The story is basically a very positive tale of aliens on the way to our solar system to meet us and promising the solution to some big problems of us humans like the cure for cancer, cheap, clean energy etc.. The twist at the very end is they also are very happy to be able to offer the cure for  the caucasians amongst us. Made me laugh and think at the time and would love to be able to put a title/ Author to this, so i could properly attribute it and share it in it's original.  If anyone knows this, many thanks in advance!  Editted right after posting :  Wow great site people, found it already in an already answered linked post! I was thinking of Reunion by Arthur C. Clarke :  We have a simple remedy for the offensive yet harmless genetic plague that afflicted so many of the colonists. […]  People of Earth, you can rejoin the society of the universe without shame, without embarrassment.  If any of you are still white, we can cure you.  :)
63169
I am trying to track the title of a short story which is written as a message from an alien race to the original colonisers of earth apologising for the collapse of the experiment and advising the colonisers they will be rescued soon. It turns out the message is meant for a particular race of people. Any help greatly appreciated.   Thanks
15734
My dad read a book series that he recommended to me last year. Now that I am ready to start it, neither of us can recall the title. He said there were several in the series but he can't recall how many.   The book is about traveling to a new planet, presumably with the goal of colonizing it. The crew are clones who have no memory. I think the goal was for the older original versions of the clones to transfer their consciousness into the clone bodies to be able to live on the new planet but something goes wrong.   There is an indigenous species on the planet who are humanoid but have kangaroo like tails.   The clone crew has markings on them that they don't understand until late. Apparently they are markings to indicate status or role on the new world. The person who they voted as there leader, it turns out, is marked as a servant or slave class.
81724
I am trying to identify a fix-up novel, where I think I only remember a sub-story from the middle.  It was probably published at least fifteen years ago, but I cannot pin down the date better than that.  The main character volunteers to travel to an alien world (maybe with the first intelligent aliens humans have identified?).  A remote probe had sent back some visual data on the aliens, before the aliens destroyed the probe.  The main character has some history as an amazing explorer or risk-taker, and he is sent to try to establish communication with the aliens.  His chance of coming back alive is rated as being very low.  I don't think it's clear what happens to him on the aliens' planet.  Maybe he doesn't remember it, or he thinks that his mission was a failure, and he eventually decides to return to Earth.  However, upon his return, it turns out that the aliens have modified him, in an attempt to enable communication.  He has become an overpowering telepathic projector; every thought and emotion in his mind is communicated to everyone near him.  This is extremely unpleasant at close range.  (I think there's a scene where his girlfriend is really, really trying to have sex with him after he comes back, but she is ultimately unable to.)  Eventually, he decides that he cannot live around people any more.  I don't recall where he goes, although I think the last part of the book features people from Earth trying to get him back for another mission (perhaps one for which his uncontrollable telepathy might be useful).
25658
I'm looking for the title of the short story, and any of the volumes of anthology it may have appeared in. I know for SURE it's in one of Jerry Pournelle's anthologies, either Star Empires and There will be War, but as I have all the eBook version of THere will be war, I'm almost certain it wasn't there.   Anyway, the book is about a Commodore who went back to the academy to visit. I'm not sure what his name was, but I'm pretty sure he lived at "Mercer Hall". He had 2 roommates, and a butler to take care of all their needs, like putting away their stuff. (He even tried to argue with the hall monitor) The butler once took away their bottle of booze UNTIL they study for mid-term, and only gave it back AFTER they wrote to their mother AFTER the exam.   The book also goes heavily into "Bless you!" or the translated version, "May the great cosmic magnificence be benevolent toward you" or something like that. Basically, it's about as inoffensive as possible, and if you say it enough, and the aliens are reasonable, they will give up and things will resolve peacefully.   My Google-fu is weak and I can't find this particular story, or which volume of anthology was it in.   Little help?
82646
I'm sure it was a book, but it could have been a film, or even a video-game plot element. Apologize if I've mixed up any facts – I don't think I've come across this again in the last 20 years!  I read this "book" a long time ago, and a small part of the story refers to the Earth being visited by aliens, who (IIRC) told us that they were disappointed in how we had progressed as a species, and gave humanity the chance to repair their culture…  I believe, they left the Earth and came back after a time to be told that humanity had worked hard and had now declared a full and lasting world-peace and equality. However, the aliens wanted the opposite, they wanted us to be even more vicious to be used as soldiers or something along those lines.  I believe that they then promptly destroyed either the planet or the species!
49338
I'm looking for a science fiction novel that I would've read from a library in the early 2010s. I'm fuzzy on the plot, but it was in a setting with space travel, and I believe the view shifted around to follow the separate characters.  I do recall two distinguishing characteristics in particular:  Some people use a brain upload/backup to restore themselves to a new body after an accidental death, maybe retrieving the recorder if possible to include memories immediately before death. However, this may not be an accessible service for everyone due to cost/coverage, and I think a large corporation handled it. People might've kept identical clones on hand or opted for a brand new body, but I think it meant very little fear of death. At least one character, maybe an investigator/reporter/mercenary, died in an explosion (?) and was restored midway through the book.  Some others chose the (less common) option of linking several bodies together to form a group consciousness, where a single unified mind inhabited all of the bodies at once. They could purchase more bodies to connect, and gained similar immortality since any body dying would not affect the whole.  I remember that at one point, a character entered a store and was irritated when the employees carried on a conversation as she moved to the right aisle, only to realize they were a group mind and thought she'd noticed. She entered into a relationship with them later and, at the end of the book, ended up buying more bodies to become a group herself.  I've googled around for this book for a while and looked through Wikipedia's  and , but I didn't recognize the plot anywhere. Hope a detail stands out to someone out there, I'll try to answer any more questions!
87325
I read this short story a few years ago but I cannot remember the title or author. It was about a human scientist on another planet who was studying the native flora and fauna, trying to find something edible for humans. Does anyone know the title of this story?
27840
I'm trying to find a short story. Here is what I remember about the plot:   Shapeshifting aliens try to invade planet Earth. They have tried multiple times in the past, but every single time they lost contact with the attack team immediately after it landed on Earth The story is told from the point of view of one such alien, part of a later invasion force He lands on Earth, and notices the extreme biodiversity of the planet (compared to his own) He soon figures out that the previous teams were not dead. They just found a niche in the ecosystem in which they could be an animal (or a plant, or anything really) that had the kind of life they always wished to have However, this particular alien is a pilot. He loves flying. There is nothing in our ecosystem (or so he thinks) that could help him with this The story ends with the Earth army storming the hiding place of the alien. They find nothing, other than a large bird (a goose?) slowly flying away. It looks like there was a niche for our particular alien, after all...   I read this story a long time ago (more than 10 years), but it is probably older than that. I have no idea about the original publication date.  Most likely, I read it in one of Asimov's anthologies, but I don't know if he was the author or just the publisher.
80466
The plot is about:   A spaceship travelling through the universe Earth is a rogue planet whose inhabitants have been cut off and don't realise that their true purpose is to be part of the spaceship   The reason earth was in turmoil (wars etc.) was that they didn't realise that their true role was to fit into the ship  The ship contained 3 or 4 beings that made the thing work Planets throughout the universe are populated with the various beings which are components of the space craft   I seem to remember like an eye shaped being Each of them fulfil their role Humans are part of that as well.  There are loads of planets with humans on but earth has gotten overlooked so it never realised that's what they were designed for The story concludes with the ships picking up someone from Earth   and with the "human" realising that this is what they should really be doing  Humans have a different name that explains their role in the ship.   I probably read it around 30 years ago in English in a sci-fi collection book.
38546
MY father and I were talking about sci-fi stories we've read over the years. He asked if I had ever read      "that one about those astronauts on the moon, or maybe Mars?. I don't remember much, except these astronaut guys discover this piece of   alien technology laying there on the ground, conspicuously unmarred   and free of the all-pervading Martian (or perhaps lunar) dust,   emitting a ringing or buzzing sound that could be heard through their   suits and the vaccum of space or whatever."   I suppose there was some back and forth dialogue between these cosmic pioneers and maybe even a dash of Mission Control piping in with their two cents from back on Terra Firma for flavor. However the details played out, human nature being what it is, these astronauts eventually reached down, said 'screw it,' and found the balls to pick it up.   The sound (signal?) stopped immediately. The artifact--I think he said it was box shaped and metallic--was some type of "Those crazy-ass hairless apes finally managed to crawl off their rock" detection system. So long as the insane little chimps were swinging from limb to limb, clubbing each other over the heads down on Mother Earth, the signal kept pulsing steadily out into space towards whatever planet these mysterious extraterrestrials called home sweet home.
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.
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.
29349
I may have encountered this short story in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine. Human explorers encounter an alien spacecraft. Aliens are cautiously friendly, but then tell the humans about an ancient, brilliant and cruel race of beings that conquered and destroyed every civilization they encountered. They were finally defeated and destroyed, or so it was thought, but their home world was never found. It turns out that this powerful, vicious race was in fact, Earthlings.
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.
35007
Desperate to locate and re-read exceptional book/series, but cannot remember the title. The high concept: The U.S. has just sent the first successful expedition to Mars, and it has just landed. As the astronauts make their initial exploration outside their ship, a tear in the fabric of space opens up right in front of them, and they look through to the insides of a laboratory (at a California university?) and two students who just figured out how to create arbitrary portals between two points in the Universe. The rest of the novel/series is a consequence of this breakthrough. But I can't remember the author and title(s). Surely someone reading this forum will remember it well! TIA.  (Reposted .)
118288
Plot Details/Summary  I'm afraid this is going to be one of those longshot questions.  I remember reading this story, but I can only recall a few details.  The setting is a new world in which human beings, now capable of FTL travel, have settled.  I believe the protagonist is a male, and he has a love interest as well.     The basic plotline is, soon after the first colonist from the ship begin living on the planet, strange mutations begin taking place.  People are becoming brute-like, and (IIRC) are reverting to earlier states of evolution.  I remember the protagonist, fearing contagion or some other planet-borne threat, orders the remaining colonist and crew to stay aboard the ship, which is still in orbit.  His love interest is one of the people ordered to stay aboard.  The revelation that comes late in the story is that it is not the new planet that is causing the mutations.  It's far worse than that.  It is that Man has reached the end of his evolutionary possibilities.  Not just on the colony world, but aboard the ship, back on Earth, and on every other planet, spaceship, etc. where human beings are.  Some deep genetic trait in all human beings has been tripped, and it's humanity's inescapable collective fate to de-evolve back into its primate roots.  I recall a line near the end of the story where the protagonist realizes no one aboard the orbiting ship is capable of operating the vessel anymore, and no more people could come down to the surface.  Not that it would make a difference.  Publication Details  I think this one came out in the 1970s or 1980s.  I read in a sci-fi mag of some sort, I'm almost 100% certain of that.  Can't remember anything else about it, unfortunately.  Again, this one is going to be a longshot.
116413
The book's story as far as I can remember is, space soldiers are fighting with bio mech suits against rebels (they are inside these suits and apparently there is a lot of bio gel). One soldier defects to the rebels who have alien tech. They implant alien tech into him as well and together they go searching for the creators of the alien tech. They find the alien who tells them that the tech they have is not important to it... keep thinking this tech may be alive and be an &quot;egg&quot;, not sure I remember clearly. Read the book in the late 90's early 2000's.