# Help me ID this SciFi short story - please! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 15, 2013, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-short-story-please/647281 "2013-01-15T14:08:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![luvtinayothers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@luvtinayothers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/luvtinayothers)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-short-story-please/647281/1 "2013-01-15T14:08:20Z")
I read this a few months ago but forgot the title or where I read it - probably a library book. I don’t know the author’s name, so I don’t think it was a major science fiction writer or I’d remember it. Here’s what I remember of the plot: I think it takes place in Hollywood. A man goes into a video store and sees a copy of the director’s cut of Orson Well’s The Magnificent Ambersons. He doesn’t have money, or ID or something so he goes home to get it. When he comes back the video store is gone. The next night he comes back and the stores there, he gets his video but it won’t play in his VCR. He eventually realizes that the video store exists in an alternate world and only exists in ours for a few hours each night. He comes back night after night to watch movies that don’t exist in our earth, with the clerk at the video store. ---
**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:** [January 15, 2013, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-short-story-please/647281/2 "2013-01-15T14:12:35Z")
IMPOISSIBLE DREAMS, by Tim Pratt. ---
**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:** [January 15, 2013, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-short-story-please/647281/3 "2013-01-15T14:14:33Z")
> [@luvtinayothers](#): > > I read this a few months ago but forgot the title or where I read it - probably a library > book. I don’t know the author’s name, so I don’t think it was a major science fiction writer or I’d remember it. Here’s what I remember of the plot: > > I think it takes place in Hollywood. A man goes into a video store and sees a copy of the director’s cut of Orson Well’s The Magnificent Ambersons. He doesn’t have money, or ID or something so he goes home to get it. When he comes back the video store is gone. The next night he comes back and the stores there, he gets his video but it won’t play in his VCR. He eventually realizes that the video store exists in an alternate world > and only exists in ours for a few hours each night. He comes back night after night to watch movies that don’t exist in our earth, with the clerk at the video store. > **[Impossible Dreams](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_Dreams)** > > "Impossible Dreams" is a science fiction short story written in 2006 by Tim Pratt. It was first published in Asimov's Science Fiction in 2006, and subsequently republished in Pratt's 2007 collection Hart & Boot & Other Stories, and in the 2012 anthology Other Worlds Than These. > Pete is a cinephile. One day, he discovers a video store containing movies that were never created. He discovers that he enters a parallel universe every time he visits the store, and becomes both frustrated and elated... Edited to add - ninja’d! ---
**Author:** ![luvtinayothers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@luvtinayothers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/luvtinayothers)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-short-story-please/647281/4 "2013-01-15T14:15:23Z")
That’s it! Thank you! And I know of Tim Pratt, I’ve read a few of his stories. I should have remembered. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-short-story-please/647281/5 "2013-01-15T15:30:27Z")
I remember seeing a similar idea used with Beatles albums. A guy found a collection of all the albums the Beatles would have made if they hadn’t broken up in 1970. And both Stephen King and Robert Charles Wilson have used the idea of books that crossed over from alternate universes. ---
**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:** [January 15, 2013, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-short-story-please/647281/6 "2013-01-15T15:34:03Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I remember seeing a similar idea used with Beatles albums. A guy found a collection of all the albums the Beatles would have made if they hadn’t broken up in 1970. > > And both Stephen King and Robert Charles Wilson have used the idea of books that crossed over from alternate universes. This one? [The Twelfth Album - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelfth_Album) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-short-story-please/647281/7 "2013-01-15T15:40:53Z")
There is another speculative fiction book about further works from the Beatles, The Beach Boys and other groups thyat a guy hears on the radio(I believe), and he finds that he can travel to those periods of time to stop the deaths and/or breakups that stopped the music from existing. Any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-short-story-please/647281/8 "2013-01-15T16:00:52Z")
A list of all the places where the short story “Impossible Dreams” appeared: [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?195758](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?195758) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-short-story-please/647281/9 "2013-01-15T16:55:30Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > There is another speculative fiction book about further works from the Beatles, The Beach Boys and other groups thyat a guy hears on the radio(I believe), and he finds that he can travel to those periods of time to stop the deaths and/or breakups that stopped the music from existing. Any ideas? Nothing about the book I’m looking for? ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-short-story-please/647281/10 "2013-01-15T16:57:17Z")
It’s _Glimpses_ by **Lewis Shiner**. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-short-story-please/647281/11 "2013-01-15T17:07:11Z")
> [@Meurglys](#): > > It’s _Glimpses_ by **Lewis Shiner**. Thank you! The author has made it available as a free pdf download on Fiction Liberation Front website. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-short-story-please/647281/12 "2013-01-15T17:23:28Z")
Glad to help, but I’ll stick with my rather nice hardback, thanks! And if anyone’s looking for a good **Tim Pratt** book to read, last year’s _Briarpatch_ was very good, and had alternate worlds, etc. in it. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-short-story-please/647281/13 "2013-01-15T18:22:43Z")
Similar to the OP, I read a story about a movie buff that somehow got into a world where all of the “original” movies were made. Buddy Ebsen as the Tinman in “Wizard of Oz”, Ronald Reagan as Rick Blaine, etc. ---
**Author:** ![luvtinayothers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@luvtinayothers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/luvtinayothers)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-short-story-please/647281/14 "2013-01-15T18:28:50Z")
Well, Saint…what was the name of _that_ story? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-short-story-please/647281/15 "2013-01-15T20:31:52Z")
> [@luvtinayothers](#): > > Well, Saint…what was the name of _that_ story? Ummmm… _Shiny McShine_? I’ll have to try to look it up. ---
**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:** [January 16, 2013, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-short-story-please/647281/16 "2013-01-16T02:53:07Z")
Alan Moore did a comic where Sideways Scuttleton – _“Sideways by name, sideways by nature, know what I mean?”_ – did this trick and then some. I mean, sure, he sells Van Gogh paintings from a parallel reality where the one-eared street artist never got famous. But for bonus points, he also off-loads worthless stuff from our world – _“you couldn’t give the things away”_ – to rich folks over there.