# 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:** 88
**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:** [June 2, 2025, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1741 "2025-06-02T10:19:45Z")
No bother ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1742 "2025-06-02T12:03:38Z")
Can’t remember if this was a novel or something shorter, in a book or a magazine, but IIRC I read it back in the early '70s.. Somebody has invented a way to make copies of things, copies so perfect that no one can tell which is the original and which the copy. Except for the protagonist, who discovers that he can tell by touching one if it’s just a copy – different vibes from the original, or something. He probably doesn’t tell anyone – who’d believe him? One day he meets a big-shot politician (closer to Sec Gen of the UN than to POTUS) for some reason. Bur when he shakes hands with the politician, our hero realises he’s shaking hands with a copy… ---
**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:** [June 2, 2025, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1743 "2025-06-02T12:46:32Z")
In case it wasn’t answered before, the title of the story is “All the Last Wars at Once”. Google tells me the author was George Alec Effinger. ---
**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:** [June 2, 2025, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1744 "2025-06-02T14:17:30Z")
Thanks - I should have linked to my answer, not to the question ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1745 "2025-06-03T06:56:28Z")
I’m not sure whether this has been asked already, but don’t know good search terms for it. Post-apocalyptic, terminator style war: humans vs robots. Soldiers holed up in impenetrable bunkers. The robots learned to trick the soldiers to let a decoy (humanoid robot) in the bunker, then it explodes, killing everyone. Whenever soldiers learn of an old model, the robots devise a new one: a wounded soldier, a lost child. The story is about a soldier who encounters someone who claims is not a robot and wonders whether it is in fact the new model. The title of the story was in fact, I believe, something like ‘new model’. But searching for that title in the ISFDB did not yield the story. I read it long ago so it’s from before 2000, probably 1970s-1980s. ---
**Author:** ![Chelonaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@Chelonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chelonaut)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1746 "2025-06-03T07:18:57Z")
It’s not that good a fit, but it made me think of Phillip K. Dicks Second Variety. > **[Second Variety](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Variety)** > > "Second Variety" is a science fiction novelette by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in Space Science Fiction magazine, in May 1953, with illustrations by Alex Ebel. Set in a world where a war between the Soviet Union and the United Nations has reduced most of the world to a barren wasteland, the story concerns the discovery, by the few remaining soldiers left, that self-replicating robots originally built to assassinate Soviet agents have gained sentience and are now plotting aga... ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2025, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1747 "2025-06-03T07:36:41Z")
Yes, that’s the one! So I misremembered a few details. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2025, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1748 "2025-06-18T23:55:12Z")
An Analog magazine story from the John W Campbell era, part of his love for psychic phenomena. An author he published had a gimmick called “De Angelis boards” that read people’s emotional state, but it took a skilled operator to get the exact emotion, and which person had that emotion. In the story, the De Angelis detectors were all over a city - much like traffic cams now - but it was hard to hone in on a particular person. There supposedly was a series of these stories, but I only saw this one, where a clever operator sends the cops to catch a potential child attacker, who only broadcast a low level of emotion. I remember at the end the little girl finding her dolly (or whatever maguffin caused her to wander off) in the park, walking out to the safety of her adults, and thinking “how wonderful wonderful lucky she was”, while clueless of the danger she was saved from. For some reason this concept and story is really hard to find via Google. ---
**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:** [June 18, 2025, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1749 "2025-06-18T23:57:18Z")
> [@Typo\_Knig](#): > That sounds vaguely familar - I’ll look around for it. Since Google isn’t helping, it may be that “De Angelis” is slightly misspelled. (Looks like I was wrong - “De Angelis” did find me a review excerpt from Analog, crediting an author named “Fitzpatrick” - searching…) ---
**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:** [June 19, 2025, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1750 "2025-06-19T00:06:41Z")
R. C. Fitzpatrick is the author [Summary Bibliography: R. C. FitzPatrick](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?11333) Here’s a link to one of the stories on Project Gutenberg > **[The Circuit Riders](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/24543/pg24543-images.html)** It ends like this: > She was a friendly little thing, and pretty. Maybe five, maybe six, and her Mommy had told her not to talk to strangers. But the funny old man wasn’t talking, he was sitting on the curb, and he was eating candy, and he was offering some to her. He smiled at the little girl and she smiled back. > > * * * > > The scout car settled to earth on automatic. Two officers climbed out of the car and walked quietly over to the old man, one on either side. They each took an arm and lifted him gently to his feet. > > “Hello there, Old Timer.” > > “Hi, little girl.” > > The old man looked around bewildered. He dropped his candy and tried to reach his knife. They mustn’t interfere. It was no use. The officers were very kind and gentle, and they were very, very firm. They led him off as though he were an old, old friend. > > One of the officers called back over his shoulder, “Bye, bye, little girl.” > > The little girl dutifully waved 'bye. > > She looked at the paper sack on the sidewalk. She didn’t know what to do, but the nice old man was gone. She looked around, but no one was paying any attention, they were all watching the softball game. Suddenly she made a grab and clutched the paper bag to her body. **Then she turned and ran back up the street to tell her Mommy how wonderful, wonderful lucky she was.** ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2025, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1751 "2025-06-19T01:16:49Z")
Oh Em Gee that is amazing - I love this place! That last line stuck with me since the 80s or 70s, when I read this in a collection. ---
**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:** [June 19, 2025, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1752 "2025-06-19T01:25:19Z")
Glad to help! ---
**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:** [June 19, 2025, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1753 "2025-06-19T02:55:51Z")
I remember a sf short story I once read in the early Seventies, about an Earth mission to a world of humanoids, similar to us, in another star system. An Earth shuttlecraft touches down on a scouting mission. The pet dog of one of the crewmen is separated from the party, and has to be left behind. The dog is found by the aliens, who at first try to communicate with it, but then realize it’s a dumb but adorable animal. (I think part of the story is told first-person from the dog’s perspective, but I’m not sure of that). When formal first contact is made, dogs become very popular pets among the aliens, playing an important role in the good relations which develop between the aliens and the humans. ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2025, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1754 "2025-06-19T04:19:30Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > The dog is found by the aliens, who at first try to communicate with it, but then realize it’s a dumb but adorable animal. Let’s make it a dog-themed evening! I remember a relatively short story, almost certainly from one of the zillion anthologies I read in the late 70s or early 80s. Humans are in space, and dealing with the difficulties of exploring planets with hostile environments. If I remember right, the solution on the planet in the story is that they are able to transfer human consciousness (temporarily I think) into either an alien body or a constructed body suited for the environment. The human, now in a suitable body, can go out and do the exploration stuff that is needed. Somehow, in the course of this story, our protagonist’s dog’s consciousness either accidentally or intentionally also gets transferred into one of these exploration bodies. The dog is overjoyed to finally be able to communicate fully and use the full cognitive power of this supposedly temporary body. The conclusion of the story is the dog asking not to be put back into a dog body and our story’s hero I suppose agrees. I don’t really remember. Ring any bells? **Edit** : do I get bonus points if I answer my own question, and quickly at that? _Desertion_, by Clifford D. Simak. Readable as [PDF here.](https://ca01001129.schoolwires.net/cms/lib/CA01001129/Centricity/Domain/270/Desertion.pdf) Turns out that formulating my question was enough to provide me into remembering keywords that worked for a search. ---
**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:** [June 19, 2025, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1755 "2025-06-19T11:22:21Z")
This rings a bell but it might take a while to find 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:** [June 19, 2025, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1756 "2025-06-19T11:50:43Z")
Possibly “Propagandist” by Murray Leinster? [https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/240531/i-am-trying-to-locate-a-story-about-first-contact-where-the-aliens-want-to-talk](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/240531/i-am-trying-to-locate-a-story-about-first-contact-where-the-aliens-want-to-talk) ---
**Author:** ![Chelonaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9a140/32.png) [@Chelonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chelonaut)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2025, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1757 "2025-06-19T12:16:49Z")
> [@Pork\_Rind](#): > > Let’s make it a dog-themed evening! > > I remember a relatively short story, almost certainly from one of the zillion anthologies I read in the late 70s or early 80s Simak wrote several more dog themed sf stories, which were collected in the fixup novel City. Desertion is probably the best and most memorable. I do remember the last story (or stories?): humanity more or less dies out. Dogs take over the earth, but later are driven offworld by an ever expanding ant civilization. ---
**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:** [June 19, 2025, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1758 "2025-06-19T13:06:34Z")
I like the comment on that page: "Luckily they didn’t [get] ahold of the ship cat, who is like “I don’t care about them; you can get rid of them if you want!” ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2025, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1759 "2025-06-19T13:28:59Z")
Yes. Simak’s “Desertion” matches the description, although the dog was only one of the protagonists. ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2025, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1760 "2025-06-19T14:04:23Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > The dog is found by the aliens, who at first try to communicate with it, but then realize it’s a dumb but adorable animal. That reminds me of a throwaway gag line in the movie _Explorers_ (1985): “I watched four episodes of _Lassie_ before I figured out why the little hairy kid never spoke. I mean, he rolled over, sure, he did that fine, but I don’t think he deserved a series for that.” --Wak [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=87) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=89)