# 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:** 91
**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 21, 2025, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1801 "2025-06-21T20:38:24Z")
Understood. I’ll take a look myself and see what I can find. ---
**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 27, 2025, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1802 "2025-06-27T11:37:26Z")
Another vaguely remembered book series. There is a war going on between alien species. The side made up of largely pacifistic species are losing badly but discover Earth and realize that recruiting a species with a long, long history of fighting would help them. Which it eventually does. The response by the other, more aggressive side is to surrender, knowing that after being at space war for a few hundred years humanity would turn its own violent tendencies against its own side. ETA: I was just thinking it might be Alan Dean Foster as it seems like his style, and it is - it’s [The Damned Trilogy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Damned_Trilogy). D’oh! ETA again: Which was mentioned in this thread back in 2008. > [@Andy\_L](#): > > BTW, Foster later wrote a trilogy with a similar theme - humans are the only species in the universe in which many individuals are willing to kill an intelligent being, so they are recruited into an interstellar war [The Damned Trilogy - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Damned_Trilogy) ---
**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 27, 2025, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1803 "2025-06-27T11:48:15Z")
Asked, answered and me quoted all before I need respond. Cool! ---
**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 27, 2025, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1804 "2025-06-27T11:53:59Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > _The Brooklyn Project_ is an amusing short story by Philip Klass writing as William Tenn about a project to send a camera into the past to photograph ancient times. There is discussion about the possible danger of the mere existence of the camera causing changes to the timeline, but the project leaders dismiss such fears as unwarranted. The camera makes its first trip into the past, then returns to the present, where subtle changes to the present are described to the reader but naturally are unnoticed by the characters, since from their point of view that is how the world has always been. More trips are taken, each one producing larger and larger changes to the present, all unnoticeable by the characters. By the end of the story, the human characters are now purple amoeba-like creatures, one of whom cries triumphantly, “See, nothing has changed!” Also the theme of one of Alan Moore’s “Time Twister” stories - see t[he second one on this page](https://thegreatcomicbookheroes.blogspot.com/2012/07/alan-moores-time-twisters.html) (although the first one is fun too). > [@Andy\_L](#): > > Asked, answered and me quoted all before I need respond. Cool! Actually, you answered it 17 years before I asked the question. \< narrows eyes at Andy \> So…tell us again how you’re so familiar with all these “time travel” stories? ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1805 "2025-07-01T23:57:19Z")
I loved those stories. ---
**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 2, 2025, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1806 "2025-07-02T00:27:21Z")
I just ran across the issue with the first story in it and reread it tonight. So much fun ---
**Author:** ![Eclipse\_Chaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Eclipse\_Chaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eclipse_Chaser)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2025, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1807 "2025-07-03T09:14:53Z")
Not really SF but set in a future dystopian society where the US is ruled by a totalitarian dictatorship. I think it comes from around the height of the Cold War and is supposed to be an Awful Warning of how we mustn’t let it happen here. Scene is a junior school classroom where the teacher has been telling the kids how everything they have is due to the “great leader”, and to prove it she suggests that they should close their eyes and ask the Great Leader to give them some candy. They all do that except for one kid, little Tommy or whatever, who peeks and sees the teacher going round putting candies on each kid’s desk. ---
**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 3, 2025, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1808 "2025-07-03T09:44:52Z")
_The Children’s Story,_ by James Clavell. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2025, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1809 "2025-07-03T10:07:12Z")
The part that got to me was when the US flag was taken down, cut up, and distributed to the class. Johnny, the kid who’d peeked, thought he was wonderfully lucky because he’d gotten a piece with a star on it. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1810 "2025-07-05T13:25:16Z")
All this talk of time travel puts me in mind of a novel I read back in the late ‘80s. The 20th century world is on a timeline where Spain is the dominant world power (Francis Drake never managed to burn the Spanish Armada), time travel technology was invented by a monk named Bonaventura, and the protagonist is a cop who specializes in solving and preventing Time Machine-enabled crimes. This might be a novel that was cobbled together from a series of short stories about the cop. In the last chapter, at the end of his adventure he returns home to 20th century Nuevo Yorke, only to find that time travel doesn’t work any more, Drake _did_ burn the Armada, Bonaventura never invented time traveling tech, and now he’s stuck in New York. The author _might_ have been John Varley, but I won’t swear to that. (ETA: probably not; none of the titles in the bibliography on his Wikipedia page rings a bell.) ---
**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 5, 2025, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1811 "2025-07-05T13:37:45Z")
John Brunner, perhaps - “Times Without Number” > **[Times Without Number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Without_Number)** > > Times Without Number is a time travel/alternate history novel by John Brunner. > Originally Brunner wrote three stories published in 1962 in consecutive issues of the British magazine Science Fiction Adventures: "Spoil of Yesterday" in No. 25, "The Word Not Written" in No. 26, and "The Fullness of Time" in No. 27. > In the same year, a considerably different version appeared as a fix-up novel under the title Times Without Number, which was published as an Ace Double together with Destiny's Orbit... ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1812 "2025-07-05T17:57:28Z")
Holy cow! You ARE pretty good at identifying Science Fiction stories! ---
**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 5, 2025, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1813 "2025-07-05T17:58:08Z")
**As advertised!** Glad I found the right one. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1814 "2025-07-05T22:59:02Z")
\<\< Deleted by poster…wrong thread \>\> ---
**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 5, 2025, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1815 "2025-07-05T23:00:32Z")
N/M Responded to the now deleted comment ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2025, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1816 "2025-07-05T23:02:53Z")
Sorry…I responded to you in the other thread (I forgot where I was…my fault) ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1817 "2025-08-07T01:53:21Z")
I have no idea why this just happened to pop into my head the other day, but … At least a novella if not a book, probably vintage 1970s. It takes place on/in a planet/place that had been ruled with an iron fist by a being known as The Deel (there’s more than a touch of Celtic mythology in play: its servants include flamewings and pookas). The work I remember is actually a sequel, and takes place after The Deel had been overthrown; the protagonist returned to the planet/place for reasons that were somewhat obscure, but IIRC involved getting into The Deel’s mountaintop HQ. Not a lot to go on, I know, but my search-fu isn’t giving me anything and perhaps what I’ve provided will jog someone’s memory. ---
**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 7, 2025, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1818 "2025-08-07T02:21:59Z")
Was it Emil Petaja’s DOOM OF THE GREEN PLANET, the sequel to his LORD OF THE GREEN PLANET? ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1819 "2025-08-07T04:28:54Z")
Horror novel from past 15 years This bioweapon is accidentally released from a secret Government weapons lab on an island in a forested area. A bunch of locals and people camping on the island get it, and it manifests itself with something like tapeworms x100 where it gives whoever catches it an incredible ravenous hunger that’s impossible to ignore and a lot of people when they reach the peak of the infection try to eat other people because they’re delirious with hunger. There’s a scene of somebody trying not to eat other people but they’re so hungry they start eating rocks and it winds up killing them because all the rocks they eat destroy their insides. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1820 "2025-08-07T07:03:41Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Was it Emil Petaja’s DOOM OF THE GREEN PLANET, the sequel to his LORD OF THE GREEN PLANET? … Nailed it in one. When I looked it up I saw that it was paired with Dean R Koontz’s _Star Quest_ (which I distinctly remember, since I was a fan of Koontz when he was writing SF) in an [Ace Double](https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?10600). _DotGP_ wasn’t the reason I picked it up, which is why I didn’t recall the plot correctly. _Grazie_. Now to see if I can find it — and the first story — for less than the $85 Amazon would want (if they had it). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=90) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=92)