Category Archives: Science Fiction

340T: Philosophical Conversation All The Rage On Worldwide Network

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Looking for a science fiction novel which starts with an older man on a park bench having a conversation with two or three youths (I think young men, teens). It is a philosophical conversation, mostly about economics and society. The interaction is recorded via a smart device, and uploaded to the worldwide network; it becomes enormously popular, the old man becomes quite wealthy and the teens are viewed as somewhat famous (infamous?) for their part in the conversation as foils, even decades later. This may have been a novella or short story, as well, and may have been by Vernor Vinge or David Brin; it would have come out after 1990 or thereabouts.

339N: Who is the author? Begins with Stephen…not King or Crane (Solved!)

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I am recalling an early short story writer, from the 1930s and 1940s, he wasn’t known as a science fiction author but wrote a piece of science fiction about a take over of the world by machines. They weren’t AI or anything that sophisticated. No microprocessors. The takeover included automobiles and even irons and vacuum cleaners. The machines just revolted. I think that the story was told by a person in an enclosed room waiting to die, telling his tale. The writer’s first name was Stephen. My parents had a copy of “The Complete Works of Stephen….” or “The Collected Works of Stephen….” but I can’t remember his last name. Does anyone who it might be? I believe he also wrote some poetry included in the set.  I think there were two volumes.

337M: Girl Escapes Dystopian World Through Sewer To Find Mother

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In the mid- 90s we had a college student come to my class for a project on the impact of sci-fi/fantasy novels on kids.  We had a selection of books to choose from, like “Girl with the Silver Eyes” and the Tripod trilogy.  There was one I started, but had to give back the next day as the project ended earlier for some reason.
I think the title had something to do with “moon” or had the word “moon” in it.  It started with a girl escaping a city through the sewer (I think she lived there with extended family?) to go find her mother.  I think it was kind-of in the dystopian genre.  The mom was presumed dead, or shunned from society in some way.

337G: Fear of Being Crushed in the Crowd was Unfounded

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Please help me.  This is driving me crazy.  I believe this book was written in the 60’s, possibly.

Around 1980 I read a book in middle school English class about a boy who lived in a large city but no one was allowed to go outside for fear of being crushed.  Everyone had a tv/internet-like machine in their home where they ordered things and they were sent into the home via a chute.

There were warnings from the “government” via tv to stay inside or they would be crushed by the mass of people on the streets outside.

The boy decided to go outside and found there was actually no one on the streets at all.

336V: Funny Dragon-ish creature (Kaz?)

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I think the book was to be one of a series, but I only read the first one. It was set in a land with a limited map, like a world within a land, and the people who lived in the land where unaware of the wider world.

There was a red dragon or lizard named Jaz or Baz or Kaz who was funny and the best friend of the human, who I believe was female.

The cover had the lizard-type creature perched on a roadside boulder, with the road winding down a hill and maybe clouds around the edges.
I believe I read it in the 90’s or 00’s

 In addition, my son says this:
Kaz is the name of the dragon for sure. The land is separated by walls, and one or some start breaking down and that’s the main conflict. Later they find out that the world is set up that way because of fantasy space computers.

336U: Space Cruise In Nice Fit Body Goes Awry

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There is a science fiction novel I read in the 1980's, and I think it was a new title in that decade, although I am not certain about that. It was the story of a fat guy who had saved for a luxury space cruise vacation and had rented a sexy, fit body to occupy for his trip. After boarding the cruise ship, he discovered the body he was given by accident was a special combat model, and people thought he was someone else. They were chasing him to interrogate and/or kill him, and he had to rely upon the combat reflexes of the rented body to keep him alive, while trying to figure out what was going on.

335K: A Time Traveling Soldier

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I’m on a mission to find a book that I read years ago. Sci-Fi. It takes place in the future with a genetically modified soldier that gets injected with a drug that lets him occupy the bodies of his ancestors. Then, the 2 doctors who injected him also inject themselves to chase the dangerous solder thru time. One of the doctors is an alcoholic man and the other is a woman in a wheelchair.

The man doctor drinks a lot every night and then leaves the host with the hangovers! LOL One of the hosts was a Roman soldier. They argue every morning, inside “their” head, about the hangover.
The woman doctor doesn’t want to go back to modern times, because in the past her hosts are not in wheelchairs!
The soldier seems to be related to every bad guy ever known – Hitler, Napoleon, etc. Or related to someone near them.
I think I read this book in the late 70s or early 80s.

334K: Evolved Rats Vs Devolved Humans In Once Radioactive City

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When I was young, 12 maybe, I checked a book out of the local library, reading it several times, which initiated a life long live of post apocalyptic fiction. In the book a young boy about my age lives with a tribe outside the ruins of a large city that might have been Chicago. The tribe is at the hunter gatherer level of technology. And his main weapon is a spear. The city itself is a blast zone/dead zone no one is allowed to go in because it is supposedly radioactive. I don’t remember why but he heads into the dead zone and discovers the radiation is no longer deadly. But living in the ruins are a race of evolved rat beasts that are six feet tall, stand on their hind legs, and are spear wielding. The rat beasts come after him and he has a series of near misses until he escapes the dead zone and is rescued in a big showdown between the human tribe and the rat tribe, being saved by the adults whose rules he defied. The book had large-ish print and excellent pen and ink drawings sprinkled throughout. I went back to the library that I got it from but the destroyed my old library card and no longer have the book. It would have been published in the 1950’s or first part of the 60’s. Any help finding it would be greatly appreciated.

 

333Y: SciFi Plot Fragment – The Harmony and The Melody (Solved!)

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I read this book at the Boulder Library, it was written in this century (I think).
Earth humans are subjugated by a technologically superior species.  At first the foolish Earthlings (are there any other kind?) think the superior species is a bunch of evil meanies.   They come to find out that the meanies are actually helpful in protecting humans from far more pitiless and powerful adversaries, who have factions called Harmony and Melody, and when a defector from the adversary conveys information to the meanies, it is compelled to destroy itself because it’s contaminated by inferiors.