A long time ago I read about a novel, short story or possibly a movie (I can't remember what it was exactly, most likely a novel though) telling the story of a man who writes a book only to later discover that someone else has already written the exact book, word-by-word, possibly years before.  I don't remember how the mystery is solved - if you know what story this is, please don't tell me how it ends.  Edit to rest the duplicate hunters: there was nothing about any time machine in my recollections. I have already selected an answer. And I did say that I don't want to know how this story ends.
20217
I can't remember the name of the story, and couldn't find anything on Google searches either.  The story is about a science fiction writer whose story gets rejected by the publisher because it's word-by-word identical to another story published years ago. The writer then writes another story only to find out that the same author also published this story around the same time as the other one.  Our writer then writes a story about a man who uses a time machine to read other people's work in the future and then publishes it in his time. Only to find out that this story was also published by the same guy years ago.  The story I'm trying to find out was in the form of letter correspondence between the writer and the publisher.  So, does anyone know its title?
3874
I read this about 30/40 years ago. I don't remember if it was a short story or book.  What I remember of it :   Some aliens arrive at earth; they don't find any living humans, just empty cities. They go to one museum and revive an Egyptian mummy. When it's alive, it keeps asking where his servants are. They don't get any information from the mummy so they kill him again. Later on they revive another human, who turns out to be more intelligent than the aliens.   I don't remember much of what happened from this point on, except:   In the end the human starts to revive other humans.   Some one can tell me what story, name of book.
95416
I just failed . This post looked good; very concise. However given that the question had 5 other answers, I thought the odds of this post being just a repeat of information in another answer was quite high.   I opened up the question, and the very first answer was the same as this one, word for word, and highly upvoted. Aha! I thought to myself, someone plagiarising for cheap rep. And I went to flag.  But as it turns out, the duplicate answers were one and the same, anonymised for the review.  I tried to have a think of ways to prevent this occurring, but I have to admit I'm drawing a bit of a blank. Does anyone else know of a way?   n.b.: I'm aware that a small amount of false positives as a price for catching more robo-reviewers is pretty reasonable, so if this isn't easily fixable I guess that's fine.
118089
A group of science fiction writers are sitting around taking turn discussing their profession, where they get their inspiration from, various things that have happened to them during their careers.  After a series of reasonably normal anecdotes, one of them tells the others that he woke up one morning in a parallel universe, quite similar to the regular world but with enough differences that he could make a living as a science fiction writer simply by writing about everyday occurrences at home. Meanwhile he searched constantly for a way to return.  The others initially take this in good humour before gradually coming to realise that he's serious, and start pointing out various flaws in his story demonstrating how ridiculous this is. Eventually one of them asks if this true, then how did he ever get back home.  The last line is something like      "I didn't", he said sadly. "I'm still here."   (I can't remember if the names used are real sci-fi writers, and a sort of inside joke, or fictional). I would have read it sometime in the mid-80s, probably in an anthology. I think it was in a local library, so the book may have been a few years older.
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.
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.
35027
I've read , but none of them are what I am looking for. I once read a book that used a word to describe an event that has happened in the past, but the odds were so astronomical that it will likely never happen a second time. The context I read these words in were the creation of the first life on earth (without any theological ideas). Basically, the text said that the scenario for the creation of the first living organism happened on a planet where conditions were just right by complete chance, and that the odds of this were so astronomical that it would likely never happen again anywhere in the universe over any length of time.  Sample sentence: "The creation of the first organisms was incredibly unlikely, the event can be called a _________ event, or an event that will likely never happen again."   I can't pretend to understand the validity of the claims by the text, but the words they used to describe these events were quite clever (and scientific sounding) that it would make a fun hyperbole.  I thought it was something along the lines of singularity event, but that doesn't sound quite right.
77853
I'm trying to help my mother find a short story that she remembers reading some, oh, 30 or more years ago.   I don't have a lot to go on, but apparently the main concept of the story was that the food that everyone was eating was said to come from “The Giant Chicken” or “The Great Chicken” kept somewhere (she read it in a Hebrew translation), but when the protagonists delve into the matter, they discover that this “chicken” (as it was translated) is actually a giant cancerous tumor, kept alive and growing for food.  I've established, probably, that this is not Harry Harrison's Make Room! Make Room! or Roommates, the basis for Soylent Green. That was my first thought. I also couldn't find a lead in the  section on wikipedia.  I don't know any more - not what the main characters were, what book it was published in or the actual decade it was written, unfortunately. It would have been read in the early 80's at the very latest.
19662
I read a short story about four years ago and can't remember the title or author. The only thing I know is that it is relatively old -- like Huxley or Asimov era. Can anyone help me?   The basic synopsis is this: a man clones himself and has his clone do the parts of his life that he doesn't enjoy. He deceives his wife about this; she doesn't know he has a clone. Whenever the man and the clone are both home, the clone is locked in the "toolbox" in the basement. The clone starts to treat the man's wife better than he had previously. His wife starts to fall in love the clone, and the man decides he needs to get rid of the clone. When he tries to do so, the clone overpowers the man and locks him in the toolbox in the basement!  I'm hoping to share this story with my English class this school year. Any help is appreciated!
20945
I lost my sci-if book collection in a flood, and I'm trying to trace down one short story from an anthology.  I remember it starting with a boy who can slip through time. He is being mentored by his future self which he doesn't recognize. Later the story plays out in the future where he's leading a group of rebels.
86957
I was looking at  and I think I may have read the same story, but I'm not sure because a few of the details don't quite line up.  The story I read was about a man who had built a machine that could work out when a person would die.  The way it worked was described as sending a small electric charge along the four-dimensional "sausage" which was a person's extent in spacetime - the story definitely used the word "sausage".  The person who had built the machine had made several predictions which he put in sealed envelopes, including that of his own death.  The story ended with him being visited by a pregnant woman who wanted to know how long her child would live.  The builder saw that she would die very soon, and tried to keep her in his office as long as possible to avoid her fate by giving her tea and cakes, but she insisted on leaving and got hit by a car as she crossed the road to leave his office.  This caused him to kill himself, and the date in his envelope was correct.  I read this in 1999 at the earliest and 2001 at the latest.  Around the same time - possibly but not definitely in the same book - I read a story about a murder mystery in which the murder weapon turned out to be a time-accelerated flashlight.  I tried googling with these details, but kept running into the  which made it very difficult to find earlier stories on that theme.
13198
So I was recently watching the series seven episode of Doctor Who titled "Hide" and it struck me that I had read a short story that was remarkably similar to the astronaut woman of the episode.  Here's what I remember definitively of the story:  The story is told from two perspectives: that of the traveler and that of the observers throughout time. The traveler is running but to the outward observers he/she appears frozen like a statue. As the story progresses the 'statue' moves slowly through the millenia but to the everyday people its imperceptible, he/she is just an anomalous statue.  What I think I remember:  The time traveler is dressed in some type of space suit looking thing. I think the time traveler is the test pilot for the new time travel device/ship. The traveler may possibly be crossing dimensions (really not  sure about that). They are either running towards a light or away from the crashed ship. I vaguely remember something like the traveler was trying to send a message or something to a loved one but the distortion made it unintelligible to the receiver but by the end of the story someone had cracked it and it may have been something like "i love you, goodbye." or something to that effect.  I'm also assuming that, from my vague recollections of the story compounded with what has now been years of studying SF, that this story fits into the 50's or 60's. While I think it could easily have been written as early as the 40's I don't think it would have been written in the 70's.   Thanks in advance for the help, because this is driving me insane that I can't remember more about this story.
99148
I'm trying to find a novel I read a long time ago and it's driving me nuts - all Google searches result in failure..it's been 10-15 years since I've read it I think, here's some details I remember:  The biggest plot twist is that the main character is being told that he's on an exact replica of earth, that was 'snapshotted' around ~1940 (I think?) Certain historic events after WWII happened differently in that world There's a sub plot about gravitational waves / using it to construct some sort of phone (I think?) At some point in the book, nanobots or something heal this guys' body / rejuvenate it completely, after he meets some folks that transport him out of the replica earth (I think)  I realize this is a very loose recollection of my memory, so some stuff might be off, apologies in advance! Any leads would be spectacular. Thanks!
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.
65447
I am looking for a short story I read long ago about the phone system 'waking up'. It talks about how the phone system had just reached the number of connections as the number in the human brain. They lead you somehow to wonder (maybe characters speculating?) and it ends with a 'baby cry' of all the phones in the world ringing. I think I read it at least 20 years ago, maybe as many as 30. I think it was after 1978 because I think it was after I went to work at Bell Labs - so the phone connection resonated:-). It was definitely pre-internet.   What was the title? Who was the author? Any more on the plot since my memory is very hazy? I remember really liking the story and this site has got me thinking about my ATF's.
90838
Many decades ago, I read a short story about a time traveler who asks an archaeologist for help.  He convinces the archaeologist that he can time travel by bringing him back a freshly killed dinosaur (small one.)  The time traveler needs help because when traveling back in time to the age of the dinosaurs he met a girl and wants to transport her back to the present.  However only one person can travel in time at a time so he needs the archaeologist at the other end to wait for the girl.  The archaeologist agrees to help.  Unfortunately after the traveler goes back he and the girl find themselves in the middle of a battle between aliens on Earth.  They are chased by a dinosaur and never make it back to the present.  The archaeologist meanwhile is digging for evidence that the traveler went back in time and the story or my recollection of it ends with that.
81343
So this is a bit of a memory game of my behalf, but I'm trying to remember the name of a (presumably) Sci-Fi novel with only a recollection of the following:   A man owns a (yellow?) car parked outside his house along with a cat The car goes missing or is stolen The man decides to be cryogenically frozen for 75 (fairly sure, could be 50?) years along with his cat (I might be muddling up novels but I'm sure there was a cat...?) He takes a walk along the street X years in the future when he wakes up and the currency he has in his pocket is now worthless   I don't think I got that far into the book and all the above happened relatively early.  I read it about 10 years ago and at a guess, it's an 80's novel - all of the above details might be inaccurate, but I'm certain about the cryogenic freezing and the currency aspects.  I'd be surprised if this one gets anywhere!