I have a vague memory of a story which I probably read in the 1970s. There was a scene reminiscent of Sergeant York, where a young man from the Appalachian backwoods is in boot camp in the US Army, and does astonishingly well shooting a rifle. Unlike York though, this is not because of long experience with using a rifle, but because he has a paranormal ability to “think” the bullet into the target, as he puts it. I think the Army also discovers that he has other psychic abilities, which they put to use in combat.
I’d like to read that.
It’s probably called something like “The Puzzle” but a woman in her living room does a puzzle she finds was randomly sent to her in the mail, only to find the puzzle is literally her doing the puzzle in her living room and there’s this giant alien/monster standing behind her.
That rings a faint bell - there was a lot of “hillbilly with powers” SF in the 1950s
The thread Can gravity make gravity? has a mention of a kugelblitz. I can’t remember any details about a book except I’m pretty sure it’s part of series.
NM. It’s the Heechee Saga from Pohl.
Yeah - that’s where I learned the term too
S3 of The Umbrella Academy also features a kugelblitz.
I had forgotten that until you just mentioned it. But like @Andy_L i first heard of it in one of the Pohl books. Beyond the Blue Event Horizon just popped into my head, oddly in a musical form of maybe some similar song. From there it was easy to work out the rest.
A Lunar Lander touches down on the moon.
Astronaut opens hatch and climbs down to moon’s surface.
For millennia, looking up at the pale orb hanging in the sky,
Instead of saying something historically profound,
the astronaut…howls.
NASA’s first werewolf astronaut walks on the moon.
Yes! I just found a copy and that’s the right one. Thank you! Been driving me crazy for thirty years.
Glad to help.
Don’t know where that comes from but this is what AI told me:
Good thing we have NASA records to consult for an obscure, little-known factoid like who was the first human to walk on the Moon. 
I do think that centuries or millennia from now, the question “when did Terrans first journey to Luna?” will be a trivia question to trip people up. History will broadly remember the first wave of general space exploration and colonization, but a tiny ad hoc effort briefly made by a now extinct North American state will be largely forgotten by most other than professional historians.
There’s a Marvel Comics character names John Jameson who was apparently both an astronaut and a werewolf.
Over 500 years later we all remember what year Columbus didn’t discover America.
Alan Moore wrote a short story called “An American Werewolf In Space”. A werewolf reveals himself on a colony ship heading for Altair, anticipating having free rein amongst the 2000 other passengers. It does not go as planned.
Do you know who wrote that? Searching for “the puzzle” and novel or book is, as expected, bringing up a bunch of puzzle books.
This thread is to ask for identification of half-remembered stories. If Asuka knew the author, there would be no point in asking.
SF Short stories named “The Puzzle” have been written by :
Zoran Živković? ,
Elizabeth Donald
Beth Ann Rowland
Keith R. A. DeCandido
Robert I. Paulus
J. J. D. Monaghan
Do any of these names sound at all familiar?
Thank you. I read Asuka’s post as a response to Baker’s comment. Didn’t think that it was a question for the group.