# 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:** 9
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2008, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/161 "2008-09-22T19:39:48Z")
> [@Tusculan](#): > > **Wendell Wagner** , yes, that’s it. > > **pinkfreud and Andy Al** , I guess that must be it, although the name didn’t sound familiar, what I’ve found through googling seems to confirm it. Thanks, I’d never have found it on my own. > > Another two then: > 3. a series of short stories about a spaceship controlled by an in built human brain taken from a girl who was born severely handicapped. The girl is quite happy to be given the chance to actually do something instead of being stuck in her original body. > > 1. a series of short stories about a man with a telekinetic third arm. He lost his arm through an accident and then developed telekinetic ability which worked just like his original arm, then retained the ability after getting a new transplant arm. I think these were detective stories, but am not sure. Tusculan I’m not sure the butterfly squashed by a hunter is the one mentioned above. I know there was a story where the person stepped on butterfly during a safari in the past. Opps I hope everything is all right. Nope it wasn’t. The problem is the story is in my physical collection, not the searchable ebooks. ---
**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:** [September 22, 2008, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/162 "2008-09-22T21:06:47Z")
> [@Harmonious\_Discord](#): > > Tusculan I’m not sure the butterfly squashed by a hunter is the one mentioned above. I know there was a story where the person stepped on butterfly during a safari in the past. Opps I hope everything is all right. Nope it wasn’t. The problem is the story is in my physical collection, not the searchable ebooks. Harmonius - you’re thinking of Ray Bradbury’s famous “A Sound of Thunder” made into a terrific Simpsons episode and a pretty bad movie. But Tusculan specifically ruled that story out. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2008, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/163 "2008-09-22T23:22:59Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Harmonius - you’re thinking of Ray Bradbury’s famous “A Sound of Thunder” made into a terrific Simpsons episode and a pretty bad movie. But Tusculan specifically ruled that story out. Yes that was it. I didn’t realize it was. ---
**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:** [September 23, 2008, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/164 "2008-09-23T00:10:42Z")
> [@A\_shameful\_cracka](#): > > It reminds me a lot of a YA novel I read by Poul Anderson, but I can’t remember the name of it. It was set in an alternate universe where the Black Plague killed 3/4 of the European population (the point of divergence was that the winter of 1347/1348 was not particularly cold so the rats did not die, and the plague lasted longer). Europe was taken over by the Ottomans, Shakespeares plays were written in Turkish, and North America was not discovered until the 17th or 18th century, by which time the Aztecs were more powerful and were never defeated. The main character is an English crypto-Christian teenager who is travelling on a sailing ship to the Americas in the 1950s, and I think there was an Aztec boy character. The Aztecs in this timeline were more advanced technologically than the Europeans (they had steam-powered automobiles) but the characters kept getting glimpses of our reality in visions. I read it a long time ago though and I’m not sure this is the one that is being talked about. This sounds like one of Anderson’s Time Patrol series, but I can’t find a guide to those stories at the moment. Annoyingly I can’t find a summary of “The Glass Knife” either, so I can’t confirm or eliminate that option either. ---
**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:** [September 23, 2008, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/165 "2008-09-23T00:22:33Z")
> [@A\_shameful\_cracka](#): > > It reminds me a lot of a YA novel I read by Poul Anderson, but I can’t remember the name of it. It was set in an alternate universe where the Black Plague killed 3/4 of the European population (the point of divergence was that the winter of 1347/1348 was not particularly cold so the rats did not die, and the plague lasted longer). Europe was taken over by the Ottomans, Shakespeares plays were written in Turkish, and North America was not discovered until the 17th or 18th century, by which time the Aztecs were more powerful and were never defeated. The main character is an English crypto-Christian teenager who is travelling on a sailing ship to the Americas in the 1950s, and I think there was an Aztec boy character. The Aztecs in this timeline were more advanced technologically than the Europeans (they had steam-powered automobiles) but the characters kept getting glimpses of our reality in visions. I read it a long time ago though and I’m not sure this is the one that is being talked about. I checked [Uchronia.com](http://Uchronia.com) and found “The Gate of Worlds” by Robert Silverberg at the 1347AD divergence point, which fits the above description [Uchronia: The Gate of Worlds](http://www.uchronia.net/bib.cgi/label.html?id=silvgateof#10) ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/166 "2008-09-23T20:53:51Z")
This one has been bugging me for some time. I’m sure it’s not as good as I’m remembering it but… There’s this class on a planet where the sun shines only once every twenty years… Just kidding about that. Really I read this in Omni in the late 80’s maybe very early 90’s. A pharaoh dies and once he’s in the land of the dead he can’t find any of the great stuff he was supposed to take with him to the afterlife. Instead he has to hitch a ride to Anubis on one of his servant’s magnificent barge. It turned out that their icons worked as advertised while the real stuff buried in his tomb didn’t do him any good. ---
**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:** [September 24, 2008, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/167 "2008-09-24T00:29:32Z")
> [@Just\_Some\_Guy](#): > > This one has been bugging me for some time. I’m sure it’s not as good as I’m remembering it but… > > There’s this class on a planet where the sun shines only once every twenty years… > > Just kidding about that. Really I read this in Omni in the late 80’s maybe very early 90’s. A pharaoh dies and once he’s in the land of the dead he can’t find any of the great stuff he was supposed to take with him to the afterlife. Instead he has to hitch a ride to Anubis on one of his servant’s magnificent barge. It turned out that their icons worked as advertised while the real stuff buried in his tomb didn’t do him any good. Here’s a list of all the fiction published in Omni [Why Dog Boarding in Australia Offers the Ultimate Adventure Experience for Your Pet | Hy Cyber](http://www.hycyber.com/SF/omni_index.html) - it’s possible that the title will ring a bell for you (I looked up a few titles that looked promising, and know several others - “Death in the Promised Land,” “Colonel Stonesteel’s Genuine Home-Made Truly Eqyptian Mummy”, “Petra”, “Found!” “They’re Made of Meat” “Galatea Galante, The Perfect Popsy” “Tangents”, “Deep Breathing Exercise” “Fat Farm” “Tower of Babel” or any of the Spider Robinsons) - hope that helps The beginning of “There is no Dead” doesn’t look promising, but it could be right [In the Upper Room and Other Likely Stories - Terry Bisson - Google Books](http://books.google.com/books?id=RcQ94cec7foC&pg=PT38&dq=%22there+are+no+dead%22+bisson&sig=ACfU3U0W6uc2TqzC8ZZNaPorywyt5Ruiyw#PPT38,M1) ---
**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:** [September 24, 2008, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/168 "2008-09-24T00:35:47Z")
> [@A\_shameful\_cracka](#): > > …It reminds me a lot of a YA novel… set in an alternate universe where the Black Plague killed 3/4 of the European population… That’s the premise of this book, too: > **[Amazon.com: The Years of Rice and Salt: A Novel: 9780553580075: Robinson, Kim...](https://www.amazon.com/Years-Rice-Salt-Novel/dp/0553580078)** > > Amazon.com: The Years of Rice and Salt: A Novel: 9780553580075: Robinson, Kim Stanley: Books ---
**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:** [September 24, 2008, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/169 "2008-09-24T01:05:33Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > That’s the premise of this book, too: > [Amazon.com: The Years of Rice and Salt: A Novel: 9780553580075: Robinson, Kim Stanley: Books](http://www.amazon.com/Years-Rice-Salt-Stanley-Robinson/dp/0553580078/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222216463&sr=1-1) Yeah - I have to read that one sometime ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/170 "2008-09-24T13:13:33Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Here’s a list of all the fiction published in Omni [Why Dog Boarding in Australia Offers the Ultimate Adventure Experience for Your Pet | Hy Cyber](http://www.hycyber.com/SF/omni_index.html) - it’s possible that the title will ring a bell for you (I looked up a few titles that looked promising, and know several others - “Death in the Promised Land,” “Colonel Stonesteel’s Genuine Home-Made Truly Eqyptian Mummy”, “Petra”, “Found!” “They’re Made of Meat” “Galatea Galante, The Perfect Popsy” “Tangents”, “Deep Breathing Exercise” “Fat Farm” > “Tower of Babel” or any of the Spider Robinsons) - hope that helps I looked through the list but little jumped out at me and Googling story titles didn’t help. FWIW, “Tower of Babel” was an excellent story and rather surprising that a first short story sale for an author would go to Omni. That Ted Chiang fellow might just have a future with quirky short stories that have unique fantasy premises… ---
**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:** [September 25, 2008, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/171 "2008-09-25T01:11:36Z")
> [@Just\_Some\_Guy](#): > > I looked through the list but little jumped out at me and Googling story titles didn’t help. > > FWIW, “Tower of Babel” was an excellent story and rather surprising that a first short story sale for an author would go to Omni. That Ted Chiang fellow might just have a future with quirky short stories that have unique fantasy premises… Ted Chiang is great - my wife is just now reading his collection “Stories of Your Life and Others” - several of his stories online - check out [Ted Chiang - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Chiang) for links. I recommend “Understand” and “Story of Your Life” in particular. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2008, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/172 "2008-09-25T01:18:11Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Ted Chiang is great - my wife is just now reading his collection “Stories of Your Life and Others” - several of his stories online - check out [Ted Chiang - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Chiang) for links. I recommend “Understand” and “Story of Your Life” in particular. Yeah, I was doing a bit of teasing there. His “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” was easily my favorite fantasy story of last year. I just wish that he’d write more often. ---
**Author:** ![A\_shameful\_cracka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@A\_shameful\_cracka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_shameful_cracka)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2008, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/173 "2008-09-25T01:23:01Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > I checked [Uchronia.com](http://Uchronia.com) and found “The Gate of Worlds” by Robert Silverberg at the 1347AD divergence point, which fits the above description [Uchronia: The Gate of Worlds](http://www.uchronia.net/bib.cgi/label.html?id=silvgateof#10) That sounds like the book…funny that I remembered it as being written a couple of decades earlier and by a different author. ---
**Author:** ![A\_shameful\_cracka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@A\_shameful\_cracka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_shameful_cracka)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2008, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/174 "2008-09-25T01:26:52Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Yeah - I have to read that one sometime I read it, and it was interesting at first, but it got into some weird mystical reincarnation stuff that put me off. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2008, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/175 "2008-09-25T01:52:29Z")
> [@A\_shameful\_cracka](#): > > I read it, and it was interesting at first, but it got into some weird mystical reincarnation stuff that put me off. The “mystical reincarnation stuff” ruined “Years of Rice and Salt” for me, too. Particularly the way the book bogged down at the end. ---
**Author:** ![Kyyrewyyoae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Kyyrewyyoae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyyrewyyoae)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/176 "2008-09-28T17:37:21Z")
Here’s one I’ve actually never read, but it was mentioned in a Readings in Masculinity class I took last semester. I looked through my old notes, but I can’t find the title or author. It would have been written around the turn of the century (20th, not 21st). The idea was that a man traveled into the future by some mechanism and found a civilization of people who had evolved away from physical exertion, and were unable to move under there own power. I distinctly remember a picture of a guy on what looked like a segway, surrounded by blob-like characters. Like most things we read in that class, the point (a very common one at that time) was that civilization has a feminizing effect on men. I’d like to track it down and read it. Anybody got any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/177 "2008-09-28T18:07:49Z")
> [@Kyyrewyyoae](#): > > The idea was that a man traveled into the future by some mechanism and found a civilization of people who had evolved away from physical exertion, and were unable to move under there own power. I distinctly remember a picture of a guy on what looked like a segway, surrounded by blob-like characters. Aside from the Segway bit, this could be any of about a zillion stories from the early years of the 20th century; this was a really common theme. And IMO most of those stories aren’t particularly worth reading. (I’d also question whether the theme was about the feminizing effect of civilization, but that’s another discussion.) ---
**Author:** ![Amok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f17d59/32.png) [@Amok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amok)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/178 "2008-09-28T22:26:49Z")
Here’s one that’s bugging me… This was a series of SF books; I’m pretty sure there were at least 3 of them. I think the writer was a woman and I read them in the early to mid 80s when I think they were newish. The protagonist was female and lived on a future Earth that’s ruled by a nasty dictatorship. The story starts when she’s fairly young. She’s put into a state school where sexual abuse is rife and trained to be a spy. When she’s sent off-world on her first real mission she rebels and hooks up with a pirate starship captain. They go to some rebel world where they manage to become the rulers or something like that. Eventually they muster a fleet and return to Earth and overthrow the dictatorship. Obviously there was more detail than that to fill a series of books, but that’s the major arc as I remember it. Not sure why I was thinking of this one, but it popped into my mind and now I can’t place 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:** [September 29, 2008, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/179 "2008-09-29T00:34:56Z")
> [@Kyyrewyyoae](#): > > Here’s one I’ve actually never read, but it was mentioned in a Readings in Masculinity class I took last semester. I looked through my old notes, but I can’t find the title or author. It would have been written around the turn of the century (20th, not 21st). > > The idea was that a man traveled into the future by some mechanism and found a civilization of people who had evolved away from physical exertion, and were unable to move under there own power. I distinctly remember a picture of a guy on what looked like a segway, surrounded by blob-like characters. Like most things we read in that class, the point (a very common one at that time) was that civilization has a feminizing effect on men. I’d like to track it down and read it. Anybody got any ideas? The classic story with this theme is E M Forster’s “The Machine Stops” which is online here [Aspects of E.M. Forster: The Machine Stops (1909)](http://emforster.de/hypertext/template.php3?t=tms), but in the wikipedia page [The Machine Stops - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops) they reference a Mad magazine parody called “Blobs” ---
**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:** [September 29, 2008, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/180 "2008-09-29T00:43:48Z")
> [@Amok](#): > > Here’s one that’s bugging me… > > This was a series of SF books; I’m pretty sure there were at least 3 of them. I think the writer was a woman and I read them in the early to mid 80s when I think they were newish. > > The protagonist was female and lived on a future Earth that’s ruled by a nasty dictatorship. The story starts when she’s fairly young. She’s put into a state school where sexual abuse is rife and trained to be a spy. When she’s sent off-world on her first real mission she rebels and hooks up with a pirate starship captain. They go to some rebel world where they manage to become the rulers or something like that. Eventually they muster a fleet and return to Earth and overthrow the dictatorship. > > Obviously there was more detail than that to fill a series of books, but that’s the major arc as I remember it. Not sure why I was thinking of this one, but it popped into my mind and now I can’t place it. For some reason I’m thinking of Anne McCaffery’s Pirate Planet series, but it doesn’t quite fit. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=10)