All Questions
6,186
questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
63
votes
0
answers
3k
views
Story about enemies in a space battle sharing their last moments over com as their ships die
I am looking for the title of a short sci-fi story which I read sometime around the mid '80s.
It is about a man and a woman talking through some communication system during the last moments of their ...
- 639
46
votes
0
answers
2k
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 ...
- 561
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
40
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 ...
- 1,196
33
votes
0
answers
337
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 ...
- 381
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, ...
- 4,493
32
votes
0
answers
796
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 ...
- 3,130
32
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 ...
- 25.5k
31
votes
0
answers
617
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:
...
- 311
30
votes
0
answers
704
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 ...
- 309
30
votes
0
answers
849
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 ...
- 301
29
votes
0
answers
465
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 ...
- 10k
28
votes
1
answer
675
views
What is the Galactic Senate emblem meant to depict?
Most of the emblems used throughout Star Wars are abstract geometric symbols, often with a radial symmetry pattern. According to the answers to this question, they have a spiritual/religious origin.
...
- 14.8k
27
votes
0
answers
451
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, ...
- 25.5k
27
votes
0
answers
494
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 ...
- 321
27
votes
0
answers
851
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?), ...
- 10k
27
votes
0
answers
465
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 ...
- 25.5k
27
votes
0
answers
611
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
...
- 15.8k
26
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 ...
- 261
25
votes
0
answers
203
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 ...
- 2,926
25
votes
0
answers
622
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 ...
- 25.5k
25
votes
1
answer
850
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
950
views
Who is this character in the video for "The Saga Begins" by Weird Al Yankovic?
In the video for the Weird Al Yankovic song "The Saga Begins" (1999), Weird Al is playing at a Mos Eisley-type cantina, where several aliens can be seen dancing alongside the regular Star Wars ...
user102525
24
votes
0
answers
539
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 ...
- 249
23
votes
0
answers
423
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. ...
- 135
23
votes
0
answers
381
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 ...
- 423
23
votes
0
answers
573
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 ...
- 12.6k
23
votes
0
answers
475
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 ...
- 2,859
23
votes
0
answers
500
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
726
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 ...
- 25.5k
22
votes
0
answers
575
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 ...
- 8,236
22
votes
0
answers
398
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 ...
- 37.4k
22
votes
0
answers
482
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 ...
- 32.6k
22
votes
0
answers
478
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
447
views
What species are the skulls seen in Dr. McCoy's office from?
Dr. McCoy, aka Bones, has a couple of weird skulls in his office, as seen in the following picture from the episode "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" (they are highlighted with red arrows and ...
- 9,194
21
votes
0
answers
323
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
578
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 ...
- 2,505
21
votes
1
answer
414
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
355
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
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
20
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Why does the 'hand of the king' symbol show a left hand?
The right hand often appears as a metaphor in the bible or as a motif in art so it would make more sense if the pin shows the right hand.
- 301
19
votes
0
answers
326
views
Short story about a pilot who crash lands on an alien planet and is nursed back to health by an octopus-like creature with strong maternal instincts
Does anyone know what this story is? Here are the details I know:
A pilot crashes on some form of embattled planet.
On the planet there is an octopus mom-type creature. She is very large and her ...
- 232
19
votes
0
answers
433
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 ...
- 6,267
19
votes
0
answers
372
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 ...
- 55.5k
19
votes
0
answers
1k
views
Does Skynet Feel Guilty?
I stumbled upon a reference from James Cameron stating that Skynet has felt guilty for 30 years with regards to the near extinction of human life. He even suggests that Skynet has used time travel in ...
- 334
19
votes
0
answers
413
views
Short story about a man who receives a floppy disk with a program that can answer any question
I read this in the mid 1990s. It was a short story set in contemporary time (the era it was written), about a man who received a package in the mail that just contained a floppy disk. The program on ...
- 541
19
votes
0
answers
789
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
19
votes
0
answers
457
views
Out of universe, have any actions by Harvey Dent ever been determined by tossing a coin?
Are there interviews where any Batman writer (Comic, TV or Film) has admitted to tossing a coin to decide what Harvey Dent was going to do next?
I'll accept rolling a die (or any other method) as ...
- 7,143
18
votes
0
answers
207
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 ...
- 4,396