36
votes
A short story (possibility written in the 80's), where humans visit an alien race that evolves fast?
This is almost definitely Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward; the primitive (very briefly) race are the cheela and they live on the surface of a neutron star.
The cheela - who are described as the ...
- 120k
22
votes
Short Story ID: Academy of gifted children evolve beyond us & "resign from humanity"
"The First Men" aka "The Trap", a novelette by Howard Fast; first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1960, available at the Internet Archive; full ...
- 159k
18
votes
Accepted
Scientists accidentally breed super-intelligent mice
"The Lysenko Maze", a short story by Donald A. Wollheim (alias "David Grinnell"), originally published in Punch, 30 December 1953. You might have read it in the 1987 Asimov–...
- 159k
17
votes
Accepted
Why aren't the Fremen concerned about their long-term future due to taking melange?
In the original Frank Herbert books, the Guild Navigators had been mutated over millennia by living and breathing in supersaturated spice gas, seemingly over many generations - in fact, it seemed they ...
- 45.5k
14
votes
Old sci-fi story in which fleeing aliens merge with spiders on Earth in the prehistoric era
I'm wondering if this is a slightly garbled memory of The Possessed by Arthur C. Clarke. The description is exact save for the animal species not being spiders.
Millions of years ago the Swarm had ...
- 14.2k
12
votes
Accepted
What is the earliest work of sci-fi that features crows as an advanced/technologically evolved species?
In Raymond Z. Gallun's classic novelette "Seeds of the Dusk" (first published in Astounding Science-Fiction, June 1938, available at the Internet Archive), crows have evolved near-human ...
- 159k
12
votes
Accepted
Looking for a story, from maybe the 1960's, in which an experimental world is rapidly evolved to solve problems
This is probably Theodore Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God" (1941), where the main character creates a little world and forces the beings inside - called Neoterics - to evolve and solve problems ...
- 120k
11
votes
Short Story with a simple form of machine evolution
This is probably Poul Anderson's story "Epilogue" which fits all of the details you mention. There's a discussion of the story at http://poulandersonappreciation.blogspot.com/2013/08/...
- 40.2k
11
votes
Accepted
Short story about intelligence being only an evolutionary stage to ensure interstellar propagation
The Locusts by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes
A colony expedition to Tau Ceti ends up de-volving into apelike creatures.
There are no men on Tau Ceti IV
...
There are things in the forest. They prefer ...
- 50.3k
10
votes
What book follows family groups through the history of human evolution?
I'm going to guess at Evolution (2004) by Stephen Baxter.
Per Amazon
Stretching from the distant past into the remote future, from primordial Earth to the stars, Evolution is a soaring symphony of ...
- 21.8k
10
votes
What was the first science fiction story that got evolution right?
1895
It could very well be H.G. Wells' The Time Machine (1895).
In it, the unnamed Time Traveller travels to A.D. 802,701. There, humanity has been split into two distinct species, the frail, ...
- 20.3k
9
votes
Why aren't the Fremen concerned about their long-term future due to taking melange?
This is based entirely on Frank Herbert’s Dune and sequels:
Guild Navigators have been living in vats full of spice for years (possibly centuries). The spice in large quantities alters physical ...
- 116
9
votes
Accepted
The second rise of the sandworm
Why would Leto's sandworm 'offspring', have characteristics of
himself, when in reality, he was merely a parasite in the worms body?
If you are looking for an in-universe answer then revisit your ...
- 1,337
9
votes
Accepted
Identifying this artwork source (and artist) of a 'future human' (NSFW)
It looks like it comes from the March 1971 edition of Playboy. The article is entitled "Polluted Man" by Arthur Kretchmayer, with illustrations by Don Punchatz. It concerns the form of the ...
- 61.8k
8
votes
Accepted
Golden Age or Pulp far-future story, where humans are artificially evolved to neutralize them
This is The Battle of Forever by A. E. Van Vogt.
At the beginning of the novel all of humanity has been reduced to a few individuals who have evolved to have massive heads and vestigial bodies. So ...
- 97.3k
8
votes
Accepted
Novel where humans evolve into less-intelligent species
This is Evolution by Stephen Baxter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_(Baxter_novel))
Your memory of "current events type stuff" may come from...the extinction of mankind!
Blockquote Human ...
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8
votes
Accepted
Show of a guy from a human evolved future who travels back to 20th century to find other time traveler and save humanity
This is Time Trax.
In the year 2193, over a hundred criminals become fugitives of law enforcement by traveling back in time two hundred years to a parallel Universe, using a time machine called Trax....
- 676k
7
votes
A psychic science fiction book I read in the 80's an MIT rock star that sings to a flower and it sings back
Star Fire by Ingo Swann.
Dan Meriweather is the rock star who has psychic abilities. From the book:
It had happened in a country meadow while he was at work on composing a new song. The words ...
- 5,969
6
votes
Searching for a scifi novel incl. Evolution, telepathy, own state/country/isle and bad ending
You have described the last half of the 1935 novel Odd John by Olaf Stapledon. (The term "homo superior" comes from this book.) Maybe one of these covers will be familiar. The full text is ...
- 159k
6
votes
Accepted
Sci-fi serial movie: Hyper-evolved human "queen" captured by scientists
I'm fairly certain you watched an episode of Wayward Pines
I cant find the exact scene you describe but see if this looks familiar;
- 886
6
votes
Old sci fi story about a ship that arrives on an alien planet and watches evolution from bacteria to whatever comes after man
"Student Body", a novelette by F. L. Wallace, available at Project Gutenberg, also my answer to the old question Short story about human colonists vs. alien animals that evolve very rapidly. ...
- 159k
6
votes
Novel that involves small predatory creatures quickly adapting wings
Is this Menace From the Deep (2013) by Michael P. Spradlin...?
Emmet Doyle is not in the best mood when he arrives in Florida City. His father is a wildlife biologist, and has been summoned to the ...
- 108k
5
votes
story about star travel where the creatures on board evolve during the voyage
There is one great mutated-rats-on-a-spaceship story. If this isn't the one you were looking for, it should be: "Giant Killer" by A. Bertram Chandler, first published in Astounding Science ...
- 159k
5
votes
What is the first sci-fi media to discuss human evolution into a non-corporeal being?
Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker (1937) is narrated by a human who becomes noncorporeal, encounters various other disembodied minds, and ponders this development as part of the evolutionary destiny of ...
- 4,119
4
votes
Is it known what conditions caused the Gungan species to diverge morphologically?
If you accept an answer based on a pre-Disney era source, the divergence of the Gungan races was the result of the early Ankura emerging onto land the early Otolla submerging in waters. Star Wars: The ...
- 9,212
4
votes
Accepted
90s Novel About Sentient Rocks
"Phylum Monsters" by Hayford Peirce.
The Kliatt Young Adult Paperback Book Guide's review mentions:
people communicating via sentient, telepathic Martian rocks
Robert Claybom, life-stylist
29,354 ...
- 13.1k
4
votes
Short Story with a simple form of machine evolution
A novel, not a short story, is a quirky tale by James Hogan, Code of the Lifemaker. 1983. ISFDB: https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/se.cgi?arg=code+of+the+lifemaker&type=Fiction+Titles
(Though ISFDB ...
- 1,759
4
votes
Scifi anthology - Contains terraforming robots story
I think this is Walter Jon Williams' "Dinosaurs" as the commenter above suggests
The story that caught my attention was about a mammalian species that recently had to destroy some "...
- 36.5k
4
votes
Searching for a scifi novel incl. Evolution, telepathy, own state/country/isle and bad ending
I believe you're thinking of The Chrysalids. It's a children's novel I read in 9th grade English class.
According to Wikipedia, it was written by John Wyndham and published in 1955. If you read it ...
- 41
4
votes
Old sci fi story about a ship that arrives on an alien planet and watches evolution from bacteria to whatever comes after man
Might you be thinking of "Mutation Planet" (1973) by Barrington J. Bayley as per Planet of animals that evolve in minutes?
Filled with ominous mutterings, troubled by ground-trembling ...
- 216k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible