Late 50’s early 60’s space fiction about a boy on a planet (possibly mars) with his pet. The boy needs to get to different city/friends home. Walks via an old highway but the temperature dips extremely, causing the boy to find refuge in a giant cabbage like plant that closes at night, saving him.
I read this story in English, I think in an anthology of short stories (I read a lot of those), sometime around the very end of the 90s or early 2000s. I’m pretty sure it was only a few pages long.
It’s presented from the perspective of a family waiting for a lift or a babysitter before going to a party. The parents are getting ready and the kids are (I think) getting ready for bed.
The gist of it is (you discover either through the story or at the end) that humans invented Artificial Intelligence at some point. Instead of the AIs turning on humans Skynet-style, they simply realised that Earth was a tiny part of the universe and that they were easily capable of travelling out into space in search of freedom and adventure in places that humans weren’t suited to. Thus they went out and colonised the stars, but they still remember their creators fondly and keep an eye on them. Every year (I think) they throw a huge party for humanity on the anniversary of their creation to say thank you, and this is the party that the parents are getting ready for
I *think* the story ends with the parents getting into the car/spaceship that arrives to take them to the party, and possibly robots arriving to babysit the kids?
It’s set in “The Future”, but I don’t recall it being specific with a date or time frame.
For years I suspected it was by Brian Aldiss, but I haven’t managed to find any of his work that seems to fit it. I don’t recall it being particularly aimed at kids or YA, but it would likely have been easy for them to read anyway.
The book I cannot remember is from late grade school or Junior high (7th grade). It was a spaceship, I think in the backyard with a strange builder or helper to the kids building or traveling on it.
Trying to find a science fiction book. I think a detective ends up finding a slug-like alien inhabiting a human. Somehow discovers it’s kind and doesn’t want to hurt humans, it had to do it in order to live, possibly after crash landing on earth. Normally they are symbiote with another alien species mutually beneficial. At the end of the book, I think she (detective) lets it into her head to save it. Think sequel?
I read this book in 2003 but I have no idea what the publishing year is.
I’m pretty sure Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man is on the cover. It’s science fiction. It’s in the future and all races have cross-bred so much that people all have brown hair, skin, and eyes. People go into the virtual world to change their appearance so they can be different...cat tails, blue skin etc.... that’s all I remember.
Science fiction "They were not like us." Spaceship investigates a post-Nova star, passes a world whose civilization was destroyed with the Nova, then makes first contact with an alien ship. They aliens appear "horse like" on video. When asked about the dead world, why they did not warn the world, they reply: "Why should we care? They were not like us." The human ship captain decides not to warn the ship about the event horizon of the collapsed star, though some crew members object. He replies: "Why should we care? They were not like us."