# 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:** 77
**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:** [May 19, 2024, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1521 "2024-05-19T23:14:30Z")
Hunh. A few years ago I read a Frankenstein story in which the monster was smaller than normal human rather than larger, and that led to a different ending of the story. But that’s not the one you’re looking for, probably. ---
**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:** [May 19, 2024, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1522 "2024-05-19T23:28:02Z")
I think that one might have been written by @CalMeacham … Ah, yes, here it is. > **[A Light So Brilliant and Wondrous | Silver Blade Magazine](https://www.silverblade.net/2019/12/a-light-so-brilliant-and-wondrous/)** > > I had worked hard for nearly two years for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. ---
**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:** [May 19, 2024, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1523 "2024-05-19T23:42:44Z")
Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2024, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1524 "2024-06-12T00:59:48Z")
Okay, this one is Fantasy. Set in england, there is a dragon and a smart talking wolf, who calls himself an “english wolf”. Its is a series. ---
**Author:** ![SunUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SunUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunUp)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2024, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1525 "2024-06-12T01:06:50Z")
Sounds vaguely like _The Dragon and the George_ - I seem to recall Aragh referring to himself as an “English wolf” from time to time. > **[The Dragon and the George](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dragon_and_the_George)** > > The Dragon and the George is a 1976 fantasy novel by American writer Gordon R. Dickson, the first in his "Dragon Knight" series. A shorter form of the story was previously published as the short story, "St. Dragon and the George" in the September 1957 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. > The novel was loosely adapted into the 1982 animated movie The Flight of Dragons by Rankin/Bass. > Jim Eckert holds a doctorate in medieval history and is hoping for an instructor position at a M... ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2024, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1526 "2024-06-12T01:15:49Z")
> [@SunUp](#): > > Sounds vaguely like _The Dragon and the George_ - I seem to recall Aragh referring to himself as an “English wolf” from time to time. Yep, thanks! ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2024, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1527 "2024-07-07T23:37:25Z")
I have a story that I’d like some help trying to identify. I had thought it was a Philip K. Dick story, but I’ve taken a look at his books, and I’m not sure that the plot matches up with any of his works. I read it sometime in the 1980s, so it can’t be any newer than that; I’m pretty sure that I read it in a standalone novel/novella book, rather than in an anthology or in a science fiction magazine. The story was about a man who lived a simple life, in a small, bucolic town. One of his favorite pastimes was a puzzle in the daily newspaper, in which one tried to identify in which boxes (in a grid or something) “aliens” would appear. It turned out that the man was living in a constructed, controlled community, sort of like in “The Truman Show.” He had some sort of telepathic/precognitive ability, and was being used by the U.S. military to predict where enemy missiles were being targeted (so that they could be shot down, I think). His accuracy apparently depended on him _not_ knowing what he was actually trying to predict, and the government took great pains to not let him suspect anything, though, as I recall it, he did start to suspect that his life, and the puzzles, were not what they appeared to be. ---
**Author:** ![aurora\_maire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aurora_maire/32/328_2.png) [@aurora\_maire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurora_maire)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2024, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1528 "2024-07-07T23:48:14Z")
It is Philip. [Time Out of Joint](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Out_of_Joint) ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2024, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1529 "2024-07-07T23:56:25Z")
> [@aurora\_maire](#): > > It is Philip. Hot dang, thank you! ---
**Author:** ![Karen\_Lingel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karen_lingel/32/18649_2.png) [@Karen\_Lingel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Karen_Lingel)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2024, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1530 "2024-07-30T01:05:49Z")
I am trying to remember the title of a book. It was a guy who has a heart attack and is dying, but then ends up back in college living his previous life. He keeps living, then at the same age as before, he has another heart attack and ends back up in college. Repeat, repeat. Events ensue. Additional details to major plot points (but I don’t give away the ending.) In one repeat, he kills Lee Harvey Oswald, hoping to save JFK (didn’t work, some other nutjob killed JFK). In one of the repeats he meets a woman undergoing the same thing, and they agree to try to meet up in each new iteration. They put ads in the newspaper asking if people “remember” certain events that have not yet happened, hoping to find additional loopers, and find only one other guy, who turns out to be a super nut case. Does that ring any bells? ---
**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:** [July 30, 2024, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1531 "2024-07-30T01:09:12Z")
Replay, by Ken Grimwood. ---
**Author:** ![Karen\_Lingel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karen_lingel/32/18649_2.png) [@Karen\_Lingel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Karen_Lingel)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2024, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1532 "2024-07-30T01:10:20Z")
49 seconds. I’m impressed. Thank you. ---
**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 30, 2024, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1533 "2024-07-30T01:22:41Z")
Darn it. I blinked ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2024, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1534 "2024-07-30T15:13:11Z")
Sounds like a good story to look up. ---
**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 30, 2024, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1535 "2024-07-30T16:12:08Z")
It is. ---
**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 30, 2024, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1536 "2024-07-30T23:22:46Z")
Replay is a terrific novel. I read it when it was new, in the 1980s - and I’m surprised there isn’t on more lists of the best SF novels. ---
**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:** [July 31, 2024, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1537 "2024-07-31T02:54:58Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Darn it. I blinked Maybe you’ll answer it next time around. ---
**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 1, 2024, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1538 "2024-08-01T18:04:27Z")
^ Ha! It _is_ a good novel - I recently re-read it. However, he doesn’t kill Oswald. He types and sends the Secret Service a letter threatening JFK, signing it as if it was from Oswald. Oswald is arrested but some other nobody shoots and kills the President in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2024, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1539 "2024-08-27T04:58:12Z")
This is a RAH short story. Or maybe a novelette. IIRC it was in a thinish PB with two others. Anyway, some dude with the past wakes up, and in a society where nearly everyone carries a gun. If no gun, a brassard, unless you are police and you get both- except our hero who also gets both- then people try to kill him. ---
**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:** [August 27, 2024, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1540 "2024-08-27T05:06:15Z")
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