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.
4,215
questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
51
votes
0
answers
3k
views
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 ...
- 611
46
votes
1
answer
3k
views
Novel about an immortal man exposed by world government relates his life through history
I read the book from my local library in the early- to mid- seventies. It was hardcover (library bound) and the dust jacket had a printed burlap or canvas background. The back flap mentioned that the ...
- 13.6k
41
votes
0
answers
2k
views
Humorous sci-fi book with a quirky space captain where everyone is turning into "glass"
I posted this question on another website, but I've yet to find the name of the book. I remember some very specific details, but nothing I can type into a search engine (I've tried).
Here are the ...
- 613
41
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Story about Galactic authorities confining humanity to the solar system
I'm looking for a story I once read, in which Humanity sends out a space ship to try leaving the Solar System, and it is promptly destroyed by a military ship belonging to the Galactic Empire, which ...
- 1,206
39
votes
0
answers
509
views
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 ...
- 441
35
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Does the movie described in Flowers for Algernon actually exist?
In Flowers for Algernon (by D. Keyes) (1966) there is a passage describing a movie that main protagonist was watching:
A psychological film about a man and woman apparently in love but
actually ...
- 461
34
votes
0
answers
878
views
Futuristic world where reality is humanity's plaything and God is in a zoo
This is a novel I read in 2015. It was an older book. The cover was black and hardcover. Don't remember any specific details. The book was in English. I believe it was from the 1980s or ‘90s.
It was ...
- 3,160
33
votes
0
answers
675
views
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:
...
- 331
33
votes
0
answers
2k
views
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, ...
- 4,757
33
votes
0
answers
1k
views
Old SF novel, set on a military ship, one character can't order spaghetti and meatballs because of sudden mid-voyage rationing?
This one is a real longshot. I won't be surprised if nobody can identify it. I read this book sometime in the early-to-mid-1980s. Science fiction novel, checked out from a public library, written in ...
- 26.8k
33
votes
0
answers
976
views
Story about man unable to wake up from dream
I am looking for a story which I read a long time back but cannot recall the name. The plot line was:
In a futuristic world, there are dream parlors which provide sleep with dream services. The ...
- 331
29
votes
0
answers
731
views
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 ...
- 299
28
votes
0
answers
553
views
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 ...
- 11.3k
28
votes
0
answers
499
views
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, ...
- 26.8k
28
votes
0
answers
521
views
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 ...
- 331
27
votes
0
answers
482
views
Novel about a spacewoman who needs help finding a holographic recording to defend herself in court
This was a science fiction novel, written in English, which I read in hardcover. I checked it out from a public library around the late 1980s. I don't know how old this book was at the time, but it ...
- 26.8k
27
votes
0
answers
1k
views
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 ...
- 271
26
votes
0
answers
885
views
Old SF novel about Earth as a prison planet; newly arrived convict has a secret agenda
I think I read this no later than the year 1986. English language, hardback, available in a public library in Indiana in the mid-1980s. I don't think it was by any of the Big Names of 20th Century ...
- 26.8k
26
votes
0
answers
901
views
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
26
votes
0
answers
645
views
Story about a rainstorm that only the blind can see
I would have read this some time probably in the early 1990s. I don't remember how old it was at the time.
I only remember the beginning, and a snatch of details from it:
Several blind characters
...
- 15.9k
25
votes
0
answers
640
views
Spanish-language comic book story about time-traveling Jewish kids becoming the legendary Adam and Eve?
Around 1992 or 1993, I borrowed a comic-book-format magazine from someone. It was a pretty thick publication (well over 100 pages, I'm thinking; maybe over 200?) and was printed in Spanish. I think I ...
- 26.8k
25
votes
1
answer
942
views
Man and boy left behind on damaged earth?
What is the name of the sci-fi story featuring an old man and boy who miss (on purpose in the man's case, accidentally in the boy's) the last shuttle leaving a destroyed, polluted earth?
I read it as ...
- 259
24
votes
0
answers
233
views
Story-id: “Lost in Space” novel (posted on USENET in 87-88) with an engineer and an AI trapped on a interstellar freighter and the other crew dead
This is an incredible long shot, because I read this in the late 80’s in a USENET newsgroup and I have no idea if it ever appeared in print.
In schoolyear 87-88 I had newsgroup access via my ...
- 3,118
24
votes
0
answers
404
views
Car crash leaves man in a world devoid of animal and human life. Sees red flashes with demons and voices
It was a movie from the late '80's to the early '90's.
A man and his girlfriend/wife are in a car arguing, driving down a road on a stormy night. They wreck, and she is gone, and he has a bad ...
- 433
24
votes
0
answers
493
views
Astronauts on Europa (moon), time-shift future, gravity, intelligent computer, Aries, 1960s?
I'm looking for the title and artists of a comic about some astronauts (around five I think) doing research/archaeology on (I think) Europa (Jupiter's moon). They're working when one or more of them ...
- 2,899
23
votes
0
answers
589
views
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
votes
0
answers
585
views
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
23
votes
0
answers
512
views
Article about science fiction languages
I'm looking for a journal item, probably written between 1992 and 1994, which discusses languages from Venus on the Half-Shell, Sagan's Contact, and several other novels, usually science fiction, ...
- 247
22
votes
0
answers
441
views
Man accidentally hired into government position, uncovers an attempted alien invasion
This is a book science fiction story. A man was accidentally hired into a (secret?) government position due to having the same exact name as their intended hire. I think that his name was "Mr. ...
- 115
22
votes
0
answers
308
views
+50
Aliens try to liberate "enslaved" dogs from humans
I saw this story in an anthology in a used bookstore in 2009.
When the aliens came, we negotiated a peace treaty with them. Everything was going fine until they said "oh, and you'll have to stop ...
- 321
22
votes
0
answers
528
views
A small group of children accidentally time-traveling to the future and learning about everyday life in an utopistic future society
I'm trying to find a science fiction novel about a small group of children accidentally time-traveling to the future and learning about everyday life in an utopistic future society. This is long, so ...
- 32.9k
22
votes
0
answers
483
views
A ruined USA, where protagonists are captured by a biker bandits encamped in a zoo
It was written in English. I read it around 2013-2014 in British Columbia, Canada when I was in middle school.
It could have been a short series, or one book.
The protagonists are young adults, and ...
- 371
22
votes
1
answer
760
views
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
votes
0
answers
343
views
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
votes
0
answers
596
views
A man sent to a parallel Earth to save someone important
This is not a novel, but "longish" short fiction, novelette or novella. I read it around 1984, in an already used book containing half a dozen or so stories, in a cheap hotel in the US. There were ...
- 11.8k
21
votes
0
answers
428
views
What's this serialised comic strip about a girl who discovers everyone around her is a robot?
As a kid in the '80s, I found myself often in doctor's waiting rooms. I devoured most of the comic magazines there. In one of those, I read fragments of a story that I would like to find.
The story ...
- 38.5k
21
votes
0
answers
602
views
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 ...
- 2,636
21
votes
1
answer
490
views
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 ...
- 303
20
votes
0
answers
211
views
Novel about a young botanist from a puritanical regime who is sent to study with an unconventional (and possibly immortal) woman
I read this around the mid-1980s -- no later than 1986 -- as a hardback I checked out from a public library in Indiana. I think I ran across it again, in another library, about a decade later, and at ...
- 26.8k
20
votes
0
answers
357
views
Sci-fi novel about a group of astronauts who discover a cylindrical world
In primary school there was a sci-fi novel that scared me into remembering it, I'm now looking to revisit it. This was about 19 years ago, and I estimate it to have been written in the 80's or very ...
20
votes
0
answers
233
views
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
votes
0
answers
396
views
WW2 airman is thawed out, and saves Earth from interplanetary invasion
I am trying to find the title and author of an extremely pulpy science fiction yarn. Unfortunately I do not know how the cover was - the version I had was secondhand, and in the vicissitudes of its ...
- 61.8k
20
votes
0
answers
377
views
Old movie involving unexplained handprint on mirror in spaceship
I would like the title of an old black-and-white movie. My best guess is that it would have been released in the 1950s or early 1960s, as I saw at least a small part of it when I was about ten years ...
- 301
20
votes
0
answers
327
views
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 ...
- 151
20
votes
1
answer
1k
views
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. ...
- 251
20
votes
1
answer
1k
views
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
votes
0
answers
233
views
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 ...
- 4,406
19
votes
0
answers
456
views
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 ...
- 5,990
19
votes
0
answers
799
views
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
votes
0
answers
373
views
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