# 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:** 86
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1701 "2025-04-17T13:03:34Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > (did it ever occur to any of them to ask the woman who she wants to partner with?) Well no, since the whole basis of the story is that the aliens are regarding them as insentient life. ---
**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:** [April 17, 2025, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1702 "2025-04-17T14:56:43Z")
Also, I’m not sure humans are all that enlightened _now_, let alone when the story was written. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1703 "2025-04-17T15:38:13Z")
The aliens are regarding them as insentient life because their clothes have all rotted off them so that they’re naked, for reasons I’ve forgotten though the rot-causing organisms are part of it they have no tools with them, and they’re found fighting each other. The aliens have no idea what the fight was about ; so their conclusion that the humans aren’t sentient has nothing to do with human sexism. > [@Gyrate](#): > > I’m not sure humans are all that enlightened _now_, let alone when the story was written The idea that women have a choice who to marry was not a new one at the time. ---
**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:** [April 17, 2025, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1704 "2025-04-17T16:46:27Z")
I briefly looked at the beginning of the story online. Not only don’t they have clothes but they don’t even have fire: it rains so constantly that there’s simply no plant matter dry enough to try to light. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1705 "2025-04-17T16:55:34Z")
Yeah. And because of all the moisture there’s really active mold or equivalent, which is what happens to all their clothes. That part of the setup I don’t have any problem with. (I don’t remember what happened to their tools – maybe they had to leave their ship in such a hurry they didn’t take any?) But I don’t think they even needed to add in the fight; and if they did, they could have come up with a less stupid and less obnoxious reason for having one. Hell, they could have been having a practice boxing match for sport. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1706 "2025-04-17T17:14:49Z")
There’s also the bit where the men have “adopted” the little mouse-like creature as a pet, but the woman is terrified by it and insists the men “do something about him - at once!” There’s only so much you can blame on the time. A woman would have written a very different story, even in the 1950s. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2025, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1707 "2025-04-17T17:17:43Z")
I’d forgotten that part. And quite a lot of men would have also written a different story, even at the time. I’ll grant that the time accounts for its having been published in that form. ---
**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:** [April 17, 2025, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1708 "2025-04-17T17:19:52Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > That part of the setup I don’t have any problem with. (I don’t remember what happened to their tools – maybe they had to leave their ship in such a hurry they didn’t take any?) The passengers were led away from the ship by one or two of the crew tending them while the rest of the crew worked to keep the ship’s reactor from exploding. They failed. ---
**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:** [April 18, 2025, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1709 "2025-04-18T19:26:59Z")
Yes! I remember reading that, years back. IIRC, the lizard people did not use fire but they loved warmth. One character dies in a fire, but basks in the “lovely, lovely heat” as she dies. ---
**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:** [May 26, 2025, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1710 "2025-05-26T23:46:17Z")
Vaguely recalled short story: set in a beyond-Loony-Left future Britain, it details the travails of a man suffering from progressivism gone mad. The only part I remember clearly is that the man was struggling to raise a daughter whom prenatal exposure to a drug had caused her to grow up to be an utterly imbecilic oversexed bimbo. She eventually gets indentured/sold to a Middle Eastern harem, a life she’s actually suited for. This story might date to the Thatcher-era conservative backlash. ---
**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 26, 2025, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1711 "2025-05-26T23:55:05Z")
[1985](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_(Burgess_novel)) by Anthony Burgess This is a novel, but it seems clearly to be what you’re thinking of ---
**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:** [May 27, 2025, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1712 "2025-05-27T00:57:22Z")
The very one, thank you! ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2025, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1713 "2025-05-27T01:39:44Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > prenatal exposure to a drug had caused her to grow up to be an utterly imbecilic oversexed bimbo. She eventually gets indentured/sold to a Middle Eastern harem, a life she’s actually suited for. Probably she wouldn’t be, actually. A harem is a whole lot of women who only get access to one man for all of them, and that one only when he feels like it. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2025, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1714 "2025-05-27T04:10:27Z")
According to a report which I trust, F-F relationships were common. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2025, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1715 "2025-05-27T04:36:02Z")
As a systems engineer, that hits awfully close to home. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2025, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1716 "2025-05-27T04:41:45Z")
Thing is, you could pretty much switch “human” for “brain cell” and make a similar argument for “the individual understands nothing”. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2025, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1717 "2025-05-27T13:55:47Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > According to a report which I trust, F-F relationships were common I wouldn’t be at all surprised. But I think the underlying sense of “she wants lots of sex, so she’s suited to be sold to a harem” was “the whole idea of being in a harem is that you’ll get lots of sex with the harem owner.” If true at all, probably true only briefly. ---
**Author:** ![NoCoolUserName](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5fc32e/32.png) [@NoCoolUserName](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoCoolUserName)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2025, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1718 "2025-05-31T16:55:30Z")
Short story. Interstellar travel finds a hive/swarm creature; two human researchers move in and mess with the pheromones to make the hive entities do useful stuff. The hive hatches an intelligent drone to deal with the interlopers. The key line is “I’ll miss our conversations” (or similar). ---
**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 31, 2025, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1719 "2025-05-31T17:07:36Z")
Swarm by Bruce Sterling > **[Swarm (novelette)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_(novelette))** > > "Swarm" is a science fiction novelette by Bruce Sterling, and his first magazine sale (his previous publications were either novels or anthology contributions). It was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1982, and later republished in the Sterling's 1989 collection Crystal Express as well as in numerous anthologies. "Swarm" was nominated for the Nebula, Hugo and Locus Awards. > "Swarm" is the first published work in Sterling's Shaper/Mechanist universe. > In 2022, "Sw... SDMB says that was one minute, but I think I answered quicker than that ---
**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:** [May 31, 2025, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1720 "2025-05-31T17:54:40Z")
Okay, now you’re just showing off. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=85) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=87)