Questions tagged [soft-sci-fi]
Soft science fiction is a term for works in the science fiction genre which do not apply a rigourous scientific model for the universe. It can also be used to describe work where the science fiction aspect is incidental to the story (the same story could be told without the science fiction elements).
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Novel where the stardrive is powered by magic
In the mid 00's I read a novel where starships FTL drives were powered by magic. The better the magician on board, the lower they could go, the faster the FTL drive.
The crew reminded me of a typical ...
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Pre-2013 collection of short stories involving teleportation and time travel, a noir detective, an artist, and a plague doctor
Around 2011 or 2013, I read a library book of a collection of short sci-fi stories dealing with teleportation and time travel. I don't know how old the book was. There were maybe 10 or so short ...
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Book about a time traveling city, metallic eggs, and psychic wars [duplicate]
I am trying to remember the name of a science fiction book I borrowed from a library in BC, sometime between the years 2005–2008. The story is a young adult book which involves time travel:
The book ...
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2
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Was the idea of a ship going through a star to refuel based on previous work?
In Stargate Universe there is a spaceship called Destiny which travels the universe seeding planets with stargates and flying through stars to refuel by collecting the raw materials inside. The ship ...
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Prince who was either a robot or a human who needed another heart
The book as about a girl who worked in a bar or something similar, I'm not sure. There was also a prince who was either a robot or a human who needed another heart. His heart needs constant ...
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Looking for sci-fi short story about a spacecraft flight simulator consultant
I hesitate to provide much detail because with the last question I asked, I got many of the details pretty wrong, but still got the correct answer here, amazingly, so here goes…
I’ve been trying to ...
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I'm looking for a book titled "Signal to Space" which was translated from a French novel titled "Le Signal" originally published in the 1970's
I read this book in the mid 1980's. It revolves around a young boy and his pet. In the story, humans live in a space station orbiting Earth after a cataclysmic event has rendered the planet ...
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Short story about a space shuttle seeing a city of lights on the Moon
Twenty years ago or thereabouts, I listened to an audio book about a sci-fi short story. I remember bits and pieces, and pardon the vagueness of it due it being 20+ years ago, but the general synopsis ...
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Looking for a movie about alien parasites who rely on seduction to reproduce
I remember seeing a movie some time in most likely the 00's (though I have no idea whether it was new or old at the time) about some sort of alien infestation. The key conceit was that these aliens ...
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Late 2000’s / early 2010’s sci-fi movie involving an experiment where water is turned into wine
I'm not too sure the exact details sadly. My biggest memory is that, at the end of the movie, the lead female researcher has her experiment turn water into wine in front of a priest and the movie ends....
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Aliens exchange their dying sun for ours. Humans steal their ship and seek revenge
I'm looking for a book about aliens exchanging our sun with their dying sun (or some other sun). Humans must retreat underground to survive. Years later, aliens make contact and humans ambush them to ...
user169898
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Novel in which the far future remnants of civilisation are visited by other descendants who left Earth long ago
I remember reading a novel from maybe the 80s about a village on Earth in the far future, after the Sun has gone red giant. The protagonist discovers that an 'alien' visitor is a descendant of humans ...
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Book/short story about a post-apocalypse Earth with kids trained to fight
I'm looking for a short story or book series about a post-apocalypse Earth which is controlled by aliens. The aliens at the time of the story have a more maternal role over the remaining humans. The ...
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Novel about a man waking to a world without life after hibernating, then hibernating while re-evolving life? [duplicate]
I have vague memories of a novel I read decades ago, and am trying to find out what it was. I tried various "AI" services to identify it, but all failed. This is what I remember:
It was ...
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Story about a spacecraft that crash-lands on a planet with a civilization resembling Pre-Columbian era
I have read this book around 20 years ago, and the book was already quite old at that time so was likely written before 1990. Highly likely I have read it in Hungarian, but I'm unsure if the novel was ...
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What is the name of this short sci-fi award winning film on YouTube, in which robots are exterminating humans but one robot kept a little girl?
Looking for the name of this short film released around 2013 maybe.
So basically the story is that the robots invaded and destroyed the humans but one girl (baby at the time) was found and kept alive ...
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TV show about a boy who finds a hidden room
TV show about a boy who finds a hidden room with goblin and finds out what he is and has kid with alien in another dimension or something. Time moves fast in that place and his friends try to get him ...
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Science fiction book about a seven foot tall teen who is forced to fight and inducted into an interplanetary martial arts guild
This book has been on my mind for years and have done searches for at a long time but nothing ever come up so figured I'd try here.
I read this book in the late 90's early 2000's no later than 2001-...
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Looking for title of story, probably sci-fi, about mentally declining man who built prompts allowing him to perform daily functions. Any help here? [duplicate]
I have no idea when it was written, nor when I read it, but it's been at least a couple of decades My memory is very vague on particulars, just that it seemed to be pretty prophetic, bringing to mind ...
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1980s(?) sci-fantasy kids book where a boy travels across a wasteland world in a blimp made of trash
I believe the book was written in the 1980s, but I'm not sure - I read it in the 1980's, so it was available then at least. It may also be British. A young boy is transported to a strange wasteland ...
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Book about a girl who flies to an island and found out her mom was creating robot clones of children to be servants
It was like there was this girl who lived with her dad and her mom worked on an island and when the girl turned a certain age, she flew to the island to visit her by with this guy that she was I think ...
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Need help identifying a sci-fi short story (shocked from a band saw, comes to in a slightly altered timeline)
I recall reading this fantastic sci-fi short story in a book of collected short stories, I just can't remember the name or author.
I read it maybe between 2010 and 2015, it was in a thick book of ...
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Alien Symbiote Computers that eventually have godlike computer-children
I am looking for a book/trilogy that had 21st century earth hit by a wave of alien symbiotes. The symbiotes are seemingly physics/compute constrained and are purely biological, able to manipulate the ...
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Looking for Children's Sci Fi Novel about a Kid Whose Family Is Able to Create Planets
I'm trying to find the title of a book I read in middle school, around 2015.
I read about the first 20-30 pages, so I only remember a few details from it.
I think the plot was something like the main ...
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I am looking for a dystopian science fiction novel I read about some type of quantum calamity that decimated America
I think I read this story some time in the 90s or early 2000s. There was some type of disaster in America. The country was decimated. Almost no one was left alive. I don't recall if everyone died or ...
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Short story about teaching a brontosaurus to fly
Read in the UK many (possibly the late 1960s) years ago - I didn't read many magazines so most likely in an anthology.
There's an alien planet inhabited by these dinosaurs who very closely resemble ...
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Novel about a boy (a sea diver/scavenger) who discovered a spaceship in the depths of sea with dangerous consequences to him
The boy was like a sea diver/scavenger, who stumbled on a star/spaceship in the depths of the ocean, which led to people trying to kill him.
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Linguistics science-fiction story by James Tiptree, Jr
A while ago I stumbled on a list of science fiction with linguistic themes. I'd quite like to re-find the list, but I remember little more about it than that it mentioned Babel-17 by Delany, and a ...
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Post nuclear apocalypse novel with mutant whales, flower-controlled zombies and possibly a psycho-plague
I have a memory of a novel that I did not read, but I stumbled upon it on google a few years back and the synopsis and cover stuck in my memory, so I'd really like to find it again (I stupidly didn't ...
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SF short story from 1960-1980 about the murder of a Martian who played a form of golf using a jewelled boomerang
I think this short story was in one of the “Gold” collection series.
It was about the murder of a Martian who played a form of golf using a jewelled boomerang. The human eventually convicted ends up ...
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Science fiction film involving a super-evolved human who is being hunted
I'm having a bad time trying to find a movie, but I remember only some details about it.
There are some (maybe only one) super-evolved human looking beings. I don't remember if they were created from ...
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Story about an underground humanoid species that delivers the protagonist to the past, as punishment to try to escape
There is a story I've read floating around in my head, which had a few definite elements to it, about a discovery of a highly capable sci-fi-ish subterranean species, who were effectively immortal, by ...
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Novel set in world with miles-high trees. (NOT Alan Dean Foster's Midworld.)
The story comes from a novel I found in my junior high school library in the '90s. I have the distinct impression that the book is at the latest from the 1970s, possibly decades earlier.
Story ...
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TV sci-fi show with strong female lead who looks after artifacts and also had Nikola Tesla in it
I think it was in the 2000s, and the main lead is a strong woman who looks a bit like Lucy Lawless.
She, I seem to remember, had lived a long time and was good friends with Nikola Tesla, who dropped ...
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Novel or short story about glass so thick a widower can see his late wife walking around outside [duplicate]
A novel or short story I read probably 30-40 years ago about a man who lives in a cabin with such thick windows (or glass with special properties) that he can see light that was passing through the ...
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Black panther’s martial arts skills
In marvel comics when or In what comics issue was black panther first depicted as a master of martial arts? His initial abilities included cat like reflexes and agility he performed acrobatic movement ...
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Looking for a short story, romance scifi, about a person who falls love/friendship with a "mayfly" species of human that only lives for 3 days/3 weeks
All I remember is on Day/Week 2, the mayfly persona is very blasé about dying the next day/week, and the longer lived one is already kind of mourning/concerned. However the next day/week the mayfly is ...
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(Online?) short story inspired by those "choose a special power" CYOAs
It may have been on a blog, as a riff on those dime-a-dozen choose-your-own-adventure images shared on social media. There were some people (eight I think), each of whom chose a special power, I think ...
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Book about three asteroids hitting Earth, underground bunkers, tunnels, portals and ancient giant civilization, portals work by placing hand
This book was a trilogy, I believe.
There were three asteroids heading for the Earth. All powerful people are in underground bunkers awaiting the destruction of parts of the planet. A team of people ...
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Story about reaction with water that must proceed, ending with hurricane
I remember a story read to me as a child, but remember very few of the actual details. I remember that it involves some type of reaction that has to proceed once it is started, and the reaction ...
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Story ID: Corporate brands as massive invisible creatures attaching to human minds with creepy tendrils?
I saw this movie once, probably around 2013. I doubt it was made before 2005ish, given the level of CGI. Likely in English — maybe a UK production? — but my second guess is Russian with subtitles.
...
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Sci-fi or horror, guess from Mars
When I was young, I saw a movie from space. I remember just this scene:
bloody red sand, astronauts building a white oxygen tent. Inside, they take off their helmets, and from behind the tent window ...
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'70s/'80s SF book about a human cook on a space mining ship who finds an immortal alien while exploring a cave on an asteroid
A human cook on a space mining ship finds an immortal alien when exploring a cave on an asteroid. The alien is the last of its kind. I think the others of its species may have been accidentally killed ...
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Robot head, polo, transcendence and a helpful alien guide
I read this paperback novel in the mid to late 1980's, it was second-hand at this point and might have been 10 or 15 years old - so perhaps from the late 1960s or some time in the '70s.
There was an ...
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Story about 3 humans stranded on alien planet/ruins, solve riddles, rescue aliens from astral form?
Looking for a story read during the 80's or 90's wherein there are three humans (two men and a woman, iirc) who somehow become stranded on an alien planet / ruins, specifically on an island. Only by ...
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An animated movie or series (anime?). A huge spaceship found in a desert and the whole of humanity is trying to fix it
I'm trying to find an animated film or a series which I saw once in mid/late 90s on a TV. It might be even older. I remember a huge ship was found in the desert and the whole of humanity is trying to ...
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Series of books/novellas, involving a depopulated Earth, mass infertility, a religious cult, time travel, and Amazon warriors
There was a series of books/novellas in the '70s or so, involving a very depopulated Earth due to a chemical/drug error that made all females who lived in modern society infertile. A prophet had ...
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Sci-fi Show with Tech Magic/Psychic Powers
The show was on in the late 90's or early 00's. It may have been re-runs at that point though. It was on the SciFi channel. It was live action.
I don't remember much of the plot, but it involved ...
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Fantasy series three books, Australian woman on vacation, travels back in time to Welsh castle, Tae Kwon Do
Looking for title of a series of 3 (to 5) books, probably Australian author.
In the first book: A young Australian woman (and Tae Kwon Do expert) vacations in Britain, shortly after the death of her ...
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What’s the short story about a grandfather and a child living in a world where they have to watch adverts all the time?
I can’t remember the author and title. The basic premise is that the two of them are living in a world where adverts are streaming directly into their vision, for example when they see an object, a ...
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