Questions tagged [story-identification]

Use for identifying a work of SF or Fantasy, including novels, movies, comic books, fanfic, TV series, video games, etc. Use with other tags to specify the type of media, eg. [short-stories]. Use [episode-identification] for identifying a single episode of a known series, whether TV, book, or comic. Use [actor-identification], [character-identification], [music-identification], or [object-identification] for those specific ID requests instead.

Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
-1 votes
0 answers
65 views

Movie in which a scalp is removed in a cockpit of a plane [closed]

30+ years ago, as a child, I saw a movie, and I only remember a very short, but very specific scene. It is set in the cockpit of a modern civil airplane cockpit, looking towards the right of the plane....
  • 603
12 votes
1 answer
864 views

Post-apocalyptic sci-fi book about a man with metal spikes in his head, like a crown of thorns, who is worshipped by rats

More than a decade ago, I began reading a book. The book got lost before I could finish, and I only remember very few, vague details. I'm pretty sure it was set in a post-apocalyptic climate. Most ...
5 votes
1 answer
591 views

Manga where a guy and girl play a videogame where they discover that the people in the game are sentient

The guy and the girl are classmates and the meet up to play the videogame. They then discover that the game is kind of alive and the one of the characters can hear them. They end up trying to manage ...
  • 61
6 votes
1 answer
361 views

Short story collection about Indian scientist/inventor: one of the stories involves turning people into statues

Some years ago, I read a collection of short stories published in India (though the author had a Western-sounding surname.) It was about an (if memory serves correctly, slightly bizarre) inventor/...
  • 63
17 votes
1 answer
1k views

Short story about a guy who takes a drug to re-experience better times

I read this sometime in the 1990s; I don't recall if it was in an anthology or a magazine. A guy has recently gone through a bad break-up, and desperately misses the good times that came before. He ...
  • 103k
9 votes
0 answers
95 views

Animated film or maybe anime? from 1980 (probably)

I've glimpsed a part of it in my childhood, and it still bugs be that I cannot find what it was. Here's what I remember, only some pictures, no plot: Some planet, most likely Earth. There are large ...
  • 91
10 votes
0 answers
103 views

Book I read ~23 years ago about slaves mining something that gave them telepathy

After reading through the Mistborn series, the slaves mining atium reminded me of a book I read ~23 years ago. It was about a slave in a mining camp that was forced to mine a mind altering compound ...
10 votes
2 answers
481 views

Novel/Novelette ID: Humans as domesticated pack/riding animals

I read this story at least 20 years ago and almost certainly it is quite a bit older than that. I would hazard a guess that it is 1980's or earlier, but don't actually have a clue. I don't remember ...
  • 3,664
1 vote
0 answers
32 views

A manga or anime from the 90s where the protagonists have gems on their forehead and their hands can burn faces. Might be vampires?

A manga or anime from the 90s where the protagonists have gems on their forehead and their hands can burn faces. Might be vampires?
5 votes
1 answer
375 views

Manhwa where transmigrated siblings are engaged to each other

I didn't read much before the translators dropped it, but a brother and sister are transmigrated into the same world, where the people they possessed are engaged to each other and now they have to ...
  • 59
12 votes
2 answers
3k views

Pre-2010 fantasy novel about a young woman attending a magic school. The climax involves a conflict that opened a rift in the world

I don't remember much except a young woman travelled to a boarding school where she learned magic. Some mystery and intrigue throughout, and at the end of the book there was some sort of conflict that ...
  • 129
14 votes
2 answers
2k views

TV show set in the future after humanity evolved?

I'm trying to remember a TV show that I watched years ago and wanted to show to someone else. What I sort of remember is they are teenagers. There is a quasi military structure to it all. They had ...
3 votes
1 answer
67 views

Need help identifying 80s/90s animated movie about computer viruses [duplicate]

I remember watching an animated movie aimed towards children about animated computer viruses trying to take over. Anti-viruses were flying around on little ships and trying to stop the invading ...
18 votes
2 answers
2k views

Short story where space travellers must move the planet they've crashed on, or die in a supernova

Trying to identify this short story I read in maybe 1960's. The space travellers crash land on an uninhabited planet and soon realise the star will explode in the very near future. Their ship cannot ...
4 votes
1 answer
34 views

Manga where a guy grows a rare plant, lives with demi humans and dryads(?), and has rare crystals

I read this during quarantine and I can't find it anymore but I remember it had about 20 chapters. Basically the start of this story was that he was some noble child (either kicked out or given a land ...
5 votes
0 answers
51 views

Short story about a musician who wants to use samples from underground dwellers in her work

Around 2007, I read a short story from a collection at my friend’s house. I do not remember the format, unfortunately, but it may not have been formally published. I think it may have been from one of ...
19 votes
1 answer
547 views

Short story about an astronomer who has horrible luck - maybe by Poul Anderson [duplicate]

I think this short story was by Poul Anderson (or maybe Frederic Pohl?) and that it appeared in the early to mid-1970s. It was not an Analog-type story, so that leaves the other magazines published in ...
  • 6,267
6 votes
1 answer
68 views

Kids book where boy and girl find laptop from space [duplicate]

I remember reading this kids book around 2008-2012 (probably on the earlier side). The book couldn't have been too old at the time as it made reference to laptops, CD games and joysticks so likely ...
  • 1,461
6 votes
0 answers
81 views

Book or novella, set on an underground river on another planet. Social commentary

Years ago I read a book or story that was about a scientist traveling down an underground river. He encounters an alien culture and travels with a sage or mentor who constantly talks about how people ...
  • 61
13 votes
1 answer
981 views

Astronauts sent to Venus to find control for infectious pest organism

I remember reading this in the 1980s, it may have been published much earlier. A space probe penetrates the clouds of Venus, but returns with an infectious fungus-like organism which proliferates ...
  • 3,301
5 votes
1 answer
178 views

Story in which most people in town are reanimated dead people and don't know it

I have vague memories of a story. I am pretty sure it is a short story. I can't think how it would be fleshed out to be a novel, or movie. It is possible it might have been an episode of a TV show ...
  • 10k
5 votes
1 answer
85 views

Looking for graphic novel series with a bunch of quiche pies

I read this series around four to five years ago. The publishing date was a few years before that. What I remember: The main character is drawn kind of like Snoopy, but without the ears The main ...
11 votes
1 answer
645 views

Book with a Dyson sphere spaceship commanded by bird aliens

I’m trying to find the name of a book (or maybe a short story?) where some humans encounter a spaceship that is essentially half a Dyson sphere with a hole in the center. The craft concentrates lasers ...
  • 119
23 votes
2 answers
5k views

Star Wars ripoff from the 2010s in which a Han Solo knockoff is sent to save a princess and fight an evil overlord

I did not watch the movie but saw its preview on MX Player (this may not be available outside my country). I remember laughing after seeing the plot - It was nearly same as that of Star Wars: Episode ...
  • 6,700
27 votes
1 answer
2k views

Trying to remember a short film about an assembly line AI becoming self-aware

I'm trying to remember the name of a short film I saw a number of years ago. There was a guy who was a supervisor on an assembly line who's coming near the end of his shift, and he gets a message on ...
  • 389
3 votes
0 answers
52 views

Trying to find a romance book about a girl who falls in love with a high ranking vampire and finds out she’s an angel

This is what I can remember from the book: The girl is adopted and her and her rich friend is in (college?). One day she goes to study at a different friend's a house (a boy) and finds him dead or his ...
7 votes
0 answers
114 views
+50

Male protagonist with prosthetic arm, vampire girlfriend, female barbarian under a curse — late 80s–early 90s?

The book is set in a medieval world and features a male protagonist named Jonah, who has a magical prosthetic arm. There is also a female vampire named Emma, who is his love interest, and a barbarian ...
1 vote
0 answers
36 views

2000s book with a human female protagonist who lives with two vampires, one of which is her brother

Vampire book where the protagonist is not a vampire; her boyfriend and brother are. I remember that the brother had a boyfriend and the beginning of the book talks about the brother walking in on them ...
5 votes
0 answers
75 views

Identify an animated cartoon I watched in the mid 80s (space alien/ghost battle??)

Seen on TV or VHS in the early/mid 80s (United States). Could have been from the 70's too. I do not recall much about the general plot. I believe it involves a set of siblings (as kids), I think four ...
  • 51
12 votes
2 answers
1k views

Trying to find a short story about criminals who are given implants so they can be controlled by aliens

I am trying to find a short story I must have read about 30 years ago. People who have committed very serious crimes are given the choice between permanent incarceration and having an implant where ...
9 votes
1 answer
852 views

Fantasy novel where magic has a cost and it transforms a female character into a monster

Fantasy novel/series (maybe part of a trilogy), I think by a female author. Magic has a high cost. Bad guys capture a princess (?) and in bearing the cost of their magic is transformed into a ...
  • 101
7 votes
1 answer
137 views

Short story where humans colonizing an alien planet begin to get sick and then start turning into blob aliens

I read a short story in an English textbook about fifteen years ago (the textbook was not new) where humans are colonizing an alien planet and they begin to get sick and then they start turning into ...
2 votes
1 answer
74 views

Short story with little girl and artificial teacher [duplicate]

The short story had a little girl named Margie who lived in the future where there were no schools and there were only artificial teaching computer systems. The girl's "teacher" was due to ...
  • 6,700
5 votes
1 answer
305 views

Looking for a Fae book that includes the Cú Sidhe

What I can remember from the book is it was in a modern setting with a portal that took the main character into the fae world through a graffiti mural? The cú sídhe were involved towards the end in a ...
  • 53
10 votes
2 answers
928 views

Novel dealing with short distance time travel and micro-black holes

Years ago, perhaps 20 or more, I read a novel dealing with short distance time travel and micro-black holes. My memory seems to say it was written by James P. Hogan. But I've searched all his novels ...
  • 109
23 votes
1 answer
159 views

SF Novel: Task force tries to fake sentience in a humanoid species to protect a planet from exploitation

I'm certain it was published before 1998, fairly sure before 1994, in paperback. The background setting of the novel was the distant future, when humanity was part of an interstellar, possibly ...
25 votes
1 answer
3k views

Short film involving a young man who has died and is performing good deeds to score enough points to reach Heaven

Please can you find the name of a short film for me? It involves a young, white man who has died. He is given a fixed amount of time to perform tasks that will count towards reaching Heaven. Bad ...
  • 353
9 votes
2 answers
856 views

Novel about an Indiana Jones type character rescuing mummies from Mexican banditos

I was browsing the used book store the other day and came across this book and the summary on the back of the book seemed wild, but I set it back on the shelf and walked out of the store. After not ...
4 votes
2 answers
91 views

Science fiction or horror anthology book/audiobook about a science project robot that takes over a town

I'm looking to find the name or title of this book/audiobook from my childhood (I listened to it 1000 times in 1997). The main site was that 2 siblings have to fight one of their science projects (...
5 votes
1 answer
685 views

Looking for a possible trilogy from the 2000s which starts with siblings who are put under a spell to fall in love

The first book is about siblings who are put under a spell to fall in love. The brother finds out and is horrified. The girl is a redhead and is very powerful. There is some kind of rebellion and a ...
10 votes
2 answers
2k views

Movie where a man is abducted by beings believed to be aliens and finds out they were from the future

What's the title of movie where a man was abducted by beings believed to be aliens and finds out they were from the future. They came back in time because the genetic manipulation in the future ...
  • 109
6 votes
1 answer
163 views

2010s Point & Click Pc Game

I played this game on a netbook around 2008-2014. The layout is similar to Stranded Sails. The character is a warrior(?), and you point & click to move or interact. It involves various NPCs of ...
  • 316
9 votes
0 answers
100 views

Trying to find a book with space dragons, genetically modified humans and a dual universe

When I was younger I read this Sci fi book from the library with a green hardcover surface. I remember there was an antagonist that was a human who had improved his physical abilities with Orangutan ...
8 votes
0 answers
129 views

Old giant robot movie where the protagonist won the battle and saved himself using the robot's rocket fist

I read this answer to another movie identification question and the description was so similar to a movie I'm looking for that I thought it was the same one, but it's not. The movie I'm looking for ...
  • 181
2 votes
1 answer
78 views

Which godzilla film had a hint onto Biolante?

I remember a scene in the epilogue of a Godzilla film where a lab is seen with bio-material and a door closes with the text that it's project Biolante. Can someone tell me which film this comes from?
  • 10.2k
7 votes
1 answer
129 views

Trying to identify a military SF short story [duplicate]

I'm trying to identify a short story that was part of an anthology of military science fiction. Probably published 20 years ago or more. Most of the stories were of the two-sides-mutually-annihilate-...
5 votes
0 answers
81 views

Fantasy story about female lead who has the power to grow plants

I can't remember where I read this story although it was online. It's in a fantasy/medieval setting and the FL is a young (I think blonde) woman who lives alone in the city as a flower shop owner. She ...
6 votes
1 answer
718 views

Blind people take revenge against evil asylum manager

I watched the "Tales from the Crypt" movie, and the story of the blind people taking revenge on the evil asylum administrator was shockingly familiar. I tried to some other similar movie, ...
  • 603
2 votes
0 answers
49 views

Urban cultivation manhua where the void emperor from "I'm the Great Immortal" is the MC

It's a typical urban cultivation manhua where an immortal reincarnates as a mortal in the city, but there is a chapter where the MC and the heroines from "I'm the Great Immortal" meets the ...
25 votes
1 answer
3k views

Short fantasy about disappearing items - Asimov's early 1980s

This is a short story from the early 1980s in Asimovs (probably still while edited by Scithers). The main character, an adult (20-something) woman has had a problem with small items of hers ...
  • 24.4k

1
2 3 4 5
443