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.
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I’m looking for a fantasy book with a female protagonist with red hair, who climbs a sacred rock and sparks civil unrest
I am looking for a book with a female protagonist that has red hair.
Her family and culture are seafaring, I feel like they are similar to Vikings. They are merchants, and she (I can’t recall if she ...
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Army's helmet displays monsters instead of humanoids
A friend recently described a science fiction short story on one of our walks. The story was about an army on a toxic planet killing what they thought were monsters. However the helmets they wore ...
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Sci fi short story that contains the line "My JJ's are melting!"
I'm trying to recall a short story from the 80's that, as I think back, seems prescient of several computing technologies we're currently using.
There was an AI capable of self-improvement and a ...
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I'm looking for a short story about a monastery where people use data analysis to improve their lives
I'm looking for a short story about a monastery where people use data analysis to improve their lives, and go out into the world to investigate "anomalies".
The story was set in the future, but not ...
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1
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Looking for the short story: personal robot assistants sitting on one's shoulder
I think the PDA's had a single eye. The protagonist is the only one that does not have one of these sitting on their shoulder, reading their mail for them, etc. The protagonist finds that the PDA's ...
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Horror movie where a guy loses his hand after putting his hand INTO a mirror? [duplicate]
I only vaguely remember a scene from a horror movie, where near the climax, the characters are trying to escape from the haunted house and during the escape, one of the ghosts (who is inside a mirror) ...
user75272
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Identify a book I have read about a war between humans and machines
I am looking for a specific book I have read some time ago. I do not have much information on this book, but it's a Sci-Fi book about a war between humans and machines(AI) in space, and most likely ...
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Can't remember book or author for anti-gravity ship
I read a short story or book once that used a lens to focus gravitational waves from a distant object to overcome the local gravity. For example, if the ship was on earth, one could focus the lens on ...
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Time travel story from textbook where a boy explores possible futures
I think this would have been in one of my textbooks around 1990 or so, 4th to 5th grade material in Kentucky.
A boy gains access to a time machine of the "visit your future self's body" sort. I ...
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Novella indentification about a boy who can wish just about anything and is scared to do so
I read this in the mid-eighties I believe, and the novella was about a boy against a wizard.
The way magic works in this universe is that the younger and purer you are, you are much more powerful. ...
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Post apocalyptic world, American pilot travels time with 2 other pilots and wants to find them
I don't remember names, but there is an American pilot flying along with two other jets when the bombs drop. They are somehow transferred into the future, many years after the bombs.
He then sets ...
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Short story about an artist who is forced by a demon to paint
I read the story in an anthology of fantasy and science fiction works in the late nineties, but it is possible that the story in question is considerably older than that. The plot centers around a ...
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Identify a story about a teen boy who learns to use magic with his lizard companion
Can you help me identify a book I read? It was intended for teenagers. I believe I read it in the late 1980s or early 1990s.
The main character is a teenage human boy from earth, who is learning to ...
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Looking for a specific novel about aliens and toilet paper time travel
I'm looking for a novel I read back in 2003-05. It might have been classified as a "young adult" novel although some parts I remember as being kind of graphic.
The novel begins with an alien child ...
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Book where a Prehistoric Hidden Meadow is Found by Two Teenaged Boys In France
I read this book in the late 70s, not sure when it was published.
One summer, two boys find a pristine meadow that can only be found through a narrow passageway. They first are drawn by pictographs ...
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Scifi YA story about boy leaving safe surroundings for supposedly unsafe environment
I read this story in German in the early to mid 1990's. As it was in the local library and looked quite used it might be older than that.
The cover I remember was a figure shown from behind in front ...
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Looking for a specific episode of tv show featuring guardian of calendar and Vietnam vet
I don't recall which series this was from... possibly Amazing Stories, or The Twilight Zone, or possibly something else like Tales from the Darkside, though that's less likely.
In this episode a ...
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3
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trying to identify b-movie from 70's where people trying to escape something in desert are hit & bludgeoned by spiky plants
I half watched this movie in downtown Los Angeles back in the 70's. All I could remember of this movie is that those spiky desert plants were swinging and whacking people to death. A few people were ...
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A short story that was a "Conan the Barbarian" parody -- kill the sorcerer Reh, "rescue" the princess
Sometime in the mid-to-late 1980s, I checked out a hardback anthology from a library. (English language, in the USA, and I have an impression that this anthology was pretty new at the time.)
One ...
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Story Identification: science fiction. Single human soul
The story centres on a detective or investigator who is strangely good at solving murders. The central idea is that if time and space are no obstacle, then only one human soul needs to have ever ...
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Short Story Identification - Boy Dismantling a Radio
Trying to identify a very short story (maybe four pages) about a boy trying to figure out how radio works, finally dismantling the machine to discover a small news reporter inside...
I've read in ...
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YA(?) book with crab-like aliens
This may be a YA book, probably from the early 2000s.
Crab-like aliens have turned earth into a hellhole simply by buying it for worthless alien "baubles".
The protagonist was a young guy who, I ...
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Searching for book- space exploration for aliens they return to earth which has already been invaded
I read a book about 2001 or so it may have been an old book then even, I really have no idea. Details may be sketchy but I think in the intro a character 'dies' by rocks falling on top of him. Then he ...
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2
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Actor who plays a starship captain is abducted by real aliens
I read a book about 20 years ago. It's about an actor who plays a starship captain in series like Star Trek, who gets kidnapped by real aliens and they replace him on Earth with an Android. They also ...
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1
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211
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Sci-Fi Short Story Identifcation. Time Travel, Takes Place on Titan?
I am looking to find a short story wherein a group of people leave their ship to respond to a distress signal on Titan (maybe?) They head into some kind of ice caverns on a mountain. The crew come to ...
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Educational film where all the bright colours were kidnapped by the evil gray monster
I'm looking for a short educational movie that I saw in first or second grade. It was primarily an educational tool, to teach kids about colors, particularly the mixing of colors. However, I was ...
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70s/80s ninja/martial arts movie with a Korean ninja and enemies having a flying fortress/castle
In the late early 1990s, I saw a few minutes of a 1970s/1980s Ninja Movie (not a cartoon or anime, a live action film) on a cheap local UHF TV station.
The movie in question has the following ...
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Illicit gay relationship between children of Starfleet officers
Trying to recall which episode of which fan series featured a plot involving a human and vulcan, both children of Starfleet officers, trying to work out what to do about their relationship (because it ...
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Name of a post-apocalyptic book [closed]
I can remember some details about the plot but not the title or author name.
The story is recent (it was published after 2000)
The apocalypse was caused by a mutated species of wasp called slavers
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Anthology of Horror short stories - one is about kids who find a dead baby and worship it as a God
I picked up a collection of short stories - possibly by one author, but more likely by several authors - about 15 years ago I would guess. One of the stories involved a young boy finding a dead baby ...
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Trying to find a book about aliens with clouds instead hair
I'm trying to find a book which I used to read at university some years ago. I remember just some very scarce details. It was English or American SF about aliens who invaded and occupied the Earth. ...
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space race retracing a legendary artist's life
Here's what I remember:
Cover: hardcover, turquoise, possible thin yellow embellishment/design in one corner
Author: Slavic, Jaroslav, maybe?
Age: old & obscure
Setting: feudalism
Plot:
A ...
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80s-90s book about a high school student werewolf who meets a girl who becomes a vampire [duplicate]
The name currently escapes me, but the story goes along the lines of that the protagonist, a high school student, who is a werewolf, meets a new student by the name of Elise.
Somewhere down the lines,...
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80s/90s movie scene where tentacles grab and pull person through bath drain
There is a movie that I am trying to look for and the scene that I remember most was a scene where a teenage girl was taking a bath in a old bathtub without a showerhead and what looked like to be ...
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Alien visitor to planet forced to carry warrior's intestines in pilgrimage
This one is another one of those vague memories that keeps coming to me in maddeningly scarce detail. It was a paperback book that I read in English in the United States, probably in the mid 1990s. ...
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Short story - spaceship that crashed and injured pilot
Probably 50 years ago I read a short story about a space ship that crashed on either mercury or Venus and injured the pilot.
An alien shows up and can converse with the Earth controllers, but no ...
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Old short story about climbing the toughest mountain in the known universe
Sometime in the 1980s, in a science fiction anthology (English language, hardback, checked out from a library), I read a short story that went along the following lines:
The story is written in the ...
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Atomic man story identification
I am trying to identify a story where a man drinks a potion of dark matter that makes him increasing smaller so that he slips through atoms and sees universes in them. Story/stories probably between ...
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Futuristic setting where citizens pay via "ID chips"
This is a book I never finished so I can only give a brief summary of the beginning of the book.
From what I remember, the story is a futuristic setting where citizens pay via "ID chips" and they ...
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Poignant short story about doomed romance between human male and birdlike alien female [duplicate]
The aliens are treated like second class citizens and forced to perform in some sport with a high fatality rate.
I think the story happens on Earth.
Can anyone identify the story please?
user75031
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What was title of circa 1950s sci fi movie where a flying saucer is accidentally opened by electric razor?
I remember watching a sci fi movie as a child but haven't been able to identify the title. If I recall, a flying saucer was found in China (?) but they couldn't find out how to enter it. Then one of ...
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Cartoon Identification: Late-70s or early 80s robot Romeo & Juliet story
I don't recall much except the story revolves around a boy robot who is on a journey to meet/save a girl robot in a very Romeo/Juliet story.
It was definitely in the style of the late 70s to mid 80s ...
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2
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Movie circa 2005? Involves cops, gangsters, demons?
There's a movie I watched a few years ago. It's crap, but it's really bugging me that I can't think of its name.
I think it was released around 2005 (possibly earlier, but no earlier than 2003 or ...
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Anime: Teens fighting with little robots in their hands who shoot round bullets
So there's this anime that is about children/teens fighting with little robots in their hands who shoot round bullets. Don't remember anything about the plot.
There are also toys like those robots ...
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1
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Fantasy novel with three families, Porta, Gates, and Janus
It was a print novel, in English. I barely remember the details. There were three families besides the family of the main character, whose last names were Porta, Gates, and Janus. The main character ...
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1
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TV episode where people are in a cave/tunnel and get teleported to the other coast
I'm looking to identify a movie or more probably TV series episode I saw in the nineties.
In this movie, two (possibly young) adults are in some kind of cave or rather tunnel, when a mysterious blue/...
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2
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Novel about a high school student werewolf meeting a girl (Elise) who becomes a vampire
I'm searching for an old novel I read back in high school. It involved the main protagonist being a high school student who is also a Lycan (werewolf). It's set in high school, where she meets a new ...
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1
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Short Story - Next stage of human evolution has a language they all understand. Protagonist is father who can only read it
I read this somewhere in the early 1990s in a science fiction anthology, I think. The protagonist is a man with a young son. He learns that some of the books that his son has are written in language ...
- 225k
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Late 70s/Early 80s - Artist paints the true nature of people
About 15 years ago I was reading an older fantasy book that I have now lost. It was probably written in the late 70s to early 80s. I only remember a few scenes and ideas in it.
In one scene, the ...
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Story identification - starships powered by captured gods?
I recall reading a short story many, many years ago. One of the major plot elements was that there was a ship powered by some sort of captured god or deity, but I can't recall much more than that? ...
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