I post here too - possibly Connie Willis’ “And Come From Miles Around” Book Review - Fire Watch by Connie Willis
Yep.
Actually, (re)reading the Willis story, maybe not. I’m pretty sure seeing (or speculating about) a car/limo with tinted windows was in there. Possibly a different Sawyer book?
A story from around the 1950s or 60s I think, definitely before the modern theories about artificial life forms e.g. Star Trek’s Data. This involves an inventor who creates an artificial body for a very wealthy woman, who had been a beautiful actress and was now ageing and losing her looks. She wanted him to create a body for her that was beautiful and ageless.
Do you remember any other details?
Only that the artificial body was not an exact replica of a human female but somewhat stylized, and very elegant in its way. And I think the story ended badly but can’t remember how.
It does not end badly—the inventor freaks out for some reason and attempts to dive out the window, but the woman is able to save him thanks to her enhanced speed, strength, and agility.
I do not have the book where I read it handy, so cannot look up the title.
In the 70s or 80s, a short story, I think in an SF magazine (one of the perfect bound types, and I don’t recall which, though I don’t think Asimov’s). In it, a male protagonist was being trained/forced to work by aliens. He mastered the task, and asked about the next level of task he would learn. The conclusion of the story was that no, this was it, having mastered the task he would now do it for the rest of his life.
“No Woman Born” by C. L. Moore, I think
Bibblings by Barbara Paul. Not really YA; it feels more like a Star Trek novelization, except that it isn’t actually Star Trek.
Here’s a Goodreads link with a picture of the cover of the edition I’m familiar with; if that’s the one you read, too, it might help jog your memory.
Yeah, really seems like a Star Trek story with the serial numbers filed off
No one in the Federation of United Worlds knew what the Lodonites and Kamarians were fighting about, nor, in the normal course of events, would anyone have cared. But this was a world rich in alphidium…
Not so much filed off as slightly rearranged…
While we are waiting for the answer to this query, please enjoy the related Rick and Morty clip:
Do you have any memory of what kind of a task it was? Was the story humorous, grim or something else?
Something repetitive and perhaps mechanical. Not remembering if it was on a ship. There was a reference to an alien pulling the protagonist’s penis (to distract him?) that even as a teen I recognized as gratuitous.
That’s it! Thanks!
@MEBuckner, Yes that’s it! Thank you!
OK, let me add two stories I was thinking about this weekend. One I suspect will be easy, the other probably more difficult.
Easy one (classic era stuff, I think). A guy lives in great solitude in a remote outpost on the edge of the solar system, on lookout for alien armadas. The timing and protocol of the alert communications that he might have to send are so complicated that he has to by hypnotized to learn the techniques. Then one day, here come the aliens. Our guy sits in his special seat, battles nerves to get into the proper trance-like state, then pounds away at a number pad. Don’t remember if he saved the day or not.
Harder one (prob from the mid-80s). A guy, an Everyman, or maybe a nerd, or possibly even sickly, is out and about living life in the very near future. Think of an 80s era setting plus a handful of technological advances. I very weakly recall that this guy is making a hash of his life, either that, or he’s one of those drones that just never seems to have luck break his way. Through some combination of events I disremember, he’s given the opportunity to (temporarily?) have his brain and spinal cord installed in some bad-ass engineered body. Not just a consciousness transfer, a physical install. I remember a line about the feeling of the spinal cord slithering into place. This body is not just healthy, strong and good looking, but has special features, like it can ‘over-clock’ and provide the impression that the rest of the world is in slow motion. Maybe? And when I said it was strong, I recall it being devastatingly so. Might have been designed for military purposes. One way or the other, there are problems. Maybe it was illegal to perform the operation? Maybe he’s only got temporary use of the body and is supposed to give it back? I do not know.
I’ve had my memory of this story, along with the fact that I don’t remember the ending, pop into my head at the strangest times at least annually over the last 30 years. If I could figure this out, plus a YA camping story that I won’t post here, about 60% of the shit I worry about in daily life would disappear.
Does anyone remember an SF novel from the early 1980s about interstellar entities who noticed that occasionally star systems would start emitting annoying radio noise that would go away if the entities just turned the stars off for a bit?
Welcome to the board, James. (I say this because I invited him to try here for an answer, and @Andy_L and @Peter_Morris , I’m counting on you two in particular!) I hope you take a look around in this thread; maybe you’ll have answers for someone else while you wait for someone to solve your issue.