Trying to track down a short story that I read in grade school in the mid 1970s -probably written in the late 60s-early 70s - might be considered YA lit today.   A scientifically curious boy reads the ingredient list on his breakfast cereal box and then discovers that the ingredient is in all food products except those food that are organic, those who eat organic are suspect as being non-conformist. The boy investigates the substance in a Library and finds out that it was used in population control experiments following rioting and social unrest by the Government in the past and is a banned substance. At home he has been allowed to have some lab rats (considered a "clean" animal) and he begins experimenting with feeding the rats some of the common foods found in the house. When he goes back to the Library he finds that all references to the substance are gone both books and from the computer database. At home his experiment with the rats has led to the ones that were fed food becoming very docile. He also goes to the store and discovers that the substance no longer appears in the ingredients list. He begs his father to get him food from the organic market which he does despite his fears of being labeled as a non-conformist by the authorities That night while watching a broadcast TV special that is about a boy who resembles him greatly who becomes more and more non-conformist and questioning of the authorities except the character is exaggerated - he has a horse that he experiments on instead of rats and attack the food market and librarian - eventually the TV character runs to the roof of the tower he lives in and throws himself off as doctors and the police and his parents try to save him.   He tries to tell people about the substance in the food and is chased by the police and the tenants of the tower to the top of the tower he lives in and is forced off the edge by the mob.  The population live in towers and go back and forth through underground tunnels - The world outside is pristine groomed parkland-The outside is considered "unsanitary" The boy also finds out that there are doors that open on the ground level to the outside.  He begins traveling back and forth on the surface despite the protests of his mother about it being unsanitary "out there" - This alone draws people to first consider him deviant.
121532
I would have read this around 1985-1998 because I remember being in school at the time. It may have been in a short story collection with "The Ugly Little Boy" and a story about a family dealing with people in the future coming back to enhance the intelligence of their baby with enfante terrible results. A boy, grade school age or so and very intelligent, discovers (or possibly just decides) that there are drugs in the food that prevent one from thinking critically. The details are kind of fuzzy in my head, but I remember that he at one point distills the chemical from his cereal, which he'd detected as having a high concentration, and overdoses. He's convinced that the government is trying to silence him — a scene that sticks out in my mind was him falling on a moving sidewalk and tearing his clothing as he tries to escape two "men in black" type figures that are pursuing him. The short story ended with him deciding that he was better off just consuming the food and being happy in his ignorance.  Years later, as an adult learning about mental illness, it struck me that the story was slightly ambiguous as to whether there actually were chemicals, and that the use of drugs that dulled his creativity and intelligence, and the decision to take them anyhow, was reminiscent of the feelings that manic people have toward their medications.  Anyone know what this one was?
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.
15505
I'm looking for the title of an anthology of children's science fiction stories from the 1950s. The best of the bunch involved a Martian who visited earth, and realized we'd blown ourselves up in a nuclear war and had fallen into savagery. The Martian is a vegetarian who subsists on biscuits made by a machine he brought with him, and communicates by using one of his tentacles to feed messages direction to/from the brain of the person he's talking to.  Inadvertently left behind by his expedition, he initially befriended some children, and eventually managed to rebuild civilization. Presently he dies, but when another expedition comes a generation later, they find the civilization he rebuilt.  there were other stories, but that was the best one.   If I can't find the name of the book it was in, I'd be happy to settle for the name of the author and the title of the story.
79129
I'm looking for a short story that I read in the late 1970s or early 1980s, English-language in the US, possibly part of a Scholastic-published offering or anthology.  The plot involves two teenage juvenile delinquent brothers who are unrepentant hovercar thieves and joyriders (I'm pretty sure it was hovercars, though it could have been regular cars).   They have been caught yet again, and the justice system, desperate for a solution to the problem of rampant hovercar joyriding, puts them into a program where they are forced to race hovercars on a track until they lose the desire, or die in the process. (The analogy used is similar to forcing kids caught smoking cigarettes to smoke a box of cigars until they get sick -- a form of aversion therapy.)  In the first race, the older brother chooses a car with a low-profile color for himself, and a high-profile color for his brother so he can keep an eye on him.  As the racing progresses, the brothers face dangers in the form of their fellow racers, as well as deadlier obstacles on the track itself (including at one point, a tank -- though as a barrier, not a weapon).
43322
Media: Short story collection When I read it: 2011 but the story itself was much older (unsure how much) so this information only serves to clarify that it is by no means new. Plot summary: A futuristic home with household robots that help around the house (cooking, cleaning etc.), we learn about their routines and behaviour and later on it's revealed that nobody is home, in fact everyone is dead, and a description of the outside seems to imply post-nuclear apocalypse. Setting: I seem to remember snow or winter What it isn't: with Google I stumbled upon  by Ray Bradbury, and  is very similar, and the beginning made me think "Bingo!", but I do not remember there being a fire in the story I read, and I also remember a view from a briefly opened door, or window, of a snowy setting, so while it may be that I am confusing elements of another story, or my imagination, with There Will Come Soft Rains, I would still like to run this through here as a question, because I'm not convinced. Additional info: The short story collection had other short stories that I will include as I remember them, details will be fuzzy:   Meteor, by John Wyndham , by Charlotte Perkins Gilman A short story about a man who is driving a car and it is revealed in the end that he was dead the whole time , by Charles Dickens
23601
I read a novel written in English when I was a teenager in the 1970s  about a society that lives in an enclosed city which controls the population. I can't remember the name of the story or the city.   People are reproduced by machines in the city that have the DNA of everybody who can be born. No natural babies are born.  One in a while, a person is born who rebels against their society and tries to leave the city. There are only a few ways to exit through the outside wall of the city. In the story the city reveals that each time it produces a rebel they are produced from same DNA.   This story is about one of these rebels and how he escapes.   I can't remember what happens when he escapes, but I think it is through a window high up in a wall. I can't remember what the world is like outside of the city.
26261
I ran across this  and it reminded me of an old short story I read a long time ago.  I read it in a collection of short stories.  It would have been a book because I borrowed it from a school library.   Probably in the 1970s or 1980s.  The book and the story would have been older, though.  Probably from the 1960s or earlier.  In the story, a scientist has a machine that he can use to view the past.  It isn't like a TV or something, though.  It opens a portal into the past that he can look through.  It is very difficult to control, though.  Pointing it at a place and time is likened to working in a hurricane.  The portal jumps and moves about randomly.  The steadier he can hold it, the clearer the past appears.  When it is really steady, he can hear sounds from the past.  It never gets really steady enough to reach through.  They try pushing tools through the portal to pick up things in the past.  The steadier the portal, the easier it is to push tools through.  It never gets steady enough for them to push a tool all the way through, though.  It just gets easier to make progress.  One day, they have the portal open and it is acting really wild.  At some point the workers take a break.  The portal is still open, and while they are loafing the portal settles down by itself and becomes steadier than it has ever been.  So steady that a piece of the past falls through.  The portal scooped a chunk of the ground out of the past.  The chunk of ground contains a nest with dinosaur eggs.  The scientist  rescues the eggs, and they manage to keep them warm enough until they hatch.  The dinosaurs are some kind of harmless things, and become the lab mascots.  Always wandering the grounds, and in and out of the lab.  One day, the have the portal open again and one of the dinosaurs wanders into the lab and walks into some high voltage terminal.  Crash, bang.  Short circuit.  All the equipment to open the portal is destroyed, and the dinosaur is roasted from the flash.  The roasted dinosaur smells good, like chicken, and the scientist's son (who has been telling the story) takes a bite to see what it tastes like.  He says "It resembled chicken the way an asteroid resembles Jupiter."   It tastes fantastic. With all of their work ruined, and the ruins of a fortune in expensive equipment scattered around them, the scientists and the labworkers all chow down on dinosaur.  Half raw, half burned to a crisp from the explosion.  They eat the dinosaur down to the bones.  They start breeding the dinosaurs, and sell them as food.  The guy's father makes a fortune selling dinosaur meat, but remains unhappy.  With money from selling dinosaur meat, he rebuilt his lab but never ever got the portal steady enough to actually visit the past or take samples.  Does anyone know the name of the story and the author, and maybe what collection it might have been in?
3972
Looking for a short story probably anthologized in a golden age collection about space cadets that are under the impression they have to figure out who in their class is the secret android (and maybe kill him). They end up picking the valedictorian / smartest in the class for obvious reasons.   I think that it might then be revealed that this is a hoax played upon the students by the instructors.
61000
I'm hoping someone can help me as this is driving me nuts! Context and Chronological info I'm trying to find the title/author of a short story that I read in some or other anthology ages ago. I couldn't give you an exact date but I'd say it was probably 50s/60s. Plot The human population has increased to the point where input and output of resources on Earth is in exact equilibrium. As such, no other living matter can be permitted to exist, as its use of resources would throw this equilibrium out of balance. One man in a vast tower block has managed to hide some flowers, and, I think, one or a few small animals - perhaps a mouse. These are detected by the relevant authorities, and the story ends when an official arrives at the apartment and requires the man to destroy them - the last non-human living things on Earth.
81566
I read this story in middle school or high school and I cannot for the life of me remember the name of it. I think it started off in a small clan of people, there was a young boy who had just come of age and he had some kind of gift that related to the books? Also I think the injecting was illegal, because I vaguely remember the boy encountering an old man who had a bunch of books that he had to keep hidden. There was also a city and he met a girl there that was Special some how. I may just be merging memories but I think at some point the boy and girl went to an underground city?  Does anyone know what I'm talking about?
14542
I read this short story in about 1974 or 1975.  It was in a library book, definitely a hardcover collection of science fiction short stories.  Two men are marooned in space.  They gain access to an alien space station (or maybe some sort of emergency shelter).  They don't know anything about the aliens (there are none present; the station was either abandoned,  automated, or an emergency outpost).  The story is about them trying to figure out what the stuff in the station does, and whether any of it is food that they can eat.  The phrase "One man's meat is another man's poison" was used several times; it's the first time I ever encountered it (I was about 8-9 at the time).
117855
I think the story took place on Mars, and it had a feel like Eric Frank Russell or someone similar. The story starts with the man reporting on his return to base to explain the adventure he just went through. He had met an alien, described as looking something like an ostrich, and the two of them had gone on adventures and seen many other alien life.  Some of the aliens they met:  There was a series of pyramids, starting tiny and getting larger and larger, each one with the tip burst through. At the end of the line was a large creature who sat on the ground and didn't move but occasionally reached into its mouth and pulled out a brick, and it slowly built a pyramid around itself. The protagonist realizes that the creature is a silicon based life form, so its respiratory waste (instead of being carbon dioxide, a gas) is silicon dioxide (a solid).  They also see a series of humanoid creatures busy building and digging and doing some kind of construction, seemingly with some sort of hive mentality, all working around a glowing green object. The man and the ostrich steal the object (which the protagonist shows at the end to prove his story). After they do so, the hive-like aliens come at them, and both the man and the ostrich whip out guns of some sort and defend themselves.  I think they met more aliens but I don't remember any more details about them. The human and the alien initially teach each other a few words in each others languages. The ostrich would then comment on the life forms they met like "one one two yes. two two four no." The protagonist realized that the ostrich would say that to mean sometime like "Yes, it is life, but it is not life like us."  At the end, the colonel or whatever who is interviewing the protagonist says something about the poor man being stuck with an idiotic native. The protagonist disagrees and explains that he had figured out that the ostrich was an explorer like himself, and had never seen any of these creatures before, and yet it was able to swiftly deduce their nature and still communicate that to another alien, that the ostrich was clearly brilliant.
85359
I remember a short story in which multiple generations of people being crammed into a small apartment in a city. The magical drink that either reduced or completely stopped aging was something like a soda that came in a six pack. The story focused on visual aspects of the drink at some point. The younger family members complained that their elders were living too long and apparently decided to water down the soda, I think that conclusion was ultimately left up to the reader. Many thanks for any help tracking down this story, might be one of Kurt Vonnegut's perhaps?
120819
I've been trying to google this for years. I'm pretty sure I read it in a short story collection, but don't remember the collection or the author or even the name of the story or any of the characters in it. It may have been from one of those 'years best scifi'/'worlds best scifi' compilations, but I'm not solid on that.  Things I do remember:   a man is being investigated because his wife (a genius roboticist) defected to another country, which is run by or just has a lot of robots in it that don't follow the three laws of robotics. the fact that his society disallows strong AI and requires every robot to follow all three laws and the other society doesn't is propagandized to be a reason why his society is superior to the other one there's something of a cold war going between the two of them he himself is an investigator trying to sort out how its possible to be invisible from the omnipresent security of the society in which he lives, because rebel operatives seem to be able to graffiti things without getting caught by the cameras. Spoilers:        He catches someone who tells him that its because they're using hoodies with IR LEDs in the rims to wash out their faces, and that the person is not really an operative so much as a disgruntled teen who built something using the equivalent of the Anarchist's Cookbook, which was disseminated by the man's wife, apparently.      he's about to be tortured or something and a robot and his wife bust into the containment facility he's in and helps him escape, and they start heading towards the border with this other society. His wife is graphically killed by a government robot that apparently doesn't follow the three laws in the escape attempt, but the rescuing robot seems unworried.      giant black robots that don't look like they follow the three laws pop up out of the tops of buildings as they fly(?) over them, and the man realizes his wife was right all along   Super Spoiler       they get to the other society and he has a moment where he encounters his wife. Again. and again. And realizes there are literally hundreds of clones of her. Nice.
7876
In about 1966 or so, a stand-in teacher at our primary school spent the afternoon reading short stories to us. There was a wide genre, but I was particularly fond a one which was science fiction/mystery.  It involved a group of people who were talking about mysteries, and another man from outside the group bet the he could tell a story, and one of them would disappear and the others would not notice. The final line was something like "he kicked over the stool and walked from the room".
21437
I'm pretty sure this was in an anthology of older stories that I read in a paperback in the 90s, although the book may have dated from when my parents were growing up in the 60s and the 70s. The protagonist is a country boy who goes into town. There a sort of a Coney Island setup with booths and items for sale. I remember there were prostitutes named something like "pork-upines" with vaginal openings scattered all over their bodies as well as a shooting gallery where you practiced on live targets, although I'm not entirely certain if they were robots of some sort, or genetically modified. The protagonist is horrified at the excesses of the city, but samples the wares of one of the prostitutes, falls in love with her, and buys her freedom.       Somehow, in the course of the story, he becomes disillusioned and he arranges for her to be a target at one of the shooting galleries. The story ends with him aiming his rifle at her.   I know it's a very vague description, but I'm hoping those salient points strike a memory in someone. It was in English. I read it while in the United States somewhere in the 90s, and I'm pretty sure it was one one story in an older paperback, the sort with the cheap paper that browns with age. It's also possible that it's one of the shooting gallery targets he purchases, although I'm pretty sure it was one of the prostitutes.
112163
I'm trying to identify a short sci-fi story about an expedition to a distant planet, inhabited by human-like, somewhat primitive aliens that lived as a matriarchy. The story is told as a narration of the trip from one of the scientists involved to a guest at his house.  The main characteristic of this planet was a dense atmosphere (or something like that) which blocked most of the light from reaching the surface. So the aliens and animals there hyper-developed their sense of touch. The aliens hunted by leaving traps carefully designed to hypnotize or put in a trance state those touching it. The guest is touching one of these, which the scientist brought back from his trip. Other thing about this society, derived from the dense atmosphere, was that obesity was a highly sought characteristic because "more surface improves light absorption capacity" or something like that.  I don't remember how the cannibalism was justified, but towards the end, we discover the scientist has brought back with him one of these obese women, and is going to feed her his, by now, completely entranced guest.  I read it in a compilation from the late '80s, it could be older.