I've been looking for this particular short sci-fi story for several years and I am finally giving up on going solo. Help me find it, hive mind.
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posted by mr_crash_davis
on Mar 20, 2013 -
5 answers
Please help me identify a short story I read in high school. It's about a man who claims that he can make people disappear to the extent that no-one will remember that they ever existed. He is asked to prove the claim... *possible spoilers inside*
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posted by pianissimo
on Mar 2, 2013 -
2 answers
Can you help me identify a 25+ year-old short story that describes someone unable to cross a city street?
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posted by argonauta
on Nov 13, 2012 -
10 answers
Half remembered short story: Girl and Guy meet at rail station waiting room. Feel a relationship spark. They walk into nearest Town and dance at a bar.
Halfway through the story the couple realise that they (and everyone else in the railway waiting room) are ghosts. *Might* have been a originally posted to the metafilter?
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posted by Faintdreams
on Nov 7, 2012 -
5 answers
What's the story where the guy talks to a bunch of dead people and then finds out he's dead?
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posted by nzero
on Sep 15, 2012 -
12 answers
I'm trying to recall a Star Trek short story published 25-30 years ago. I have no author or title. It was in an anthology.
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posted by Mblue
on Aug 20, 2012 -
6 answers
Looking for a short story I read 2 or 3 years ago about a robot who worked in a church, and started reading scripture, and was eventually killed by the townspeople because of it.
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posted by Gargantuantoe
on Apr 10, 2012 -
5 answers
Help me find two pieces of literature I read about thirty years ago, one a short story, the other a poem.
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posted by Toekneesan
on Mar 9, 2012 -
9 answers
What's this Sci-Fi short story? A scientist working on gender selection technology is contacted by future potential outcomes of his work (a male-dominated world and a woman-dominated world) that end up corresponding to the woman he marries.
posted by ropeladder
on Feb 17, 2012 -
4 answers
I can't remember the name of a short story about a man who was made up almost entirely of artificial body parts.
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posted by Julnyes
on Jan 12, 2012 -
5 answers
Story-about-orbs filter: in my eighth grade English class, I read a sci-fi story about an extraterrestrial orb that was collecting specimens from Earth. I'd love to find out its author and name (and, optimally, a copy of the story itself on the web.)
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posted by punchtothehead
on Nov 19, 2011 -
5 answers
Today's FPP reminded me of a short story about post-singularity life in the theater.
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posted by nomisxid
on Oct 26, 2011 -
1 answer
I'm trying to find a SciFi short story I read as a kid - I read this story as a kid in the '70s or '80s. It was in a paperback collection of SF short stories I got from the school library, it could have been published anytime from the '50s to the late '70s. I have no idea of the title or the author, just my memory of the story. It involved someone who was walking backwards through time to get home. Some scientific accident had propelled him hundreds of years forward in time. On the wreckage of the lab, he appeared, briefly, once every year (or maybe every decade or century?). From an observer's point of view, someone flashed in and out of existence predictably on that spot. I think a holiday formed around the appearance. From the person's point of view, he was walking backwards through time, from the far future back towards the date of the accident. Each "flash" was a step in that walk.
Anyone know what this story is called or who wrote it?
posted by Cranialtorque
on Aug 4, 2011 -
14 answers
A recent conversation reminded me of something I once read. It was in a Playboy magazine, likely mid-80s, and it was either a short story or an excerpt from a novel if Playboy even does that kind of thing. From what I remember it was written in the first person about a guy (a reporter?) who hears about this Vietnam vet that has learned some art of tattooing which acts as the perfect camouflage.
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posted by komara
on Jun 20, 2011 -
8 answers
I'm trying to come up with the name of a short story I read eight or ten years ago. It is a first-person narrative of the domestic life of a cynically detached man who lives with his wife and kid.
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posted by churl
on Jun 4, 2011 -
2 answers
Can you tell me the name and author of this story? Aliens contact earth, but they say they will only negotiate with humanity through [woman's name] - it is up to [woman] to decree if humanity is given vast boons of technology, or if it is destroyed by the aliens.
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posted by Sockpuppets 'R' Us
on Mar 26, 2011 -
3 answers
Help me find the name/author of a short story with the following plot:
human children are the work slaves of gremlins (goblins?), and made to do manual labor underground. Those with good behavior and who are getting older are "graduated" and told that they're being freed, but after a gremlin-only "ceremony," are killed for food instead.
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posted by NucleophilicAttack
on Feb 12, 2011 -
3 answers
I'm trying to remember a science-fiction (?) short story that I read about 10-15 years ago. Basically, a bunch of prominent citizens of Earth (including Miss Universe) are summoned to Mars to be harangued by a sarcastic alien who tells them they're all doomed.
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posted by Johnny Assay
on Nov 28, 2010 -
4 answers
About two years back, I was traveling and picked up a huge book of short stories in a hostel. They were all by the same author, and for the most part, they were Roald Dahl-esque, intricately plotted, fast moving, usually violent or crimeish short stories with an elaborate twist at the end. However, one of the stories was a lovely departure from the others, and I'd like help identifying it.
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posted by Ideal Impulse
on Aug 25, 2010 -
8 answers
Please help me ID a short science fiction story. Space tragedy, Spanish names, and revenge.
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posted by wzcx
on Jul 16, 2010 -
4 answers
Inspired by a recent question, I'm looking for a sci-fi story I read many years ago - bits i remember : guy put in some form of hibernation after the-end-of-the-world, robot looking after him, re-seeding life on Earth from grass seeds in his clothes, probably from some kind of young adult collection, the robots colonise the galaxy.
posted by curious_yellow
on Jul 5, 2010 -
2 answers
I'll shortly be teaching a unit of work to senior high school students titled "Navigating the Global". I'm after short stories, preferably available for free online, that deal with the themes of global vs local culture.
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posted by robotot
on Jul 1, 2010 -
10 answers
What is the name of this really disturbing science fiction short story? (potentially NSFW description)
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posted by brundlefly
on Jun 25, 2010 -
14 answers
I need help finding this short story I read in 5th grade, around 1985. It was a sci-fi time travel story, possibly written for a middle grade/YA audience, and it was anthologized in a school textbook/reader.
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posted by suburbanbeatnik
on Jun 11, 2010 -
2 answers
Trying to track down a kid's sci-fi short story about a girl whose neighbour was an alien who could detach and 'fix' body parts.
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posted by Paragon
on May 12, 2010 -
6 answers
I have published two short stories in my life, and that was twenty, and twenty-five years ago. Do I mention these in my cover letter to the fiction editor? I mean, yes, it
is my publication history, and as it happens, both journals still exist, but this is still ancient history. To complicate matters, one of these stories was published under my married name, which I am no longer using. I have never mentioned the dates of publication in my cover letters so far, of course. I'm just wondering if editors check up on these things in some way that could easily leave me looking like a liar.
posted by uans
on Mar 16, 2010 -
15 answers
I'd like to re-read this short story and other work by this author: I think this was collected in Best American Short Stories or O Henry short story collection, probably the past fifteen years. A great story, tight writing, great characters, fast pace: Cool-headed young man, Irish heritage, gutsy adventurer, stone-cold in face of danger, and danger abounds in this story, as he's running drugs on a sailboat in the Mediterranean. Drugs purchased with money he borrowed from his sister on some pretext or other.
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posted by dancestoblue
on Mar 9, 2010 -
3 answers
'New Yorker' short story posted in the last year, or the last few years, about a man who lives with the ghost of his parents. Link?
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posted by caveat
on Dec 28, 2009 -
4 answers
Does anybody know the title of a short science fiction story about the male population going mad and killing all the females ?
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posted by Pendragon
on Dec 27, 2009 -
8 answers
I'm trying to find a short sci-fi story I read over 10 years ago that I barely remember. It may have involved some or all of the following: bicycle repair, ripe banana smelling bacteria used as deodorant and anti-libido medication.
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posted by jrishel
on Nov 19, 2009 -
7 answers
Help me find this short story that I read in 8th grade 20 years ago. It's about a prisoner who finds the entrance to a tunnel in his jail cell and crawls all the way down...
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posted by yawper
on Nov 1, 2009 -
4 answers
In the early 1980s, Starlog magazine ran a column called Quest that featured readers' artistic submissions. To this day, I still recall a story called "Bomb Run," which dealt with an Enola Gay-style bombing of an alien planet. Did anyone else read this story, and if so, do you know where can I find it online or at least learn the author's name?
posted by nightengine
on Oct 14, 2009 -
2 answers
please help identify this short story...I believe I would have read this in the 80's. There was a team of psychic investigators, and they are called to look into strange events (unexplained accidents?) on a section of highway. In the end it turns out that cumulative spiritual energy of roadkill animals is somehow striking back/rising up, and there is an exorcism of some sort. Then they hear about the bus full of dangerous inmates which has crashed...(implying that the aftereffects will be horrific)
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posted by maryrussell
on Sep 20, 2009 -
3 answers
Name this short story about an immigrant student working as a babysitter for an American professor.
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posted by Bizurke
on Sep 9, 2009 -
3 answers
Anyone recognize this short story about a journalist who wants to learn what it's like to be on Death Row? It's NOT by Roald Dahl.
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posted by web-goddess
on Jul 19, 2009 -
6 answers
SFShortStoryFilter: Looking for a short(ish) story I must have read in one of the more popular SF anthologies about a human race of nigh-immortals spread out through several verses.
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posted by tigrrrlily
on Jun 27, 2009 -
6 answers
After looking everywhere and which a way, I am at a loss. I am looking for a short story with a near future high tech anarchy as background-- something that resembles David Brin's concept of
The Transparent Society, Utopian Version, where every body knows everybody else's business--as opposed to, say, Police Surveillance State On Steroids Big Time where Big Brother knows your business and location as in
1984 meets The Minority Report.
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posted by y2karl
on Mar 10, 2009 -
11 answers
"ID this short story" Filter: Story about a storyteller toy à la Teddy Ruxpin who is discarded by its owners after they receive a new model.
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posted by infinitewindow
on Jan 10, 2009 -
6 answers
I feel like I should know this one but Google has failed me.
I recall reading a Sci-Fi-like story about a group of children who were only allowed to play outside in the sun for one day a year. I can't remember if the lived underground or if it rained all of the time. I just remember that there was only one day they could enjoy being outside. Does anyone know the name or author of the story?
posted by extraheavymarcellus
on Dec 11, 2008 -
6 answers
