# ID these two SF short stories? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 12, 2007, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-these-two-sf-short-stories/411465 "2007-07-12T05:06:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Uvula\_Donor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e19adc/32.png) [@Uvula\_Donor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uvula_Donor)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-these-two-sf-short-stories/411465/1 "2007-07-12T05:06:21Z")
First: Dimly remembered…I think it was about a guy who invented a device that turned any metal in the proximity into powder. He was a pacifist draftee who planned to stroll around the battlefield of a continuing war and force both sides into peace negotiations by destroying all the weapons. At the end of the story, his commanding officer was preparing to persue him with a wooden club. Second: An alien crashlands in a very rural area of the US and attempts to procure food and repair supplies from the locals without much success because of an obvious language barrier. During one scene, the alien’s Terran host is showing him items one by one from the refrigerator, trying to determine what the alien can eat; when the host shows him an egg, he recoils in horror. It turns out that a local moonshiner’s whiskey is not only the very thing the alien needs to survive, but the peculiarities of local production makes the moonshine irresistably delicious to the alien, and Earth becomes a major galactic trade hub because of it. One of the best lines from the book is uttered by the alien who, fed up with the mocking of one of the local good ol’ boys, tells him, “On my planet, egg-eater, you would be placed in a cage to frighten young children for their amusement.” Do either of these ring any bells? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-these-two-sf-short-stories/411465/2 "2007-07-12T07:27:30Z")
I can’t help you, but the first is vaguely similar to a Kurt Vonnegut story titled “Report on the Barnhouse Effect”. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-these-two-sf-short-stories/411465/3 "2007-07-12T11:17:32Z")
The first one sounds vaguely familiar from a long time ago and they both sound like something Damon Knight might have written, although I’m fairly sure neither are in the collections of his I have… ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-these-two-sf-short-stories/411465/4 "2007-07-12T12:41:43Z")
Dammit, I read the second of these, but can’t recall where, or who wrote it. IIRC, the alien looked vaguely like a lion, and first communicated with the humans via messages scratched in the dirt. After they had established mathematical symbols, the human drew stick figures of humans and aliens with an “equals” sign ( = ) between them. the alien scratched across that equals sign, pretty clearly saying “You ain’t our equals, bub!” ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2007, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-these-two-sf-short-stories/411465/5 "2007-07-12T13:04:38Z")
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers] I can’t help you, but the first is vaguely similar to a Kurt Vonnegut story titled “Report on the Barnhouse Effect”. [/QUOTE] VERY vaugely. If I remember correctly, the Barnhouse Effect is used by the professor to psionicly destroy or disable weapons systems across the world. Great story though. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2007, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-these-two-sf-short-stories/411465/6 "2007-07-13T07:50:20Z")
The Barnhouse Effect was a wonderful short story that you should read if you liked the one you described, but it isn’t the one you’re looking for. ---
**Author:** ![ryobserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b2d939/32.png) [@ryobserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryobserver)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2007, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-these-two-sf-short-stories/411465/7 "2007-07-13T23:44:01Z")
The first one is “A Piece of Wood” by Ray Bradbury. There’s a short film based on it which is quite good. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Rhosis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@Sir\_Rhosis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Rhosis)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2007, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-these-two-sf-short-stories/411465/8 "2007-07-14T03:29:05Z")
The second sounds like a Joe Haldeman story, though I thought the aliens needed the moonshine for fuel, but I could be misremembering. Might not be the same story as I don’t remember anything about an egg, but it has probably been thirty years since I read it. It was in one of Haldeman’s first collections of short fiction, circa 1978. I remember the back cover photo of Haldeman had him with shoulder-length hair and a Fu Manchu mustache. Sir Rhosis ---
**Author:** ![Uvula\_Donor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e19adc/32.png) [@Uvula\_Donor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uvula_Donor)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2007, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-these-two-sf-short-stories/411465/9 "2007-07-15T02:39:28Z")
**ryobserver** : Thank you. I had suspected that it was a Bradbury story, but I just couldn’t place it. **Sir Rhosis** : Thanks to you, I’m pretty sure the story is _All The World In A Mason Jar_, which can be found in Haldeman’s\* Infinite Dreams\* anthology. Thanks to all. ---
**Author:** ![Khampelf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Khampelf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khampelf)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2007, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-these-two-sf-short-stories/411465/10 "2007-07-15T21:59:16Z")
[QUOTE=Uvula Donor] **ryobserver** : Thank you. I had suspected that it was a Bradbury story, but I just couldn’t place it. **Sir Rhosis** : Thanks to you, I’m pretty sure the story is _All The World In A Mason Jar_, which can be found in Haldeman’s\* Infinite Dreams\* anthology. Thanks to all. [/QUOTE] OK, I have a copy of Infinite Dreams and can confirm the second story is indeed ‘All the World in a Mason Jar’ with the ‘On my world, egg eater, you would be in a cage. To frighten children to their amusement’. quote.