# 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:** 94
**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:** [October 21, 2025, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1861 "2025-10-21T22:18:47Z")
Reminds me of Clarke’s **The Pacifist** [The Pacifist - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pacifist) but sounds a bit different than you described ---
**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:** [October 21, 2025, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1862 "2025-10-21T22:32:37Z")
No, that’s definitely not it. On thinking about it some more, the problematic question that was asked might have been something about a peace plan that involved nuking one’s own territory. Or maybe I’m conflating that from a different story. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2025, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1863 "2025-11-22T17:14:43Z")
I was reminded of this by the current MPSIMS thread about reincarnation. I don’t recall much about this work; I don’t know if it was a short story or a novel, but I’m pretty sure I read it in the 1960s or 1970s, possibly in _Analog_ magazine, possibly not. The only thing I recall is the idea that reincarnation happens routinely: when a person dies, their consciousness is (immediately?) transferred to a newborn baby. However, the shock of the transition and finding oneself in a new helpless body with only partially operational sensory input drives the person insane, so they almost immediately lose the memory of their previous life. I’m not positive, but I think that part of the plot involved some technology to cushion the transition, which would allow newly born people to retain their previous memory and personality. Does this ring a bell with anyone? ---
**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:** [November 22, 2025, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1864 "2025-11-22T17:20:32Z")
Bears a certain resemblance to “Soul Search” by Spider Robinson (published in Omni in 1979) ---
**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:** [November 22, 2025, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1865 "2025-11-22T17:43:37Z")
Just read that online, nothing about finding a way to preserve memories across reincarnation. > **[William Flew Omni Magazine SF Short Stories December 1979](https://www.williamflew.com/omni15c.html)** ---
**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:** [November 22, 2025, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1866 "2025-11-22T18:02:32Z")
I’ll keep on it - it sounds so familiar ---
**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:** [November 22, 2025, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1867 "2025-11-22T18:21:21Z")
I can’t help with that one; but it’s made me think of another. Also a short story, I think, but I’m not sure; and not recent but I’m not sure how old. Incarnation exists, at least for humans, but apparently only within the species. Human population has gotten so high that we’ve run out of human souls, and children are being born apparently physically fine but effectively mindless, because there wasn’t any soul available to enter into them. ---
**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:** [November 22, 2025, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1868 "2025-11-22T18:45:28Z")
Actually, this is a plot point in Heinlein’s Beyond this Horizon - they find evidence of reincarnation by using a telepathy machine to read the mind of an unborn child, who turns out to have a lot of memories of the outside world, but after birth, most of them fade ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2025, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1869 "2025-11-22T19:06:13Z")
Hm, I definitely did read _Beyond This Horizon_; maybe that’s the book I’m remembering. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2025, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1870 "2025-11-22T19:31:24Z")
An interesting variation on that theme is “The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August”. It’s reincarnation within a time loop. When the guy dies, he’s reborn in his original baby self. Over the first few years, all his memories gradually return. There are other people like him, and one near-constant is that the first couple of times they’re re-born, they go a little crazy as toddlers, because they’re remembering all this stuff that kids shouldn’t know, and predicting the future, and they can’t handle it. Most of them end up committing suicide a couple of times before they figure out that this time loop thing is real. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2025, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1871 "2025-11-22T20:18:21Z")
My wife is looking for a book where a comet hits or comes close to the Earth- and it is not Lucifers Hammer (a masterpiece) or the Clarke one? ---
**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:** [November 22, 2025, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1872 "2025-11-22T20:20:25Z")
Maybe this one? > **[The Year When Stardust Fell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Year_When_Stardust_Fell)** > > The Year When Stardust Fell is a science fiction novel written by Raymond F. Jones. It was initially published in 1958 by the John C. Winston Company. > This is one of the thirty-five juvenile novels that comprise the Winston Science Fiction set, which novels were published in the 1950s for a readership of teen-aged boys. The typical protagonist in these books was a boy in his late teens who was proficient in the art of electronics, a hobby that was easily available to the readers. In this st... ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2025, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1873 "2025-11-22T20:21:00Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Maybe this one? Could be. ---
**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:** [November 22, 2025, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1874 "2025-11-22T22:12:12Z")
The Vitanuls by John Brunner > ---
**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:** [November 22, 2025, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1875 "2025-11-22T22:57:01Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > The Vitanuls by John Brunner Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s it. (And . . . I know a Lee Eckhardt. Might not be the same one, though.) ---
**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:** [November 22, 2025, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1876 "2025-11-22T23:35:01Z")
It is a small world (after all) And it’s only fair that I cite scifistackexchange - they’ve cited the SDMB several times. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2025, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1877 "2025-11-23T01:07:22Z")
The Age of Unreason series by Gregory Keyes involves a comet or asteroid hitting Earth. I don’t remember which book it was; it might have been Newton’s Cannon. ---
**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:** [November 23, 2025, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1878 "2025-11-23T15:32:34Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > The only thing I recall is the idea that reincarnation happens routinely: when a person dies, their consciousness is (immediately?) transferred to a newborn baby. However, the shock of the transition and finding oneself in a new helpless body with only partially operational sensory input drives the person insane, so they almost immediately lose the memory of their previous life. I’m not positive, but I think that part of the plot involved some technology to cushion the transition, which would allow newly born people to retain their previous memory and personality. Don’t really think this is it, but H Beam Piper’s _Last Enemy_ is the only thing that comes to mind. ---
**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:** [November 23, 2025, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1879 "2025-11-23T15:59:49Z")
Yeah I thought of that one too ---
**Author:** ![phs3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8491ac/32.png) [@phs3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phs3)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2025, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417/1880 "2025-11-24T22:47:22Z")
At least 30 years ago I read a science fiction novel. Here’s what I remember of it: - took place on a planet, not on spaceships - main character was female - either nobility of some sort or at least wealthy - she had a brother with a short name (“Rif” or something) who was a sexual sadist and would abuse the female staff …and that’s all! I almost certainly own it, as I wasn’t using libraries much back then, which means it’s on my several shelves of SF. But I’ve looked repeatedly and just don’t recognize it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=93) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-guy-who-is-pretty-good-at-sf-story-identification/462417.md?page=95)