Several years ago (4-5?), I read a story online that I believe was still being actively being published in a serial format.  The principle idea, as I recall, was that an artificial intelligence determined that it could essentially prevent people from dying altogether by suffusing everything with nanomachines (or something to that effect). The end result was that, years after the fact, a group of people made a sport of trying to kill themselves in increasingly inventive ways, with an ultimate goal of finding a loophole that allows them to die before the AI can prevent it. I think one of the main characters was the oldest woman on Earth prior to everyone becoming immortal, but that may be a different story.  I can't recall what the name of it was, and every attempt to google anything with 'AI' in the search just gives a bunch of current news articles. Thanks for the help!
113732
I think I read this online in the last ten years, so after 2005 or so. In the story, everyone is online, I think 24/7. People are jaded and always looking for new experiences. The protagonist (or at least narrator) is a woman, I want to say in her 30s (or at least appears as that age), who is considered to be an expert in the area of torture ceremonies. I want to say that her appearance is of her being scarred and twisted by her experiences, although I don't know if that had to do with her meatspace body, or was simply how she portrayed herself.  The only other bit of plot that sticks out in my head was that early in the story, someone (it was a male, and she was thinking of him as being incredibly young) challenges her with a scenario to prove himself, and she was idly commenting how he went for horrific disfiguring torture too early, and tried to compensate by going directly to rape, but that she found his efforts banal.
29595
My memory about this story is rather short. I only remember the following points :-  The story was in a collection of stories.  In this, a robot/AI of some sort traps 2 people on a spaceship and sends them off.  On the ship, they realise that they are travelling in space unaided and try to scour the ship for any life-saving-essentials they can find.  The AI admits to some other people what it has done and assures them that the 2 men have all the essentials that they need.  The 2 men suddenly find a sort of cabinet that they claimed wasn't there before. In that, they find beans and milk.  The AI/robot was named &quot;The Brain&quot;.
31042
Trying to find a story I read a couple of years ago in an anthology, not sure when the story dates from but likely to be recent - the last decade or so.   The story has passengers travelling between stars via a series of jumps. The calibration of the drive is affected by a special metal, any of which has to be stored in a shielded compartment (I think the jumps were measured in 'degrees'). One of the passengers unwittingly takes some of this metal on board, which throws off the calculations for the jumps, and they jump into an alternative universe where there are no signs of any humans ever existing. They start to try to reverse their steps to get back to the known universe, but the reverse calculation seems impossible.  That's as much as I read of the story before I lost the book. After many dreams (feverish nightmares!) re-living this story, I need to know how it ends. I know it's not much to go on. The story name, author, or the anthology it appears in would be fantastic.
78920
I'm looking for a classic science fiction story where a man disguised as a robot is send to investigate a robot uprising on a mining/factory planet.   He is found out to be a human and brought before the robotic overlord of the planet who offers a deal, we will not kill you if you pretend to be a robot for the rest of your life. He agrees.  He later finds out that in fact all the robots on the planet are humans that made similar deals. We all think everybody else is a robot, but in fact nobody is.   Possibly from Lem or Asimov.
1834
I'm looking for a plot line (it should be a short story) that depicts Earth population (or their close descendants) establishing contact with another intelligent life form deep into space.   After careful studying of DNA samples and language / communication symbols they then realize that the civilization in question is also from Earth but that they departed very long ago and travelled throughout the galaxy in the completely opposite direction so that they are now meeting practically at the point of the circle opposite to Earth. There might have been some anatomical differences as well.  As far as I can remember, the story concludes shortly after that.  This should be a work of a well-known SF author, so I'm hoping for a quick response (if time didn't corrupt my memory too much).  I don't think it was part of an anthology, but it's entirely possible it was in a magazine.  As for the timeline, I've read it about 2-3 years ago, but since I have a passion for older SF works it might not be of much use.  Edit: Not sure if this could help but for what it's worth, it might be contained in .
20704
So my dad told me about a short story he had once read. It must be older like before 1986. It is about two men who traveled through space and found a dead planet. On it was what he calls a super museum. They set it up as a heritage/legacy for those in the universe that were intelligent enough to find it. As a twist it turns out that this planet is actually earth and that the men must have traveled to the future. (Kind of like planet of the apes)  I have found a few topics that looked similar. But it's not resurrection bij a.e van Vogt.(because they know it is earth they are visiting) Although this seems very similar. He also says it is not all the way back from michael Shaara.   Anybody have any idea? If it helps, the story was translated to Dutch and was in a book with other stories as well. I don't know if they were from one author or various. It has been bugging me for years as my dad always told me the story moved him deeply and as I love science fiction I would love to read it. Just found this site so thought to give it a go.thanks in advance!
113785
Please help with identifying the following short story.  The story plot goes as follows: scientists discover a way to transfer sick people who are on their deathbed to the future and cure them of their illness. They look for somebody who is important enough to be worth bringing to the future and yet young enough to be interesting after being brought in and healed. They choose specifically the italian composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (in real world, died at 26 form tuberculosis). After they bring him in, he proceeds to quickly become a successful rockstar.   Unfortunately, do not know the author or the time when it was published.
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.
46792
I can not remember if it was a short story or a novel, but I am leaning towards it being a novel. There is a colony of humans and I can't remember if they crash-landed or not.   There is a creature that they come to discover after it has killed a few people. The creature has some kind of chemical in its body that is like a super-adrenaline. One part is I remember is one of these creatures getting very hot from using up its reserve of this chemical and it dived into a river or pond and it started to steam. Something like that.  It has to be at least 10 years since I read the story.
75032
I am trying to remember title (and author) of best sci-fi book i have ever read (at least thats what my fading memory tells me).  Plot revolves around multiple-universe theories - set on earth, 'hero' is given a brain implant that allows him to decide which future he wants to exist in (eg: coin toss produces 2 universes - one where it is heads, one tails) - he can 'choose' which of the 2 possible futures to take. The unchosen future is destroyed or disappears somehow(?).  Hero is tasked with finding a young girl who has same ability but can do it without implant. Plan is to find and kill her because the effect of her decisions (and now his) are affecting whole universe and aliens have wrapped solar system in some kind of event horizon to cut us off from universe until we sort out the problem.  Cant remember any real specifics; - lots of action (tech, guns etc), bladerunner-ish. Read it around 1990-5.  Googling hasnt got me anywhere but title potentially something like "sphere of influence. 2150"  If i can find this book, i will be eternally grateful.
24584
There is this story I read years ago about a world where the wealthy created VR worlds for themselves to live in. These virtual worlds were extremely realistic and the 'masters' of those worlds could essentially live like gods in those worlds. 'Of course' at one point they figure out how to 'upload' their consciousnesses into these virtual worlds leaving behind their physical bodies. Each has his own world and is the only human being in it and some of them do not decide to live a god-like existence whilst others do.   Now the protagonist isn't wealthy and he has this entire story of his own I forgot about entirely (shame on me), but I have been lately 'quoting' concepts from the book, so I would like to properly attribute them (plus I fear I am attributing some things to this story which weren't from this one, so I would love to check).
94669
I hoping for some help here, as Google isn't being useful... In my early teens I read a novel about a young man who is quite adventurous in his society and in climbing and adventuring into the off-limit areas of his world, discovers his "world" is actually a giant spaceship (possibly an asteroid ship) transporting a colony to a new world and it is very near it's destination after hundred or thousands of years. Problem is that it has been so many generations now that no one even knows this is a ship any more, so he has to finish the journey himself, possibly with the help of an AI in the ship (sorry, memory is really foggy).   Biggest problem is that is about all the details I can remember... This would have been about the mid-1980's and in paperback.   This image by Roy Scarfo is what brought back my memory of the book, I am guessing the cover art of the novel was similar in some way.
107031
This was a short story/novella published in Gardner Dozois's "The Year's Best Science Fiction" series. It was probably included somewhere around the 2003 20th edition, give or take a number of years.  The story is about 3 or 4 high school friends, one female, who embark on a journey of discovery by traversing down an ancient stairway into the depths of a steep deep ravine to search for the remaining traces of the "ancients." The friends don't really know where their lives are headed and are each descending the ravine in search of some inner truth.  Near the top, the stairway is well maintained but as they descend deeper it becomes more ancient and dilapidated until it is barely traversable. As they near the bottom, where the ancients had their cave dwellings, one person finds his inner strengths, one wills himself out of existence, and the female finally understands everything.  Believe me, the story is magnitudes better than my description of it.  Can you please identify it?
63701
Shortly before his death, my father spoke to me about a series of novels that he had just finished reading which had a fascinating concept.  However I soon forgot the title(s) and author and I've been absolutely desperate to find out what they were.  The premise (as I understood) was that humanity had expanded out from the solar system into the local star systems before coming into contact with an incredibly aggressive species which was focused on wiping out the entire species.  Earth and her colonies were lost as remnants of the species fled.  Eventually it was decided by the military leadership to set up a colony in order to rebuild the human race.  However, in order for this colony to escape detection and to keep humanity from going back out into space and thus potentially running into this hostile alien race again, a series of satellites were set up around the planet chosen that would lock onto and destroy any form of technology (and usually the surrounding city) that went beyond pre-industrial standards.    One of the series protagonist is a long living android who possesses the consciousness of a human who was present at the original founding of the colony (and who seems shielded from detection) which observes as civilization is repeatedly regrown and torn down again and who attempts to try and reverse humanities self imposed lot in life.      From what I understood this was a series of novels, but I could be wrong. I've been trying to find this for years on my own with only a rough plot line as a guide and it's gotten me nowhere.
27050
I'm trying to pin down a memory of a short story which I first read sometime in the early-to-mid 1980s (in an anthology I found in a school library, I think). I later found it again in another book, in another library, sometime in the 1990s. I remember the general plot, but not who wrote it. I have the impression that the story was already pretty old before I first ran across it.  Here's the plot outline:   As the story begins, a spaceship containing hundreds (or even more?) of passengers is returning to Earth from some other planet. Something goes terribly wrong, and they lose the main engine. (Which may have been the only engine -- I'm not sure of the technical details.) I don't recall if it was accident, sabotage, a meteor strike, or what, but their main means of propulsion is gone, with no hope of fixing it any time soon.  The timing is terrible. The ship is still on a trajectory that has it approaching Earth at high speed, and it badly needs to decelerate if there's to be any hope of touching down safely instead of slamming into the planet so hard that it will inevitably kill everyone aboard. But now the ship can't decelerate (nor change course to miss Earth entirely, which could have bought them valuable time), and there's only a matter of some hours left before the projected time of impact.  Some political and military leaders meet on Earth for an emergency conference  to discuss their options. What it comes down to is that a) there is no way to save the passengers and crew of the ship, no matter what they do, but b) if they do nothing at all, this will also mean the tragic deaths of millions of other civilians in the region which the ship will crash into. Not so much because of the shock of impact, but because of the sound in the minute or so before that. My memory gets blurred on the physical details of what makes the sound so bad . . . but I think the general idea may have been that such a huge metallic mass, moving so incredibly fast as it comes down toward the Eastern Seaboard of North America (or perhaps some other densely populated bit of the globe?), will be "screaming" in such a way that the vibrations racing through the air will shatter zillions of pieces of glass and/or otherwise cause huge numbers of fatalities down on the ground, even before the ship strikes whatever bit of the Earth's surface it is projected to strike.  The final decision is that the lesser of two evils is to send up a missile (nuclear warhead, I think?) to vaporize the ship before it comes plummeting through the air near an urban area.  I think that the officers aboard the ship either already knew, or very strongly suspected, that everyone aboard was doomed after the main engine had dropped dead. But the Captain and his loyal subordinates do their best to maintain a stiff upper lip in order to prevent mass hysteria from breaking out among the passengers. There's one bit where it is announced that a rescue ship is coming up from Earth to pull alongside the falling ship and then they'll transfer the passengers to safety. I believe the Captain knows darn well that the laws of physics do not make such a maneuver possible at this late date, and thus "a rescue mission" cannot be the intended function of the fast-moving blip on the radar screen that is headed straight for his ship, but he sees nothing to be gained by telling everyone the truth. So most of them die in blissful ignorance.
100275
There was a short story I read as a kid (between 2007 and 2009) about a world where people were raised from a young age with a microchip implanted in their skull which was trained over time to simulate the brain.  At some age, they would have their flesh brain tossed out in favor of the chip. But a month before the surgery, the chip would be set out of sync mode (so that it wasn't being corrected anymore based on how the flesh brain behaved).  Well, in this short story, the chip is set out of sync mode and this teenage kid then starts to realize that he can't control his actions. It starts with him disagreeing with his own choice of what fruit to buy at the supermarket.  So basically, the kid we listen to across the story is the consciousness that resides on the chip. He realizes this.  Then the surgery happens and the flesh brain is removed, and the chip is put in control.  Anyway, I don't remember the ending, but I remember I loved the story and it scared the hell out of me as a kid.  Existential, psychological terror is probably the best way to describe it.  Do you know what book has this story in it? Do you know what story this is?   Internet searches come up with nothing. I'm searching my house because I swear I don't remember tossing out this book.
64799
There is a site with lots of stories all set in a future with super powerful AIs regarded as Gods, the most powerful being matrioshka brains. They have a specific terminology but I can't remember their names. Earth has been converted into a similiar godlike computer called "Gaia" and has expelled all humans creating a dystopian exodus across the solar system. And something about rogue Von Neumann machines causing a huge crisis dubbed the "technopocalypse".