Category Archives: Science Fiction

289J: Spaceship disaster thriller (Solved)

[/private role="author"]Brandy Hartnett, bhartnett808@gmail.com[/private]

I read this in elementary school in the 90s. It’s more of a young adult book not a children’s book. There was a spaceship that people lived on and something happened, I think the ship got torn in half by an asteroid or a meteor or something like that. I think an asteroid/meteor field was coming their way, so everyone on the ship was supposed to evacuate to one side of the ship so they could seal off the middle in case of damage from the asteroid and a couple of kids or people got stuck on the side that everyone had evacuated from. They thought they were going to die but the side with all the people on it ended up being breached and everyone was exposed to space and died. So now the group of people or kids on the other side were alone. And all the controls for the ship had been on the side that got destroyed. So they try to figure out how to get rescued or land somewhere. I remember the end being very depressing. Their last hope of survival was to get their floating ruined spaceship close enough to the last planet that there were any people on, which I believe was Pluto, so that someone could essentially snag their spaceship. But they were too far away and the book ended with them floating off into space with the impression that they would starve to death. I always remember the book title having something to do with butterflies but I could be wrong. I remember the cover having a purple/ red magenta space swirl incorporated on it.

288B: The fall of the house of something (Solved)

Title was the fall of the house of something or the fall of something It starts off with the house finally being finished and a storm coming in. Main character is a guy who is an engineer, he has just completed a house and this group of people said it would have to be destroyed because it was forbidden. He said, okay but let me have a party in it first, you can be the guests. Then the people came to the party and he shows them the robots he made to look exactly like them. The entertainment is the robots being tortured and killed in awful ways. Each person of this committee kind of disappears until only one man was left and then he realized it was the people of the committee being tortured and killed and that it was the robots who are laughing and who he had thought were the people. And he is next in line to die.

284B: An unsettling short story

At some point 15-25 years ago, I read a short story that I wanted to find for my son to read.  I have googled like mad but cannot find it.  Here is what I remember:

Set in a dystopian future, a couple puts on some special skin suits so they can have relations.  Then they discuss their desire to adopt a child and how they found a broker who can help them.  You learn that what children there are are wild and live outside the city. They drive out of the city into some ruined/abandoned area where the broker, an old man, is waiting at an old parking garage.  In the end, it is the wild kids who control the broker, not the other way around and they have used this ruse to lure the couple into their trap.

I so hope you can put me out of my misery.  These are the things that wake me up at night!

281F: Boy looks out a window and see different creatures (solved)

A boy looks out of a window at night and sees different kinds of colored monsters (green goblin, blue unicorn, or some such, a new one every page) in the tree outside his window but isn’t scared because they aren’t real. Finally he sees a brown owl and IS scared (because the owl is real). I had this book in the 1980s. The words are a repetitive pattern each page until he sees the owl.

275D: Bodysuits change colour

This was a children’s novel about a advanced human society living separate to an abandoned post-disaster world.

The inhabitants now live in a peaceful and educated way, having somehow atoned for the previous mistakes. Everyone wears a bodysuit that changes colour dependant on the mood of the wearer. One scene describes a young girl’s family living room where the children ‘paint’ an image on a kind of computer screen that is displayed as an artwork.

In another, the children visit the old city, a chaotic abandoned world. My memories are sketchy but I think they find something there and the protagonist – I think it was the young girl – must walk through a super modern hall, a busy public area, with her bodysuit flashing colours wildly. The bodysuits glowed gently when the wearers were calm, and most were calm, so it was obvious to all when one was upset or aggressive.

Really quite incredibly prophetic as it must have been written before 1985. I borrowed it from a library in Australia in the early 1980’s.

 

264F: Seeking 1970s Dystopian Novella

Read this in 1993. From what I remember of the paperback cover, it was likely published in the 1970s, but possibly 1980s. A futuristic society records their citizens’ dreams (through their pillows?) and if your number is announced that means your dream will be broadcast to the entire community the next morning. If your dream is somehow controversial or doesn’t fall in line with community standards and teachings, you may be sent for reeducation/punishment. An adolescent/young teenage girl is the narrator. She is super concerned her crush may be revealed in her dreams. It was less than 200 pages. Probably intended for a young adult audience, but couldn’t say for sure.