# Seeking long-lost science fiction short story **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 23, 2011, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-long-lost-science-fiction-short-story/603860 "2011-11-23T10:24:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Vermoulian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ad7895/32.png) [@Vermoulian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vermoulian)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-long-lost-science-fiction-short-story/603860/1 "2011-11-23T10:24:31Z")
Hello all! I’m hoping the collective wisdom of the Straight Dope can help me out. I read this science fiction short story a few years ago, in a short story anthology (now, tragically, lost with many other books in a storage unit disaster). I have Googled to no good purpose. I don’t know the title or the author’s name. The story opens with a scientist and his wife at home together, on Earth. He’s a jerk, and he treats her terribly, criticizing her and so on. He then leaves on an expedition for another planet. When he returns, he’s wonderful: kind, complimentary, loves her cooking, etc. The wife’s brother (I think - maybe the husband’s colleague, or both) begins to suspect that the man who came back to Earth isn’t the man who left; apparently the aliens who once lived on the planet the husband visited were telepathic, or able to switch bodies, and have become mind-only entities living in stones (?) on the planet. They occasionally try to steal the bodies of visitors. Spoilers: it turns out that there is an alien in the husband’s body, and that the real man has been left in a stone on the alien planet. The wife decides she prefers the new husband, and when there’s a trial to prove he’s an impostor, she sides with the alien body snatcher. They live happily ever after. This is a truly excellent story, and I would really love to find it. Any help is appreciated. Thank you! I forgot to mention: I am pretty sure this story is old-ish, maybe from the fifties or early sixties. ---
**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:** [November 23, 2011, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-long-lost-science-fiction-short-story/603860/2 "2011-11-23T10:56:35Z")
I can’t figure out which story this is, but I noticed an interesting coincidence. The plot you describe is similar to a medieval incident that happened to a peasant named Martin Guerre. There’s a book about this incident by a historian named Natalie Zemon Davis. She’s married to a science fiction writer (who was indeed writing in the period during which you say the story was published) named Chan Davis. ---
**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:** [November 23, 2011, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-long-lost-science-fiction-short-story/603860/3 "2011-11-23T12:43:47Z")
The story about Martin Guerre was filmed twice – once as _The Return of Martin Guerre_ in French, starring Gerard Depardieu, the other time as an American film, transposed to the post-Civil War South under the title _Sommersby_ and starring Richard Gere\* and Josie Foster. The Depardiu film actually changed the story slightly from what is told in the book. The theme of someone being possessed by aliens after a trip is such a hoary SF cliche that this one is even in _The Science Fiction Encyclopedia_’s entry on “cliches” (“You just haven’t been the same ever since your trip to Ganymede, dear!”). But the twist of having the wife prefer the possessed husband is one I can’t recall reading. - The Return of Richard Gere? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-long-lost-science-fiction-short-story/603860/4 "2011-11-23T14:06:39Z")
I wrote a story with that theme called “Something on his Mind” in Aboriginal SF in the 90s, but I doubt that’s what you mean. ---
**Author:** ![Vermoulian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ad7895/32.png) [@Vermoulian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vermoulian)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-long-lost-science-fiction-short-story/603860/5 "2011-11-23T21:38:22Z")
Thanks for your replies! It is remarkably similar to the story of Martin Guerre, so much so that I tried searching for stories similar to that one, in the hopes that someone would have mentioned the story I’m looking for in reference to it. No luck! It is totally a cliche, which is why this particular story is so interesting, as CalMeacham pointed out. It’s the only one I’ve found where the wife really likes the alien better. RealityChuck, I’m sure that can’t be the one, although I am now interested in looking up your story, too! The one I’m looking for is much older than that. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-long-lost-science-fiction-short-story/603860/6 "2011-11-24T00:44:59Z")
[Here’s a copy on eBay.](http://www.ebay.com/itm/1991-Aboriginal-Science-Fiction-Magazine-Skinner-Cover-/200608114893?pt=Magazines&hash=item2eb52ce8cd#ht_2473wt_952) ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-long-lost-science-fiction-short-story/603860/7 "2011-11-24T00:48:10Z")
I don’t know the story, but your description of it smacks of Ray Bradbury. ---
**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 24, 2011, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-long-lost-science-fiction-short-story/603860/8 "2011-11-24T01:28:36Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > I can’t figure out which story this is, but I noticed an interesting coincidence. The plot you describe is similar to a medieval incident that happened to a peasant named Martin Guerre. There’s a book about this incident by a historian named Natalie Zemon Davis. She’s married to a science fiction writer (who was indeed writing in the period during which you say the story was published) named Chan Davis. Here’s a list of the (very few) stories that Chan Davis wrote > **[Summary Bibliography: Chan Davis](https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?545)** None of the titles look promising to be the story that’s being sought. ---
**Author:** ![shinyquark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8491ac/32.png) [@shinyquark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shinyquark)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-long-lost-science-fiction-short-story/603860/9 "2011-11-24T01:50:45Z")
I would guess this is “Human Is” by Philip K. Dick, but I’m on my way out the door and don’t have time to look into it much further. ---
**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 24, 2011, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-long-lost-science-fiction-short-story/603860/10 "2011-11-24T01:53:05Z")
> [@shinyquark](#): > > I would guess this is “Human Is” by Philip K. Dick, but I’m on my way out the door and don’t have time to look into it much further. Here’s a description of the story [Human Is - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Is) - could be the right one ---
**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:** [November 24, 2011, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-long-lost-science-fiction-short-story/603860/11 "2011-11-24T03:34:27Z")
I just looked up the story in a collection of Dick’s stories, and it certainly looks like right one. Here are all the places that you can find it: [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?58202](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?58202) I haven’t been able to find anything with a mention of the similarity between this story and the life of Martin Guerre. ---
**Author:** ![Vermoulian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ad7895/32.png) [@Vermoulian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vermoulian)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2011, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-long-lost-science-fiction-short-story/603860/12 "2011-11-26T04:54:14Z")
Shinyquark, Andy L, and Wendell Wagner: thank you! That’s it, and I am so grateful. This has been bothering me for a while, and everyone in my family and circle of friends who reads science fiction has gotten a query about it. Again, thanks so much! And it’s a really good story, for those of you who haven’t read it. I recommend it - and now I know why it was so good: it’s Philip K. Dick.