Category Archives: Status

362V: Robot Follows Guy Forever

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A large, slow-walking robot is after a guy who has something the robot wants (or he’s after the guy). The robot doesn’t walk around homes or buildings to get to him, but leaves a path of destruction by walking through them, killing people along the way. No matter where the guy goes, the robot will follow.
JUMP TO THE END: 
The solution to keep everyone safe is the authorities used a large warehouse and lured the robot to it. A camper, loaded with everything you need to live, had the guy (or the item) in the camper. Because the robot walked so slowly, they were able to drive in a circle and the robot followed forever.

362U: 1980s British teens in love novel (Solved!)

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1980s British novel about working-class teens in love
I think the title was the names of the two characters, like “Frankie & Tina” (but not that.) (But “Tina” might be right.)

The novel was for adults, but it was about teenagers, and I read it as an American child in the early to mid 1980s. It was about two working-class teens coming of age who fall in love. It may have been an interracial romance, or possibly the girl on the cover just had darker skin in the drawing. I think they got married. They may have also had a baby. I think there was a lot of dialect or slang. It was a bit gritty and had vivid detail about their jobs and things like that, but it was pretty cheerful, not like a “kitchen sink” drama. It could have been an earlier book reprinted in the ’80s and I’m starting to think it could have been a British reprint of an Australian book. Basically starting to overthink everything. It is not the Kevin & Sadie series or Oscar & Lucinda.
The cover was a crayon-style drawing of the two characters. The way I remember it, it had a dark blue background on the cover and an orange spine. This makes me think Penguin (but not one the series that all have the same covers.) The cover art had very similar style to these covers:

362R: Wild Manipulation / Duplication Box Adventures

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Science Fiction / Fantasy

Originally read in ebook format on a nook or kindle around 2010 or 2011. The book was free. No history on services.

Man Travels the Universe using software

The book starts off on a ship with a team of people headed to Mars (it is possible the book started with them there). The team is given or find a box which they find has symbols and words inside it. The entire team studies the item. They find they can replicate items by putting it in the box. The main character discovers how to manipulate the symbols and words, which he relates to programming BASIC, to do different things. Together with a female teammate they decide to terraform Mars by opening a path to earths atmosphere. They then head back to earth using the device (instant transport).

They are a couple for a while on earth where they figure out how to duplicate money and do some other fun things. At some point they are discovered by someone. A “creator” who invites them to their place somewhere in time / space. The creator has traveled time and space and acquired all sorts of historical documents and brought interesting people to his home.  He talks about an experiment with sports players and taking Babe Ruth out of his era and putting him in the current era and Babe Ruth still excels in the current era. He also talks about viewings of history through a pinhole in time which allows him to see but the people he is viewing in history to not know.

Up to this point the main character has been traveling with the female companion. The “creator” breaks them up by introducing the man to an actress that had died in the 1930’s to 1950’s but he pulled her out of one of the realities and brought her to his home.  He ends up sleeping with the actress. The woman companion knows what happened. They then break up. The “creator” says it was for the best as it would never have lasted.  Tells him he can go wherever, whenever he wants and if the actress wants to go, she can.  While here the creator also transfers his brain to a younger body of his using the “syntax”.  The ‘creator” gives the man a pda (older style tablet) device that has pre-loaded code written to accomplish specific tasks, like duplication, portals. The man and the actress travel back to his current time and create a movie with the actress as the lead role (even through in this reality she has been dead for years). Can’t remember much after this.

There was a sequel to the book where a different man finds a pda in a bar bathroom and figures out how to use it and goes on some epic quests. The original owner of the pda was placed in a coma and was hospitalized.  in the second book was trying to have the universe re-written with his DNA encoded but a programmer said it was not possible.

362Q: Old Fairytale Collection

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I am looking for a fairytale collection that I remember from my youth. My mom bought them for us in the 1950s and my stepmother has thrown them out. Sorry, I do not have the title. Here is what I remember: There was a set of three books. The cover was hard-bound and cream-colored. Each book had a small colored panel on the spine. One green, one red and one brown. I recall that they contained “The Princess and the Pea”, “Rapunzel” and “Rutabaga Tale” I would love to buy these treasured tomes if anyone has them.

362P: Pets Hold Surprise Birthday Party for Woman (Solved!)

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I have been looking for a book that was very important to me as a child that I lent to a friend and never was returned. It was about an older woman who lived alone with her pets , basically a picture book, the cover was a nighttime picture I believe of her house from a distance , as she was coming home to her animals , who had made her a birthday party to surprise her. It may have been called something like ‘the birthday party’, but I completely forget. I have been looking for many years for this book. No hits wherever I have searched, have tried all titles I could think of. Anyone? Probably 1950s.

362O: Child Finds Way Home by North Star

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I’m trying to think of a book I used to read probably around the year 2000.

The kid (can’t remember if it’s a boy or girl) lives on a farm with their dad, their mother has died. Every Christmas Eve they give the barn animals Christmas treats. At some point the kid gets lost in the woods with their dog. They follow the North Star to head back home and are found by the dad and their neighbor.

362N: Special-Needs Neighbor Girl

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My mother has tasked me into finding a book for her that she read when she was young in the 1960s. She thinks it was published around this time. Here are the best details I could extract from her:
 
  1. Neighbor writes about mentally retarded neighbor girl
  2. Nonfiction, told from the perspective of the a neighbor reflecting about a neighbor girl growing up mentally retarded, with that neighbor girl eventually dying. Mom thinks the word “Wagon” is in the title. She also believes that the story had something to do with a wagon in the yard. Also, the neighbor telling the story had a boyfriend or a crush on a boy.
My mother stated that she wasn’t sure if the girl had Down syndrome or not, as this was before she even knew what that was, so she described it as “mentally retarded”. Those were all the details I could extrapolate, hoping you can help. That book brings a lot of nostalgia for my mother and will be a birthday present if I can get a name of the book.