# Short science fiction story ID **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 24, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-science-fiction-story-id/497471 "2009-05-24T16:54:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-science-fiction-story-id/497471/1 "2009-05-24T16:54:33Z")
In the future, robots have taken over all or virtually manufacturing and production, with the result that capacity has outstripped demand and prices plummeted. In order to support the economy there are laws requiring people to buy ever increasing numbers of products even if they don’t need them or want them. The system was set up such that the poorer a person is, the more he must buy; so that only the very rich own very little. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-science-fiction-story-id/497471/2 "2009-05-24T16:58:03Z")
Fredrick Pohl–Midas Plague. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-science-fiction-story-id/497471/3 "2009-05-24T16:59:03Z")
Apparently it was a parody of some screwball idea about economics that John Campbell was promoting. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-science-fiction-story-id/497471/4 "2009-05-24T16:59:17Z")
Thank you! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-science-fiction-story-id/497471/5 "2009-05-24T17:05:37Z")
OK, here’s another one; possibly published in _Omni_. In this future world, art must be completely original. There’s a musical genius named Sugar who composes in isolation (as he cannot be subject to any outside influences). Somehow he gets ahold of a Bach recording. He’s found out because his monitors noticed that fugues have completely disappeared from his music. (He’d avoided them so as to hide that he’d listened to another composer.) I believe he was sent to prison. He was on a prison road crew, or else got a job on a road crew after he got out. He was whistling a tune, and another worker said, ‘That’s a Sugar song!’ I don’t remember if people were allowed to sing songs or not. ---
**Author:** ![Gaudere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e495f1/32.png) [@Gaudere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gaudere)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-science-fiction-story-id/497471/6 "2009-05-24T17:07:07Z")
_Unaccompanied Sonata_, by Orson Scott Card ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-science-fiction-story-id/497471/7 "2009-05-24T17:16:51Z")
Thank you, too! ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-science-fiction-story-id/497471/8 "2009-05-24T17:57:06Z")
God, we’re awesome at this game. Here’s one I must have read in the early 80s. Probably by someone really famous… A man works at a toy company in design. A girl there gives him mixed signals. They fall in love one day and she hates him the next. Turns out the girl is a set of clones and one of them did love him and he ends up hoping the ‘next’ one will do so again. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2009, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-science-fiction-story-id/497471/9 "2009-05-24T18:07:50Z")
I guess I’m not so good at this game. That does remind me of a major plot twist in The Prestigebut with the genders reversed.