Questions asking for help identifying a TV series/episode, comic-book issue/story arc, movie, book, or other story.
2
votes
0answers
16 views
Collection of YA horror short stories c.1980 including “Mr. Monstro”
I'm looking for a short story that terrified me as a child. It appeared in a YA horror collection about monsters. None of the other stories stuck with me, but the one about “Mr. Monstro” kept me awake ...
1
vote
1answer
45 views
Animated television series, 1995 - 1997
The show was about an aggressive alien thing that came from outer space and infected the humans. The people started killing each other and the only way that they could be stopped was with alien robots ...
-1
votes
0answers
53 views
Anybody know any absolutly fantastic sci-fi books? [closed]
It is the summertime and I have not been able to find an amazing book in a long time, anybody got any suggestions?
4
votes
1answer
76 views
Looking for a TV show about young people at a boarding school?
My sister and I both remember a live-action television show that aired in the US sometime around 2003. It consisted of 3-5 preteens or teenagers at a boarding school. My sister thinks they were in ...
0
votes
0answers
24 views
Book about a guy who a.o. negotiates with Sabena Flight terrorists
I'm looking for an author and title of the book, where one of the protagonists negotiates with terrorists which hijacked Sabena Flight 571. He did it during the break in his negotiations with bakers ...
13
votes
1answer
281 views
Earth leaves IQ suppression zone
I'm trying to find a book I remember reading, one I'd like to re-read. I saw it probably decades ago. Basic premise is that earth has been stuck in a zone that somehow suppresses intelligence. ...
1
vote
0answers
74 views
Did Connie Willis write this story? [closed]
A U.S. woman is a lecturer and writer who goes to England to give some talks; she stays with a friend who has a rather high position in government. While in England, the U.S. is taken over by a ...
6
votes
2answers
777 views
TV episode about a man seeing a creature in an airplane wing trying to sabotage it, but no one believes him
I remember an episode of a TV show that probably aired in the fifties or sixties. The show was about a man on an airplane that kept seeing some kind of monster on the wing of the craft, and he tried ...
7
votes
1answer
135 views
Sci-Fi short story that involved time travel and a couple who keep losing each other
I read a collection of Sci-Fi short stories back in the 1970's or early 80's that had one about a couple in love who kept losing each other. The book was my dad's so the story itself could be much ...
3
votes
1answer
92 views
Ragnarok in space?
I'm trying to identify a novel that retells the story of Ragnarok as a space opera. If I recall correctly, the protagonists were a small group of extraordinary individuals named after the Norse gods, ...
2
votes
0answers
53 views
Fantasy short story with soul-taking magic users
I read it several years ago but I have no idea when it was published.
What I remember is that some people are born with a magical talent and some people are born with the ability to take that talent ...
5
votes
1answer
103 views
Title of story/book: Super intelligent computer-program being tested at space-station
I'm pretty sure I read this story at Baen Free Library, but as they've taken down most stories to re-organize, I don't remember the title. I'm not sure if it was a book by itself or just a story in a ...
3
votes
1answer
61 views
Title of book: Gen-manipulated intelligent squids explore space/planet?
I'm looking for the author and title of a book. I believe it's (supposed to be) the first in a trilogy, all using the same characters, but taking place in different universes - with only humans, with ...
3
votes
1answer
84 views
Find my short story: Unexplainable darkness for three days. Brazilian author?
I read a short story in a hard back anthology. This was a couple years ago in a college library, and I'm pretty sure the book had been re-bound; so the story could be old, like 80's but I don't know ...
4
votes
1answer
60 views
International science fiction/fantasy anthology?
I'm trying to locate an anthology of international science fiction/fantasy anthology from the 1960s or 1970s. As I remember, it included Borges "The Library of Babel". Another story was about a man ...
6
votes
1answer
79 views
Name of book that includes giant space creatures, resembling manta rays, that eat solar fuel and kill stars
My dad has been trying to figure out the name of this book for two years, and I want to help him.
As he described the book to me, the story revolves around a society of space creatures that ...
11
votes
0answers
125 views
Artificial lifeform trying to establish contact through compiler bugs
I am looking for a short story I read online a few years ago, about artificial lifeform, with a hard sci-fi taste.
A couple of software engineers were trying to identify a strange program behaviour ...
5
votes
1answer
103 views
Fantasy Book possibly titled 'Iceworld'
Read this book on deployment that a friend was sent and I rather enjoyed it. I'm like 80% certain that the title was Iceworld, yet I get hits that aren't it. It isn't written by Hal Clement (which is ...
0
votes
0answers
81 views
Inverse version of ‘The Integral Trees’ [closed]
I am looking for a hard science fiction novel about life on a world that does not orbit a sun. I have not read the story, nor have I heard of its existence, but I would enjoy visiting the people who ...
2
votes
0answers
60 views
Story about a boy who travels through time by turning a cradle to save a baby
I am trying to figure out the name of this children's book where a boy travels through time to the past and becomes friends with this girl and saves her baby brother from a disease by giving him ...
6
votes
2answers
181 views
Searching for title of movie about rapid aging
People are born and grow up and die of old age in a matter of 5 days. The elders (5 days old) train children and send the most promising one on a trek across the dessert to a monolith that is the ...
4
votes
0answers
94 views
Book Identification: Swimming skill feared, Water monsters
This book takes place in times where having the ability to swim is feared. Swimming is feared because there are monsters that live in the water that can disguise themselves as humans. The main ...
4
votes
0answers
70 views
Short story or book about a space crew on a broken ship who were capturing alien animals for a zoo
I would like to know the title and author of a short story I read about a long time ago. It's about 3 men in space. They were sent to different planets to catch other organisms on different planets. ...
3
votes
0answers
85 views
Little girl on alien planet with her father; purple aliens jump between trees using their tails
Does anyone remember the title of a novel in which a little girl is on an alien planet with her father? I can't remember details but I know that the alien natives were purple and incredibly fast and ...
11
votes
2answers
206 views
Book about two factions of races using humans as hosts
I'm looking to identify a book which is a recent (2010+) paperback of which I've only read the first pages.
It presents the history of earth as the constant struggle of two factions of one alien race ...
9
votes
1answer
176 views
Short story about a gigantic space monster that is big enough to cover half of the Earth
I was looking for a short story I read a while ago but I think is an old scifi story (maybe from the 1960s). It's about some sort of space creature that resembles a lizard that jumps from deeper space ...
3
votes
1answer
78 views
Kids Story Question: Ointment gives kid wings, loses them when seen
I remember a book from my youth (1979) in my elementary school library, about a kid with a 'cool' uncle that had an elixir. When the boy applied this elixir to his back he grew wings for the night. ...
2
votes
0answers
93 views
+50
Children's book with griffin
This will be easy for someone. I'm trying to remember the title of a British children's book I read in the 70s. It's about a boy who rescues a "dog" from being attacked. However the dog turns out to ...
7
votes
0answers
79 views
Music contest for entry into a galactic federation
About 10 years ago, an old guy I know told me about a story that he'd read about 20-30 years before that. Of course, the name is long gone, but I'd like to go look it up and give it a read.
The ...
2
votes
1answer
110 views
Scientist and his genetically altered daughter on a colonised planet
When I was in grade 4 or 5 we read a sci-fi book about some guy who had been sent to this planet to find out what had become of a scientist if I'm remembering correctly. This alien planet had a colony ...
0
votes
0answers
58 views
Name of trilogy about two children who find broken magic stone shards and are rescued by winged red horses
Set in almost prehistoric times in another world, two children are kidnapped. They're seers but keep it a secret. At some point, they find missing legendary shards of a broken magic stone. They're ...
3
votes
0answers
108 views
Sci Fi Special Ops Team
In 1972-73, I read a science fiction story about a special operations team. One member had super strength, one was a gymnast-acrobat, one was an expert marksman, & one a human computer. Their ...
6
votes
0answers
113 views
Female hacker who sees how a lot of people die; possibly called “Beautiful Net”
I remember I once read a book (around 2008) about this hacker girl who mysteriously sees how a lot of people die in strange circumstances. The story takes place in a very near future (I hope), when ...
3
votes
1answer
79 views
A SF story about a ship of clones
I'm trying to identify a science fiction story for a friend.
He remembers it as a novella or novelette written in the late 60s or early 70s.
In it, they have ships with faster than light drive, but ...
6
votes
1answer
111 views
SF anthology story about mysterious android servants
These androids show up day in suburban USA and start offering all their services for free - they are much better than the robot helpers that cost money - the protagonist is a salesman of the latter.
...
6
votes
1answer
105 views
SF book about a town displaced in time by an accident at a local lab
I'm looking for a book about a small town displaced in time or to an alternate universe, as told by a juvenile. There's an experimental lab and something goes wrong and the lab and local town are ...
1
vote
0answers
83 views
Very short story - passengers on faster-than-light ship watch old broadcasts of the Howdy Doody show
This xkcd "What If?" reminded me of a short story I read, maybe in a compilation of Golden Age SF stories by the likes of Henry Kuttner and Fritz Leiber. It was just a few pages long. A group of ...
14
votes
3answers
199 views
Science Fiction story about a man transferred in time by the atomic bomb
Back around the summer of 1972, a friend in the Navy told a time travel story to group of us. It was about an archeologist working in the Gobi Desert of China. He found a cave made into a makeshift ...
8
votes
1answer
184 views
Book about space faring race that are very old but use swords and dress in black, also features a matriarchal society
I am trying to remember a title for a very large older book that featured among other things a dying race of very tall, graceful people living on a desert planet. They live in a spire and have a ...
8
votes
1answer
200 views
Story involving the rumoured “whisper line”: 2 points in a subterranean prison between which it is possible to communicate
I have vague memories of a sci-fi story that involves "the whisper line" as a crucial plot device. The whisper line refers to 2 secret points in a highly oppressive prison institution between which it ...
4
votes
2answers
235 views
Guys with a “boomstick”
Here's a tough one, I'm looking for a novel in which one of the (two?) main characters grabs a "boomstick" as a weapon (possibly from the trunk of his car).
The boomstick is described as a device ...
4
votes
0answers
114 views
Short story where creatures have squares of territory.
I read this in an old sci-fi short story collection. For some reason I have it in my head that it was titled "the folk" but that hasn't turned up any hits on the great Google machine.
In the story, ...
4
votes
1answer
239 views
Cartoon movie where the main character had a robotic arm
During the 90's I saw parts of a science-fiction cartoon on TV. I don't remember for sure, but the graphics resembled Heavy Metal and I think it was American but again, I'm not sure.
What I do ...
3
votes
2answers
112 views
a book I read about survival on another planet and waygates
I read a book about students who were graduating from some kind of academy where they trained to be the first people visiting a new planet and to scout it out or otherwise prepare it for colonisation. ...
2
votes
1answer
144 views
Boy wants to go to magic school
In the early 90's, I read a book about a boy who wanted to go to a magic school, but everyone said that he was not good enough. Finally he got in.
There was a test where he had to repeatedly light ...
0
votes
0answers
118 views
Fantasy novel I read in the '80s
I'm looking for a fantasy novel that I remember enjoying, but I have only the vaguest memory of it. The paperback version I had featured a cover painting in grayish tones, which was a close-up picture ...
3
votes
1answer
126 views
Looking for a story about a time traveler talking to young himself
I'm looking for a story about a man able to travel in time: every time he go to the past, he instruct the past himself about how to be successful in life, gaining more experience time after time ...
3
votes
0answers
62 views
Try to find a sf novel I read 25-30 years ago about a man drifting in the bermuda triangle
I rack my brain about a science fiction novel I read about 25 - 30 years ago.
Unfortunately I don't remember much but it was about the a man drifting in the bermuda triangle and waiting for I believe ...
4
votes
0answers
63 views
Fantasy series ca. 2000
I'm looking for a fantasy book series I read ca 2000 (IIRC, it was unfinished then).
The story centered around political events in a kingdom and capital, and the rise of a magical/clerical sect.
...
6
votes
2answers
277 views
A book I read based in England
I read a book or series of books around 1992, and these are the things I can remember
if it's a single book it is very long, otherwise could be a series;
I'm pretty sure the protagonist was a young ...
