I'm trying to find the name of a science-fiction book I read at least 20 years ago (late 1990s), though it was most likely a second hand book so I can't say how much older than that it might be. I can only remember a few details though some are quite specific:   It was mostly (possibly completely) set on a recently colonized planet (not in our solar system) The planet had some kind of plant or fungus that covered most of the surface This plant formed some kind of symbiotic link with the human colonists, making them more empathetic and reduced conflict There was some kind of galaxy spanning religion that was specifically against forms of mind control (and so distrusted what this plant was doing) One very specific part of this religion I can remember, is that the members didn't cut their hair because someone long dead that they viewed as a prophet said something along the lines of "Don't let anyone mess with your head" which they took to mean condemn mind control plus don't cut your hair!   The only other thing I can remember is that this plant/fungus was completely benign and I think ended up with one of the religious types being "infected" and realizing this.
120903
I read this paperback sci-fi in the early nineties. I have a jumble of memories but not sure of the running order in the book.  Two worlds, one slave-owning, grim and brutal; the other pastoral but high-tech nucleus.  On the "grim world" they use the near-human natives as slaves and are very strict with them, the young human protagonist's mother, as a girl, witnesses her father whip her native playmate to death in the kitchen for not playing how she likes. The native's own mother (who works in the house) watches and somehow ensures the floor is forever stained in that area to remind them of her child.  Still on the grim world, they are descended from the IRA and Iranian terrorists and Afrikaaners and their slogans have got intermixed over centuries. The war cry (and mythical Gods) is "Ire, Iron and Voorstrod" (spelling?) but nobody remembers why. They are nowadays religious fanatics with their own strange creed. They boast about how they used to be able to make aircraft fall from the sky. They have a plot to conquer the pastoral planet.  On "pastoral world" they have a massive space station full of giant warbots held in stasis (Enforcement?) to keep the peace in their star colony area. These are regularly maintained by their tech people.  The young protagoninst has now found himself on the pastoral world (a refugee?) and is in love with a girl there. Suddenly an invasion begins - the grim people have managed to usurp control of the warbots and are sending them through wormholes along with troops.  The warbots question anyone they run into with religious questions but because of his upbringing, the protagonist easily answers and is released to later help overthrow the invaders.
25875
I'm looking for the title of a SF novel that follows an alien civilization through technological eras as it tries to find a way to prevent the destruction of its sun. I believe the novel was published in the 1970s or 1980s. It was written in English and released as a mass market paperback.  The novel opens in the medieval technology era. The first protagonist is an astronomer whose observations of the sky cause him to realize their home solar system is in cosmological peril. (Sorry, I can't remember the specific cause of the impending doom.) The astronomer must now convince everyone of the gravity of the situation, a task made difficult by the religious institutions and political conflicts of the world.  Once the alien civilization realizes the seriousness of the problem, the novel shifts to a race against time, through technological eras, as its scientists work to find a way to save themselves from destruction.  A unique aspect of the alien civilization is that it is very biology-focused. Where humanity would have fabricated something out of metal, this civilization's technology harnesses biological engineering (selective breeding, genetic engineering, etc) to accomplish the same task.  I hope this is enough information to jog someone's memory!
31123
I recall everything about this story except the author and title. Humans have evolved in that women now give birth to six or eight babies in one gestation.   Three couples selected to be colonists by stasis sleep to a known world wake up and find that one girl is dead, (although her six babies survive) and they are on a different planet than the one their ship was aimed.  When the surviving five adults emerge from their spaceship,  they see a multitude of distant floating golden aliens genuflucting to them,  then the aliens form a giant golden double helix in the sky,  then depart in their own spaceship.    The colonists now decide to make the best of this new world,  and populate it.  They call it Viridian,  as it is green and fecund.  There are plenty of dangerous animals on the world. The radiation from the planet seems to indicate the planet is young,  but the presence of vertebrate animal life argues otherwise. There is nothing red on the planet except for the albino girl's eyes,  and  a rare fleeting glimpse of a red mushroom,  that vanishes if anyone tries to get closer. In the end,  everything is explained.    The names of the colonists are Teague,  the Captain,  and Alma (deceased) ; Carl and Moira; Todd (the protagonist) and April (albino girl with red eyes).   They name the three moons as Wynkin, Blynkin, and Nod.   I recall plenty more detail,  but this question seems long enough!  I'll add more detail if anyone thinks it helpful.
113282
I read a science fiction novel in which "the only food of man is man".  This was because humans had settled a planet on which there was no compatible life to eat. It also featured the phrase "helicopter gun God", because the word for God was ship. Can anyone tell me the name of this novel?
34536
Looking for the name of a series of novels I read a two or three years ago. I think the books where relatively new (no older then 10-15 years) as the tech in the books where not outdated scifi.  The series was at least 3 books, but I think there may have been more.  A brutal species of alien determined to be the quickest, strongest, most brutal... individuals possible, takes a group of humans from their colony ship(?) and places them on the aliens "sacred" planet. "Sacred" because of the local fauna being the only threat the aliens have found in the galaxy that surpasses their own prowess.   After a period of time the aliens leave and forget about the weak humans, thinking they will die anyways. The humans do not die, but instead take genes and inspiration from the local fauna (carbon nano tube bones, superhuman reactions, speed, strength and so on).  Think one of the books are named the same as the aliens named the planet.
90952
I read a book once where an agent of a futuristic multi-planet government was sent on a mission, and in doing so, used a machine to impress copies of his mind on other people to send them. I remember no names, of people or locations, but I can describe what I do remember. The place the copies of this man were sent was a planetary system that was used as a prison. The planets were used as a prison because of a unique type of bacteria or virus that lived there. Whenever that bacteria would go too far from the planet, it'd die, and take any organism that it was inside with it. There were 4 planets in the system, and copies of this man were sent to each one. Each planet granted the copy one &quot;power&quot;, unique to the planet, through the bacterium.  In one world the bacteria would break down everything man-made remarkably quick, but some people could control them enough to stop, and even create things for you. Another gave people the ability to swap minds during sleep, waaking up into a different body altogether. A third gave the man &quot;adaptive DNA&quot;, so to speak. He subconsciously would change his DNA to match the environment, which could've meant a sex change, if he lived in an all-male environment. And sadly, I dont remember the 4th well at all. I just know someone became a dragon at some point, and that someone was blind.  Anyway, I read this book at my high school library. That copy was a plain brown cover, no title or anything, and although the name was inside, I have forgotten it. I have forgotten it and the author and  all the unique names to search for, and all my searching for the things in this description have yielded nothing. If anyone knows this book, please tell me its name, or anything that could lead to me finding this book again.
23959
Trying to remember the name/author of a book:   Long book. Many many separate small chapters. Scifi about humans, on non-Earth planet. They have poisonous native life, and can only eat a few brought from Earth plants. Because of that, they practice cannibalism, to no waste human body proteins. The story opened with consuming a body of someone who recently died. It had a pretty complex plot, with politics, war, technology, social structures, etc.  Social/sexual customs were kind of weird even leaving aside rituals around cannibalism. But it was NOT Heinlein, I'm sure of that :)   I don't know the year it was published, but it was pretty old, I took it around 1993-95 from a library and the physical book looked well-read by that time.
113202
I'd like to ask you to help me identify a sci-fi/fantasy book that I read probably sometime in the 90s though I don't know when it was written. Here are the plot points that I remember:   the story starts with a human on contemporary Earth being turned to stone (or probably something much more exotic) by some sort of experiment gone wrong, he is turned back to his original form millions of years later by a lightning or some similar phenomenon, the local population considers him a god or a prophet since his "stone form" was a center of a cult before he was awaken, the population is not human but consists of creatures evolved from various contemporary animals, one of the most important locations is a huge tree which is so ridiculously big that it contains multiple settlements.
69723
I remember a lot of things about the book, but none of them have brought up a name and nobody I've asked remembers it   Pheromone technology plays a big role in the world- airborne pheromones serve as security systems that trigger allergic reactions in anyone not inoculated, were used to enforce cliques, and one of the major characters is basically an indentured servant to her mother because she was made addicted to a pheromone only her mother could supply. There was a bit about how you could use something sort of like those coin-operated binoculars to control drones in the atmosphere of Jupiter, but how they tended to be full of malware and would leave you craving various fast food brands. A biotech shuttle is mentioned as looking like "a bumblebee". There's a plot thread about a moon colony using cutting-edge biotech to grow habitation "pods"- towards the end one of the characters that joined the project and became merged with the facility as some sort of bioCPU takes over and launches the whole thing as a spaceship, I think using a hydrogen thruster fuelled by ice? There's a scene where a parking lot was "paved over with transparent plastic" years ago and you could still see cigarette butts and lotto cards frozen inside. Corporate agents(?) wore pastel-coloured ties because they were supposed to be "soothing".
24598
I suppose I read this story in a book in the nineties but I have no memory of actually reading it or the cover, I just remember a lot of the plot.  Scientists find out they are being contacted by the inhabitants of some other universe. I believe this happens by one element being exchanged with another (I remember wolfram was involved because I had never heard that word before) and messages somehow added. This leads to earth building some sort of machine together with the other universe (it is the description of this machine that I really would like to read again) that somehow generates energy on both sides. Only later do the people on earth realize, that it also slowly changes some of natures constants, threatening, I believe, the sun. The book also had detailed descriptions of everyday life in both universes. I remember some sport played in the lower gravity of the moon and the aliens having three distinctive sexes.
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 :)
26730
Does anyone remember the title and/or author of a sci-fi book about single-celled organisms that ended up saving the life of some astronauts?  The organisms launched a mission into space and fixed something in the astronauts spaceship.  The book dealt extensively with the concept that time passes much more quickly for single-celled organisms.  I read it in 1984.
110963
The world is covered in trees that are miles high. A resident of the planet climbs to the highest tree top to find a crashed ship. He has never been to that level before. This leads him on a journey to the lowest depths which no one has seen before, which is full of strange creatures. I think the cover showed the resident climbing down into the dark lower areas with tree roots and glowing creatures.  It was a very small book, and a very quick read. I stayed up all night to finish it. I borrowed it from a friend who was into Dune in about 1986.
59049
This is a long-shot; I only remember a few details from two novels I read as a child, by the same author. This means they were originally published in the late 1970s at the latest, but I would guess they were older than that.  Both take place in a galaxy-spanning empire that is in decline; this decline is apparently irreversible, and has been going on for a very long time, on the order of centuries or millenia, as the central government's resources diminish and as there are rebellions on the peripheries. Technology is advanced, but stagnant. The central government is referred to as "Central Command", often abbreviated to CC. Mutants, and "greenies", are discriminated against, or worse. People from many cultures are considered "barbarians" and are second-class citizens, with restrictions on their occupations; one of the few that is open to "barbarians" is that of mercenary.  In one book, the story centers on the crew of a military vessel, which crash-lands on an uninhabited but pleasant world, which turns out to be Earth. In the opening passages of the book, members of the crew reflect on their losses to attrition in a long series of conflicts. One talks about an android, who'd helped them in one crisis, and another says, "That android was great! When did we lose him?", to be reminded of another battle. At the end of the novel, the protagonists meet the crew of another ship that had crash-landed on Earth; they decide together to turn their back on Central Command and settle on Earth. It's left ambiguous whether humans had originally come from Earth and abandoned it, or whether these were the first humans to settle there.  The other book is also set on Earth; it seems to take place sometime in the near future. I don't know how it relates in a timeline to the other novel I described, whether long before or long after. At some point, there was a reference to the city of Sacramento, as an agricultural center. Earth is considered to be under the oppressive authority of Central Command, but is a "barbarian" world. The protagonist, early in the novel, sees a sunlit wall, and thinks he'd like to stretch out on it, but does not, because that would identify him as a "greenie". It isn't really explained what a "greenie" is.
1792
I remember a book that described various lifeforms evolving in the galaxy (and i think may be the overriding theme was extinction).  One of them was 2-D species evolved on rapidly changing environment (probably rings of some planet?)  For some reason I'm thinking it may have been "Manifold" series but I honestly don't remember anything about that series, so it's just a vague feeling.
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.
61622
As a kid I was greatly influenced by a book where a girl (I believe her name was Marlena) lived in a ship orbiting an alien planet.  The ship was intended to colonize the planet but the humans had encountered difficulty.  People on the surface early on had gone incurably mad.  The planet was covered with single cell organism, but no other life.  Other than the "bacteria" it was sterile.    The girl, along with most of the colonists, was still living on the orbiting ship for the foreseeable future.  The girl had an uncanny knack of reading people's minds by noting minute changes in behavior and body language, kind of like Sherlock Holmes' famous observations.  Eventually she got a chance to go to the surface, and found the planet trying to communicate with her.  In one memorable scene the swirls in the water of a stream formed a face and started trying to call her name, "Eeeena, Aaleeena, Aarleena, Marlena!"  It turns out that the single celled organisms on the planet comprised a hive mind which had tried to communicate telepathically with previous humans by altering their brains slightly, causing the madness.  The girls's brain was different, however, constantly modifying and changing itself so that it was not damaged by the hive mind's attempts to communicate with it.