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.
4,384
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Science Fiction short story - orphan child is really shape-shifting alien (monster movie in climax)
I read this short story in a collection of short stories about monsters of various kinds. It's told in a journalistic style, with reports about what survivors remembered about a particular kid in the ...
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1
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Short story where women came from another planet in a stranded spaceship and killed the original Earth women. Men who discover this are quietly killed
This is a short story where women came from another planet in a stranded spaceship, killed the original Earth women, mated with the men and remained in control up to modern times. Men who discover ...
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2
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0
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Short story about teenagers who have a friend who has an accident which causes brain damage but seems really happy after
I think it was in a book of short stories, possibly by Douglas Coupland. The teenagers start trying to brain damage themselves just to be happy and escape the stresses of teenage life.
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12
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1
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505
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Seeking a short story about social constraints on sexuality
I'm looking for a short story I read in an anthology -- I had thought it was one of "The Year's Best Science Fiction" anthologies edited by Gardner Dozois, but I'm not sure of it. I'm pretty ...
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0
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Any Recognize This Short Story About a Demonic Cat?
What I believe is this is possibly a short story that appeared in Omni Magazine but I can’t be sure & a Google search has yielded no results thus far so I’m asking you good people here for help.
...
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18
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208
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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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164
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A short story about an old pirate pawning a ship in a bottle
In the mid-70s, I read this story in high school while waiting for a classmate to do our homework at our local public library. I pulled out a random thick book and started reading the first few lines. ...
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687
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Short story where a soldier who is trapped in his powered armor becomes a war memorial
In the late 1990s/early 2000s I read a story in a sci-fi anthology about a soldier who participates in a drop-assault battle on the Moon. IIRC, the assault force deploys via dropship in the Sea of ...
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1
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Short story about an alien that reads the minds of cats
This is a short story I read in the 80s in an anthology or collection.
The plot is about an alien delegation that arrives to Earth for trade talks.
One of the aliens figures out that "he" ...
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14
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1
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2k
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Story where a super soldier of the future tries to get in touch with the faint humanity within himself
I am looking for the author of a sci-fi short story. I may have read it in a collection of sci-fi stories about super-soldiers. The story is about how a soldier of the future - who is massive in terms ...
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8
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1
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155
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Short story set in a future where everyone is alone in their own space station [duplicate]
I read a short story online a few years ago, set in the future, where the premise was that everyone lived alone in private space stations and were waited on by their space station's computer (and/or ...
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0
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118
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Seeking old story about invention/"repair" of a time machine
I recall (from 40-50 years ago) a story (no source, but probably not online or movie) about a scientist/technician that is asked to "repair" a time machine that s/he is told did work, but is ...
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25
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1
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Short story: A professor learns the dialect of an ancient Roman legion and disappears on the night the legions ghosts are said to appear yearly
Looking for the author and title of a short story about time travel and an old Roman road. I read the story in 11th grade in 1994. The narrator has a friend who, I believe, is a professor of history.
...
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1
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280
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In what short story does a dying man pay to be frozen for a future cure, and awakes to find he is in a warehouse for spare body parts?
Short story from 50+ years ago, about a man with an incurable disease who has himself frozen until a future cure is found, wakes to feel someone grabbing his foot, saying something like ”Here’s a good ...
8
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0
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154
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Short story where Hitler tries to escape via time travel, only to end up being becoming the man killed in his bunker days prior
I'm looking for a science fiction short story. I think I read it in the 90s — no idea whether it was a magazine or anthology.
In the last days of Hitler, his guards find a disheveled and incoherent ...
- 24.7k
14
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1
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481
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Short story: Aliens come to Earth after humans uplifted them [duplicate]
I'm looking for a short story that I read in an anthology book in the late 90s. The story itself had a feel of maybe being written in the 50s or 60s.
In the far future an expedition of aliens arrive ...
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24
votes
1
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3k
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Old sci fi short story about weird acting rulers in a decrepit outpost and a lone bounty hunter that uncovers the truth, they are controlled by fungi
I think it is a classic 50's story because I think at the time I was reading a series of compilation books... Something like "50's greatest Science Fiction Stories" or maybe Award Winning ...
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18
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1
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1k
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A collection of short stories possibly from 80s. One involved a man who could pass through walls
There was a book I read about 30 years ago. It was a collection of sci-fi themed short stories. The book title was "I come from Mars" which was also the title of one of those stories. Here ...
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1
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Short story in Asimov's - recreated aquatic ape used for murder
In the 1990s (I think), I read a short story in Asimov's magazine that used the then-popular (though never really accepted in the scientific community, I think) theory that mankind evolved from apes ...
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22
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1
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3k
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Humorous golden age short story about the reinvention of books and matches
I read this story decades ago about a world in which ebooks and cigarette lighters have completely replaced paper books and matches. An inventor is trying to come up with a lighter way to carry ...
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14
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0
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130
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Story-id: mining town with re-animated and remote controlled dead people used as robot-labor
This is short story (maybe short novella) I read in a short-story collection in the mid to late 80's.
Back then I was in my teens and I found the whole concept really creepy.
It left an impression on ...
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0
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291
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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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1
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2k
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Apocalyptic horror sci fi short story about child locked in basement
This is a short horror story I read several years ago. I stumbled upon it accidentally while browsing the internet, and read it online as it was described as a horror sci fi masterpiece. My memory ...
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2
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0
answers
57
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Short horror/sci fi story about child locked in a basement coming out after a nuclear explosion [duplicate]
This is a short horror story I read several years ago. I stumbled upon it accidentally while browsing the internet, and read it online as it was described as a horror sci fi masterpiece. My memory ...
Donovan Thiesson
6
votes
1
answer
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Short story, apparently set in prehistoric times but actually after a nuclear war
In the 1970s, I read a short story, in an anthology. For most of the story, one thinks the characters live in prehistoric times but they talk about the hot, dangerous place no one can go. Eventually ...
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19
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2
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2k
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Short sci-fi story about AI creatures that eventually escape into another dimension [duplicate]
Years ago, I read a short story about the creation of an AI species. I believe they were described as crab-like. I remember the creator could speed up their evolution by letting the simulation run. ...
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2
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0
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95
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Short story about a ferris wheel ride to Mars
Read a short story in 1969 high school English class. It had to do with buying a ticket to ride a ferris wheel, but the ride would actually go to Mars? Protagonist wrestles with desire to go vs fear ...
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7
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1
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139
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Short story where people can be teleoperated in order to have someone with more skill do something for them
This feels like something I would have read in the mid-1980s in Analog magazine, but I no longer have access to them.
In the story people can purchase implants that allow themselves to be teleoperated;...
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18
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0
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174
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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 Paul Anderson, but I was mistaken. The story concerns a ...
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1
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1k
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US soldier time travels to ancient Norse Iceland and kills a man in a fight
An American soldier stationed at a military base at Reykjavik, Iceland (UN forces?) somehow gets transported back to early settlement times.
He is taken in by a local Norse family and, realising he's ...
- 4,866
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0
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68
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Short story where AI needs humans to collapse reality [duplicate]
I have tried searching here and elsewhere and cannot find this short story. Here are the details I can remember:
General AI exists but it can't operate when humans aren't around.
The AI figures out ...
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6
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1
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120
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Short story about an astronaut who lands on Jupiter with a dog [duplicate]
I read a short story about an astronaut sent to Jupiter to try and find what had happened to other astronauts who had been sent there and never returned once they left the spaceship. The astronauts ...
- 69
3
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0
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93
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Short story about 3 alien hunters when mankind was still in tribes/prehistoric
My dad told me about this short story he had read and it piqued my interest based on what he described. It would have been a short story in a similar size of book to the Commando War stories in ...
19
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1
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2k
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Short story where the twin who stays behind becomes immortal, outlives the travelling twin
Looking for a short story published in Analog magazine in the mid to late 80s.
It was a play on the Twin Paradox idea.
In this case twin brothers are separated, one traveling at relativistic velocity, ...
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11
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1
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562
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Trying to find a Sci-fi short story about plant based alien in a spaceship that makes contact with humans
A single plant based alien is traveling in a spaceship in a kind of hibernation. It is implied he is escaping some conflict. The spaceship is seed-like, and made of unknown organic material. The alien ...
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25
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1
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Identify a short story about a wall at the edge of the universe
Two astronauts arrive at the edge of the universe and find a wall. There is graffiti on the wall, including "Kilroy was here". There is a coin slot that opens a portal to look through the ...
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0
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143
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Short story about artificial intelligences communicating through coded messages in noisy data
I read this short story in English a few years ago online, and I believe that it was fairly new at the time, so probably written sometime in the 2010s. The main character is a powerful AI that does ...
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1
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Short horror story I read in the 70's where the protagonist witnesses a monster disguised as a human eat someone
A guest at a hotel or bed and breakfast accidently sees into an open door in another room. He sees a human turn into a monster and devour another guest. The monster turns back into a human and is ...
4
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0
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A story of four people landed on a planet and fallen into alien molluscum which consumed them but left brains so they possessed and controlled it
I would be very grateful for the name of this story. I read it in some sci-fi book full of short stories.
One man was a biologist, then a woman also scientist, then a military dude and a state ...
- 49
4
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1
answer
604
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Sci-fi novel about a group of people stranded on a planet populated by automated war machines
This was a short novelette about a group of people who are intimidated to land their cargo ship on a planet destroyed and inhabited by automated ai war robots, to loot valuable technology on the ...
- 49
12
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2
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2k
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Looking for a short story that was written about a future where most people live in perpetual adolescence except one person who reaches maturity
Looking for a short story about a future time when all people live in perpetual adolescence, except for one boy who ages into maturity. The final line of the story is something like “for you are a ...
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4
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0
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97
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What is the title of SciFi anthology with a short story about the singers at the end of time?
The anthology cover shows a woman and man (lower left) and some barrel-chested natives (upper right).
While listening to the natives sing, the anthropologists are transported to the far future where ...
8
votes
1
answer
202
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SciFi story about "hive mind" babies that are born around the same time in a village
I'm looking to re-read a SciFi short story about some "hive mind" babies that are born around the same time in a village... A similar plot to John Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos, but quite ...
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20
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2
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2k
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Looking for a short story about the highest flight ever
Read in the ]80's, this felt like a '60–'70s-era sci-fi story.
The story is set on a high altitude plane or craft that has a malfunction, and the flight crew cannot get the craft to go back down. ...
- 527
22
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1
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4k
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Sci-fi horror short story about alien that wants to be eaten
In 2017/18 I was really into story podcasts, and heard one that I cannot find again, and do not know what podcast I heard it on.
It was a sci-fi/horror short-story about a group of people who went ...
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2
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4k
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Science fiction short story in which Einstein is cloned but shows no interest in much except playing his violin
I read this in the 90s. Based on the failure of getting anything productive out of the Einstein clone, future cloning targets are more engineering-minded like Poincare.
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4
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0
answers
75
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Short story in which people have forgotten how to do even simple arithmetic [duplicate]
I read this story in the 1990's or possibly the late 1980's, but I believe it was older than that, probably 1960's or possibly 1950's or 1970's. I do not remember if I read it in Swedish (my native ...
8
votes
0
answers
153
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Sci-Fi short story telepath uses CAPITAL LETTERS
It was in a collection of Sci-Fi short stories which I lent to a friend and never got back.
It was about a human who somehow became trapped in a muddy cave or beneath the ground. There the man ...
- 81
9
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1
answer
235
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Name of short story in which aliens install suicide buttons in their children to improve their race
Men and aliens are cooperating freely on some extraplanetary task. A human gets into a discussion with an alien colleague about how peaceful and mature his alien species is, as opposed to humans, who ...
- 655
14
votes
1
answer
497
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Most Dangerous Game with shapeshifting alien
I have been trying to find a story that I read 20-25 years ago in a science fiction anthology about frontier planets. In the story, a big game hunter has come to a planet to hunt the most dangerous ...
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