Questions tagged [short-stories]
For about a fictional work too small to be called a [novel] or [novella] - usually less than 10-20 thousand words and no chapters. Use to either identify the media on a [story-identification] question or disambiguate works where the tag covers the short story and its form in other media.. If you are looking for a particular anthology of short stories, use the [anthology-book] tag instead.
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Looking for science fiction assassination story with mysterious girl
For years I've been looking for a short science fiction story about a man who was released from a prison planet in order to assassinate a candidate for galactic president. He does this on a space ...
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39
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0
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509
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Short story where the stars are eyes
A short story I read several years ago in either Analog or Asimov's Science Fiction, probably between 2011 and 2013.
In the story there's a 4th spatial dimension whose axes are skew, so that things ...
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33
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0
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674
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Short story about a man in a madhouse who asks the guard for a cigarette and tells him his story about having swapped bodies before
I am searching for a short story about a man locked in a madhouse who swaps his body with the guard/doctor while he tells him the story about his own body being swapped.
I remember the following:
...
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33
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2k
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A space story about a desert planet and a cup of water
I read this story over 15 years ago. It is probably a lot older. I read it in Serbian magazine (Politikin Zabavnik) but I think that the language of the original is in English. It's a short story, ...
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29
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731
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SciFi Short Story about an immortal man digging through an asteroid to meet a woman
Short story from the 80's or 90's, I saw someone asking about this on another forum but never got an answer. I've been curious ever since.
The story is set in a decadent future where everyone lives ...
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28
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0
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552
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Aliens secretly use video game to get humans to solve their problems
I recall a story probably 20-30 years ago (pretty sure it was a short story) in which a top gamer hears about a new computer game out that no one can beat. So he gets it and starts playing it. (Pretty ...
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28
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498
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A story about a doctor who travels to a parallel universe to seek a cure for bubonic plague
Recent news has been reminding me of various things I've read about the Black Death, including a story I believe I only saw once, and never stumbled across again. I encountered it over 30 years ago, ...
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28
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520
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Short story about an elite that has mentally regressed due to assistive AI technologies
I came upon a comment describing a scifi short story where reliance on technology meant to improve appearance and demeanor has led to mental regression and AI control of the upper class that employs ...
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1k
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Old sci-fi short story about buying an android?
Long, long time ago I came upon a collection of old (pre 1980s?) short sci-fi stories. I'm not 100% sure, but something makes me think they were by Russian authors.
One of them was about a woman, who ...
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70s book/short story, Man wakes up from suspend animation or cryo and world has collapsed
In the book, the protagonist wakes up from either suspended animation or cryo (Probably supposed to be a short test), After 10-20 years have passed.
He finds the facility abandoned (and looted?), ...
- 11.3k
23
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0
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589
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Short story where scientist flees to the ancient past, tries to stop scientific progress to keep man "pure"?
Plot Summary/Details
I can only recall the broad theme and a few details on this one. The protagonist, who was a scientist of some sort, has fled his own time to return to man's early period. I'm ...
- 13.4k
23
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0
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585
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Short story involving a lost-tech green glass highway in Australia
My mom's been wondering if I could find this story but I really can't without more specific details than she can give me. It's rather old, she guessed somewhere in the 1960s or 70s. The story wasn't ...
- 239
22
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1
answer
758
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Short story in which a man gets a phone call about the end of the world by accident
I read this short story within the last year or two, almost certainly in a short story collection. It was relatively old, possibly from the '60s or '70s, but it could have been from the '50s or '80s ...
- 371
21
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0
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342
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Short story about a giant ship that thoughtlessly destroys planets as it travels, is visited by a victim
I think I came across this ten or fifteen years ago, I cannot remember much clearly so some of these details may be mistaken. The story is told from the perspective of a crew member, on the bridge I ...
- 211
21
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0
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601
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Short story: Lost starship crew in suspended animation trying to return to Earth. Crew suicide a factor
Read a sci-fi anthology sometime in the 1980s, though the story feels like it's from the 50s or 60s. An all-male starship crew is trying to return to Earth after performing some mission, but they're ...
- 2,566
21
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1
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490
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Story about a planet with alien devices that produce 2^64 different items
It was a story about a human colony on a planet where there were mysterious alien precursor devices all over. Each one had two (drums? poles?). Something musical at any rate. You beat the two poles 64 ...
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20
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0
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233
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Artificially intelligent commuter spacecraft story
I am searching for the title of a story that I read forty-odd years ago; I had thought that the story was in "Time and Stars" by Poul Anderson, but I was mistaken. The story concerns a ...
- 4,607
20
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0
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327
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Short story: intelligent dogs create androids
The story I'm looking for takes place in the far future. Humans have long since left for space. The Earth is dominated by intelligent dogs and cats, who are in conflict with each other. The dogs, who ...
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1
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1k
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Identify short story in which invention of music redeems humanity from alien death sentence
A small mission of harmless-looking little aliens comes to Earth to observe the place before destroying mankind. These folks have no music of their own but when they are exposed to ours, they love it. ...
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Boy playing ball has to run inside to avoid a hail of diamonds
I read this in a collection of sci-fi short stories when I was in elementary school, so circa mid-to-late 1980s. It might have been published by Scholastic.
It's a very short story.
It may have been ...
- 201
19
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0
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233
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Short story ID: colonists on alien planet have problem of deadly bouncing creatures
A short story, probably from sometime between 1960s through 1990s, that I read either in an anthology or in a magazine like Analog or Asimov's, about a guy who describes how he has to figure out how ...
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Weird Galaxy/IF Short Story
I am almost positive this short story appeared in either Galaxy, IF, or Worlds of Tomorrow in the late 1960s or early 1970s. The MC is an alien with three(?) legs and a bell-like head with a circle of ...
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799
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Short story about a boy who makes a virtual girl and updates her A.I as he grows up
I am searching a free short story I found about 5 years ago on some book app on my tablet.
Basically in the story, this young boy got a computer (sometime during the 80s I believe) that had just ...
- 309
18
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0
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373
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Story where inert, indestructible alien devices appear all across Earth
One day, billions of hovering, featureless alien objects appear out of thin air in a grid pattern across the Earth's surface. Initially, they cause car and plane crashes, but they do nothing for ...
- 1,017
18
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0
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302
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Sci fi short story: inept king, tiny kingdom, time traveler secretly thwarting him
I was searching for something other than this on the "Stable Time Loop/Literature" page of tvtropes.org, when I came across an entry with no title. I'm sure I've read the story, but there is ...
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18
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0
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427
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Short story about a man who receives a floppy disk with a program that can answer any question
I read this in the mid 1990s. It was a short story set in contemporary time (the era it was written), about a man who received a package in the mail that just contained a floppy disk. The program on ...
- 531
17
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0
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282
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NPR radio story about spaceship with forbidden door
Quite a few years ago my wife kids and I were driving through Cincinnati returning home from Alabama. As usual they were asleep and as usual I had on Public radio.
I was listening to a radio sci-fi ...
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478
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SF Short Story - Robots Carry On
I read this short story in the 1960s, although it may have been published earlier. English language, American or British author.
Two men, strangers, are talking in an office; one carries a cane. There ...
- 5,990
17
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0
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209
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Short story where aliens visit Tranquillity Base and take the discarded backpacks for their space museum
I'm looking for the title of a story in which aliens have visited Tranquillity Base and have taken the discarded backpacks used by Armstrong and Aldrin for their space museum. The story is told in a ...
- 3,496
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0
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585
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Short story with a computer that saves only relevant information of peoples life stories
Please help me find a short story my uncle read in his youth. When my uncle was in his teens or a young adult he read a story that had profound impact on him and defined his life (he founded a company ...
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16
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185
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Pre late-80s UK-based short horror story. Giant alien shapeshifters imitate a house and a uk phone box to trap and devour the young protagonist
General
This UK-based short story was from a horror or SciFi compilation I read during the late 80s/early 90s (but was almost definitely from earlier). I have a feeling the compilation was probably ...
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118
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Our hero hems and haws and finally decides to summon the fleet to help his new alien buddies
I read this story some time around 2000. It wasn't brand new when I read it, but I think it was close. It was in a collection of sci fi short stories, and it was by a relative unknown; the central ...
- 161
16
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0
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418
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Short story about an alien or robot looking for sources of food
I am looking for a short story about an alien or possibly a robot looking for sources of food. The story was read in a school English comprehension text book in the UK in the early 1980's.
Story is as ...
- 10.8k
16
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0
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475
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Short story where a scientist discovers all the secrets of the universe as he is dying
I read this story around 3 years ago, but it might have been written much earlier.
The premise of the story is this: A scientist has spent his whole life researching some aspect of the universe but ...
- 6,167
16
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0
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483
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Short story about colonist ship's computer deliberately "weeding out" unfit colonists during hypersleep?
Plot Details/Summary
This is going to be another of my longshot questions, as I only remember a few details about the story.
The entire story takes place aboard an interstellar colony ship, and ...
- 13.4k
16
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0
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328
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Super sophisticated AI spacecraft autopilot saves the day
Looking for the title of this rather excellent sci-fi short story...
Human spacecraft approaches alien planet
Humans piloting the spacecraft about to do something inappropriate, given apparent ...
- 161
15
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0
answers
120
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Sci-fi short story about neural prosthetics used to simulate a person's brain in an art performance
I'm looking for a science fiction short story I read years ago that takes place in the near future where neural prosthetics for people with Alzheimer's, memory loss, and other types of brain damage ...
- 251
15
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0
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170
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Sci fi short story about a man who lives with pig creatures on an alien planet
I read a story a long time ago that always stuck in my mind. It's probably from the 50s-70s. I have tried to remember it fairly accurately but details may be wrong.
A man (crash?) lands on a distant ...
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0
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131
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Looking for a short story about a 'homecoming' song from an anthology published pre-1990
This is a short story dating back to the 1980s or earlier - I read it in my school library in the late 80s/very early 90s. It's about a world in which underdeveloped planets were forced to hand over ...
- 331
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283
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Short story, protagonist afraid of sea; sea is an eldritch abomination hivemind, he is its drone trying to break free
A man who once nearly drowned has extreme thalassophobia and fear of the dark; in fact he conceptualizes the sea as The Dark, and he believes that it is 1) out to get him and 2) able to access all ...
15
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0
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259
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Post apocalyptic short story
When I was in grade 10 back in 1990-1991 in Ontario Canada, there was a short story that we read that as I took place in the aftermath of some catastrophe (nuclear war I think). (I know it is not the ...
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15
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0
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354
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Lost novella or short story: Either uplifted or evolved animals finally break through a barrier to discover that the humans have left Earth
The protagonist, possibly an uplifted or naturally evolved bear is in charge of a project to breach a barrier. This has kept all intelligent species from leaving the area. They eventually break ...
- 2,058
14
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0
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176
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Sad story about killing sentient, but dangerous, beings brought by a smuggler
I read this very sad short fiction (novelette rather than short story, I think) more than 20 years ago, in a collection. It might be older. It left me a very sad feeling.
It takes place on a planet ...
- 11.6k
14
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0
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178
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Short story where you had quotas for daily activities allowed to be done by yourself instead of hiring professionals
I'm trying to find the short story where due to shortage of jobs, people were not allowed to do most things by themselves, but instead were forced to hire professionals. Everybody had daily quotas for ...
14
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0
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238
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What was this short story about competing light bulb salesmen?
This is a short story I read in a collection. I'm wanting to say it was a "Year's Best Scifi & Fantasy Short Stories" or something like that from some time in the 2000 to 2015 range, but ...
- 1,003
14
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0
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217
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70s (or earlier) story about human evolution (devolution) and conflict between human species
I recall a rather grim short story/novelette read during my teens (early to mid 1970's) from either a magazine or anthology, so could be written prior to 1970. The setting was either future Earth or ...
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14
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0
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325
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Short story about a world government planting poison kill switches in everybody's head
This is a question about a short story I read in Norwegian back in the day, in a kind of (monthly? quarterly?) youths' anthology (not a sci-fi anthology, but a collection of youth-related topics; peer ...
- 3,466
14
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0
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444
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Old story about an assassin squad sent to kill a man who stopped war
The story is told from the point of view of a member of a squad of soldiers sent to infiltrate a dome of some kind that belongs to an immortal man who stopped all countries from fighting wars.
The ...
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0
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533
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Man whose job is to destroy broken robots on Mars
Could anyone help me please. I am looking for a short story where the setting is on Mars, protagonist a human waste disposal worker. His job is to shovel broken down robots into the furnace and they ...
- 141
13
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0
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175
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Human head in future institution complains about its living conditions
This was a short story, probably in an anthology, written before 1997.
It was written in the first person as a message from "what you think of as your future" (or words to that effect). The ...
