436 "2024-02-04T03:19:08Z")
Thanks. I may check it out. ---
**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:** [February 21, 2024, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1437 "2024-02-21T15:02:34Z")
Years ago I read a science fiction story with the following plot: There is a society in which people are told at some point what will happen to them during the rest of their life. Supposedly this is possible because there is something that can send back messages in time. For a long time the people accept this and live their lives as they are told. Finally they begin to rebel and deliberately do things they are told can’t happen. Does this sound familiar? I ask this because I just picked up the 2015 young adult science fiction novel _Forget Tomorrow_ by Pintip Dunn. It apparently has a similar plot. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2024, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1438 "2024-02-21T15:38:18Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > There is a society in which people are told at some point what will happen to them during the rest of their life. Supposedly this is possible because there is something that can send back messages in time. Not the same story at all but it did make me think of a novella. An effectively useless form of time travel is invented: you can briefly project your consciousness into your future self (sort of a reverse-Quantum Leap), but you can’t bring back any foreknowledge of the future with you (pivotal plot point: _ **almost** _). A young debutante leaps into her future only to discover that civilization is about to collapse and the bright future she’d expected will instead be dystopian. The ending is… not happy. ---
**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:** [February 21, 2024, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1439 "2024-02-21T16:20:53Z")
Hundred Light Year Diary by Greg Egan > **[The Hundred Light-Year Diary](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hundred_Light-Year_Diary)** > > "The Hundred Light-Year Diary" is a science-fiction short story by Australian writer Greg Egan, first published in Interzone 55 in January of 1992. It was later published in the short story collection Axiomatic. It was a finalist for the 2007 Premio Ignotus for Best Foreign Story. > The discovery of Chen's galaxy moving backwards through time (due to time reversing with the upcoming contraction of the universe) allows the construction of a messaging system to send information into the own past (us... ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2024, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1440 "2024-02-24T08:56:27Z")
Okay this was a short story in the 90s, might have been an inspiration for the later Matrix movies. Group of people are living in an underground bunker after an unspecified apocalypse. The bunker has surface access but nobody has bothered to leave in decades because the outside is a completely barren wasteland with mutants and hostile armed Mad Max style marauders. Main character runs afoul of somebody in the bunker and goes to escape. The surface is nightmarish, the sky is dark red with seemingly no sunrise. Armed groups chase after him and every building is a bombed out ruin. After enough wandering though he’s surprised to reach a solid wall that goes for miles in either direction and that goes all the way up to the sky. He follows the wall for quite a distance and finds a hidden door in the wall. Inside the door is a long ladder which he climbs. He finally exits the ladder via a hatch on top and opens it to find a completely beautiful world with a blue sky, green grass, and animals running around in the distance and realizes the “surface” he was just on was actually yet another underground bunker seemingly put there to keep people in the vault permanently. However as he explores this beautiful new world he hits another wall… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=71) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=73)