It’s a science fiction story at least 10 years old where people on spaceship crash into medieval type civilization. I only remember bits and pieces as I read it as a kid and mom made me return it.   They used the ship’s laser to sharpen their swords and have the best medieval weaponry.  Started trading with some people but of course ended up in war.  I still remember the ending after all this time: The commander of the medieval army is attacking and the ship people somehow make their laser expand and take out the whole force, and as the commander is hit the author writes "he watched the ?picture of his family melt, and he along with it."   I’ve searched for this book for 5-10 years now and no luck - one of my biggest regtets is returning it.
122446
From what I remember of the book:   A spaceship goes through a wormhole (I think) and crash lands on a planet They salvage what they can from the ship and build a castle on a mountain, cutting the stone with the lasers from the crashed ship The crew develop some sort of powers, the captain (She) seems to develop some sort of Precognition The planet's inhabitants where men rule and women are second class citizens Some women escape to the crew's castle so they can be equal citizens After they build the castle the crew fight the inhabitants the that came to attack them   What is the name of this book?
97824
A group of people are exploring a huge spaceship. They are worried about supplies until they find cubbies that duplicate anything put into them. They discover this by someone placing their hand inside one of the cubbies and it duplicates their hand. Specifically, once something is placed in the cubby, whenever it is removed it is immediately replaced. So there's now always a hand in the cubby.  Definitely True   Everything in the above paragraph Read it more than 10 years ago.   I think...   I read it approximately 15 years ago. I have no idea how old it was when I read it. The ship was discovered in a glacier, or the arctic or something, which was reflected on the cover. It may have not been a spaceship exactly. I think there may have been interdimensional/tranporting doors and they were unable to go back the way they came.   I did not finish the book and would like to now, so I will not be able to answer clarification questions about later plot points and would prefer to avoid spoilers.
23414
Plot Summary/Details  The sharpest memory I have of this one is that it was unusually dense reading. Much more difficult going than most of the sci-fi stuff I'd read by that time (I was 10 or 11, I think).  What I remember in terms of plot is that there is a starship, sent either to explore, or colonize, a distant star system.  I don't remember the names of any of the characters, but I think maybe they discover they are clones?  In any case, something happens to the computer system that the onboard AI becomes sentient and develops a measure of omniscience and omnipotence.  It effectively becomes a god of sorts.  The next part I can remember, and I'm not sure this is the same book or not, is that the ship has forcibly settled the crew on a hostile planet.  All sorts of nasty indigenous life forms live here, and guards are post on the wall outside the settlement to destroy them as they try to enter.  I remember there is a female character standing watch, and she goes over the bestiary in her mind.  One particularly nasty creature paralyzes you, and then burrows up your spine into your brain (or something like that) if it gets a hold of you.  That's all I can recall.  Not a lot of detail, unfortunately, but I'm having a tough time remembering much about this one.  I never finished the book(s), as they were mostly "over my head" at that age.
1917
I am looking for a short story and anthology / anthologies containing it: A multi generation ship has landed on a planet with very hostile inhabitants on it. The aliens are chipping away at the hull of the ship with primitive instruments.   The leaders of the space ship decide to breed aggressive children to counter the aliens. They know that this is suicidal as the children will be so aggressive that they will kill the parental generation.   I think I read this in an anthology in early 80's / late 70's. Most likely published in 70's.
19180
I'm trying to track down the title/author of a novel I read some time back.  I read the novel sometime between 1998 and 2004; not sure when it was printed.  The novel itself I originally found in the YA section at my local library.  The setting of the novel is an interstellar generation ship outbound from earth, several generations into the journey.  The plot loosely runs something like this - Several students undergoing what should have been ordinary virtual reality training at school suddenly instead find themselves inside a completely unfamiliar scenario (one which resembles the stereotypical 'you all meet in a bar' RPG intro).  As time goes on, not only are the students drawn back into the 'game' simulation, but they actually begin to disappear from the ship itself - they discover that, in order for everything to go back to normal, they have to win the game.  The whole thing was revealed, in the end, to be the result of a set of embedded programs in the ship's master computer, if I recall correctly, with the programs having been placed there by a programmer who realized that the inhabitants of the ship were effectively breeding the spark of creativity and imagination out of themselves.  Said programmer had taken it on herself to leave them a legacy that would ensure that, by the time they got where they were going, that all-important spark wouldn't have died completely away.  Any suggestions?
33493
I read a book while in the US for a few months back in the early 1990s.  I remember liking the book, and only have loose bits and pieces in my head.  The main character was a male. I believe it started with him being horribly disfigured and was thrown of a ship. He discovered he could regenerate if seriously hurt. On his journeys he picked up new abilities (He learnt how to speed up and slow down time, just for himself). He could also travel through earth.  I remember a passage where he was with the people that could control time, there was a "statue" of a woman, but it was really a woman who lost someone and slowed down time so much that she appeared to be a statue for years..  I seem to remember some sort of twist with a spaceship at the end, but I might be mixing it up with something else.  I've been looking for this book for over 15 years now without any luck. Any idea what it is?
106309
For awhile now I've been trying to remember the title of a book I read when I was about 13 (around 2010). The book was definitely in the Science Fiction genre and was likely the second or third book in an ongoing series but I randomly chose it instead of the first book. It was in english and by the cover art and wear of the book I could tell it was at least 10 yrs old.   So all I remember is that It details the struggle of a colony of a human-like race that previously escaped either imprisonment or persecution (likely in the first book of the series) and relocates to new planet. They had some interesting ways of sustaining their new colony like selling coffee (yes, coffee) at other space stations/planets. I recall that this was successful for them.  The story focused primarily on like a handful of characters that were leaders in their colony. There was a sort of 'love' triangle between three of them where one woman had either one or two children with one or both men. She liked her kids but had them mostly in order to sustain the colony's population growth. It just wasn't a thing that either man was jealous of the other's child with the woman since they knew it was their duty to help the colony grow. One of the men was definitely more alien than the other, therefore his child was half alien. The  children were cared for at a facility that cared for multiple children while their parents where off building the new colony.  The leaders in this love triangle were a part of a larger crew who sold coffee off-planet in order to bring in revenue. How they got the coffee I can't remember, but it was a delicacy to their customers.  Thanks for any information about the title/author! I just really want to read the series and finally figure out why those aliens needed to sell so much coffee!
119449
I read a story in a sci-fi short story collection (about 35 years ago) in which the POV character is fleeing invading aliens with his child in his arms (I think the wife is dead).  He knows he's about to be caught and killed by these rapacious, violent aliens who just want to destroy. Finally, the alien emerges from the trees and the story describes how the hero looks - feline, with a tail.  The hero confronts the killer - man!  It was a cool story that blew my 8th grade mind.  BTW, its not Frenzy.
123268
Sorry I don't recall much about this at all. A friend, who had recommended many other books/authors I ended up liking, told me about a story in which a scientist develops some kind of special glass, that had some property like slowing down light by a factor of a trillion, or something else odd like that, adventure ensuing. He's since moved away, and now I'm wondering what this book might have been.
7593
In the book, humans were in a long war with an alien race that had a slight upper hand in numbers and technology, and so were slowly losing ground.  At the start of the war, Earth had cut itself off from all contact with the rest of humanity; I think this was hundreds of years before the events in the book.  As the book opens, a single spaceship from Earth arrives at the human's capital world, IIRC to pick up an ambassador to travel to the alien's home world for peace negotiations.  Some more plot points dredged from memory:    The Earth ship had a small crew, somewhere around 4 or 5. The Earth humans had psychic powers, but galactic humans didn't. Earth had gone through a lot of social upheaval during its isolation from the rest of the galaxy. I think the aliens were telepathic (the Earth humans didn't tell the galactic ambassador about all their plans because he couldn't shield his thoughts).   The ending went along these lines:      After the peace mission, the aliens invade Earth with a large part of their military and trigger a booby trap that destroys them along with Earth.  After that, the balance of power is in humanity's favor.   If it helps, I would have read the book in the late 1970s or early 1980s, but I believe it was published some time before that.
25057
I am looking for help to point me out at a very old novel (likely from the '60s) about two empires at interstellar war. When it comes to starships, one is technologically very advanced, and the other has very low and inefficient technology.  The highly advanced empire has apparently strong chances to win the war, in particular considering a new technology they were developing. I remember the technology to work like this: consider the space as a flat surface, and on this surface, a disk around the spaceship. When the technology was turned on, this disk was stretched out, as made of rubber, so that it produced a cone, with the tip being the spaceship. The spaceship was therefore teleported 10 parsec away (if I remember correctly), but retained all the connections to the original position. If the spaceship moved, the cone moved as well. This allowed to move in position among enemy ships completely unnoticed, by stretching while afar, then moving in the proper position 10 parsecs away, then destretching.  Despite this technology, the empire lost the war because of delays. It's a perfect example of how having a disruptive technology does not guarantee to win against the competitors.  I am trying to find out the author and name of this novel, hopefully with the date of publication and in which journal/magazine.
11461
I'm looking for the name and author of a novel (or possibly novella). I first read this in the seventies, and might be older than that. It might have been written for teenagers.  The story takes place on a planet inhabited by a primitive humanoid race, roughly stone age if I remember rightly. Visiting this planet is a small team from a more advanced race, also humanoid and with spacefaring technology (obviously!). They are either there to help or observe, no nefarious purposes. I think they are avoiding contact with the primitives, at least initially. It's explicitly mentioned that the planet they are visiting is the third one of a medium sized star, just like their own homeworld. Also orbiting round the planet is an even more advanced race, using high tech to remain hidden from both the others. They are observing the whole situation, and again its mentioned that this is a 'third planet', like their own homeworld.  I'm a little bit hazy on the rest of the plot, but I think the super-advanced race end up revealing themselves, even though they are not supposed to.  The story is told from the viewpoints of both the second and third races (maybe also the first, I forget)  EDIT: For the record it turns out my recollection was faulty, and the second race are indeed coming to the planet for nefarious purposes. And the planet is at the medieval stage, not stone age.
20027
Things I remember   I read this book in elementary school, but I don't know how much of a "kid's" book it is. Main character was male, and I think the title of the book may have been his name. I picture him as owl-like, but I know he had talons and wings at least. The book possibly started on his race's home planet, and they had to leave to live on space stations for some reason. Once they leave their home planet, there is a comment that their children will be born with flatter feet to accommodate walking on metal of the space station instead of gripping branches. I'm forgetting a chunk of the book, but the main character becomes separated from everyone else, possibly left behind somewhere on purpose. Somehow the main character becomes extremely powerful. He is able to fly through space on his own without a ship. Near the end of the book, he engages in a prolonged battle with some other hyper-powerful character (The fight might start on a water planet). Their fight spans the galaxy. Main character ends up in a black hole, omniscient and observing a planet (possibly Earth?). A boy from the planet dies and shows up where our main character is. Main character and boy talk about whether anything in life has meaning or affects anything.
48000
I read this book many years ago. It is set on a double planet with a shared atmosphere. The people on the planet have a caste system, they are either military or thinkers. There are giant trees on the planet, which are used for almost everything, building materials as well as an energy source from the crystals the trees form.  There are also poisonous bubbles that float around. The inhabitants were able to destroy them with ranged weapons, but the bubbles became more dangerous which forced the mass migration of the inhabitants to the adjoining planet via balloons made from and powered by the giant trees.  There is also a sequel where the main character from the first book travels through space to another planet in the system using a more advanced rocket based off the trees.
2478
I'm trying to figure out the title of a series I read when I was younger. As far as I can remember, it started with a spaceship crashing on a planet in book 1. Some plants on that planet had weird effects on the people of the ship, not sure what kind though.  All of the books afterwards are set centuries or even millennia later, about the rebuilt civilization where "magic" or some kind of powers were around.  I'll update if I remember anything more specific.
82162
I read this book in the early 2000's, but I can't for the life of me remember the title or author and it's driving me crazy!  The story is in the future. Earth and most of the galaxy has been conquered by a super-intelligent computer race who no one ever sees. The main character is a male soldier who fights as a collaborator for the occupiers. He wears armor similar to "Starship Troopers", and his main job is to suppress rebellions.  He has 2 or 3 girl servants as a reward for being an officer, whose job is to give him sex on demand. One is named Hanni (I think). His best friend is a large, hulking, lizard-like alien who is female and also a soldier. In the lizard race, only the females are intelligent. The males make a sound like "bok" when having sex. His female lizard friend isn't into males though. She likes other females.  He has another soldier friend who is female. She keeps a male servant / sex slave for her own use, who has a large nose.  He suppresses lots of rebellions, including ripping the arm off some intelligent insect species. At one planet he is on, humans are mixing with some weird bird-like species. And there is another species that is intelligent and tall, with four legs.  He goes home to Earth and back to his old room. There's a holographic picture on the ceiling which his parents kept for him. It shows a woman who masturbates when he gives it a signal. (Did I mention how much sex is in this book? LOL) There is a rebellion with his old friends back on Earth. He suppresses it, before they are killed. He thinks resistance is pointless and hopeless.  At the end, his lizard friend shows him a huge weapons cache and invites him to join a secret resistance among the soldiers. He decides to join them after all, and there is hope in his life again.  I can remember so much about this book it is amazing, but I can't find it! I would really like to re-read this book, and read some other books by this same author. If someone could help me out, I would really appreciate it! Thanks :)
3720
I've been looking for the name of a sci-fi romance book about space travel but haven't been successful so far. I came across it a few years ago, read the plot on its back cover but didn't read the book. It is about two spacecraft pilots, a man and a woman, who travelled at light speed (or maybe FTL, I can't remember) in separate ships. Every time they return to Earth, centuries have passed on Earth because of time dilation. They meet each other for a few times on Earth in different eras, but don't know when, if ever, they will meet again. I don't know how it ends.   If anyone knows which book I'm talking about, could you please tell me the name? Thanks a lot!