I read this story in Omni magazine about 25 years ago. In researching a few months ago, I believe I found info on this site, but can’t find again, and browser history was cleared. Written in the 40’s, I think.  Starts with one scientist coming to visit another about an experiment and upon arrival (an island, I think, tropical) finds a man just standing and staring. The scientist finds that his colleague had found a drug that slows body functions to the speed of trees, making people seem like zombie-statues. I don’t remember how it ends, so would like to read it again.
16393
I'm looking for the title of a short story by Ursula Le Guin about a scientist (?) who is given a drug that slows the timescale of his perception enormously, so that he can perceive that an alien (?) forest is actually behaving as a sentient being, reacting to current events, but at an enormously slow (from a normal human point of view) timescale. It might be in , but I don't remember the title (and it doesn't jump out at me from the list of titles) and don't have access to that collection right now. It is not &quot;The Word for World is Forest&quot;, nor &quot;Direction of the Road&quot; (from ), nor &quot;Vaster than Empires and More Slow&quot;, the latter two of which look at similar plant perception/time-scale issues. Update: it turns out that the description was right, but I had most of the details wrong: not Le Guin, not alien, not a scientist ...
123268
Sorry I don't recall much about this at all. A friend, who had recommended many other books/authors I ended up liking, told me about a story in which a scientist develops some kind of special glass, that had some property like slowing down light by a factor of a trillion, or something else odd like that, adventure ensuing. He's since moved away, and now I'm wondering what this book might have been.
33074
I woke up the other morning with this story on my mind.  I've tried some googling, but my efforts are coming up with nothing useful.  My memory of the specifics of the material is pretty pathetic, apologies.  What it was: A novella, novel, or series of novels  When I read it/When it was written: I read it between 2000 and 2010; it would have been written no more than 10 years earlier.  The Plot(ish): A group of modern or near future men and women are transported instantaneously to a strange planet by means I can't remember.  It may have been your typical "glowing ball of mysterious light", but I'm not certain.  All future activities occur either on that world or on a shifting series of closely related worlds.    Upon arrival they find wilderness and eventually, while evading Earth-like jungle terrors, they stumble on an encampment of Victorian era Brits.  The Victorians are very much "Dr. Livingston, I presume." types, and we find that they were zapped out of 1800's England in much the same way.  The Victorians (if I recall correctly) keep a Neanderthal or Australopithecene as "servants" and are doing their best to preserve their version of civilization against the barbaric surroundings they've been forced into.  They clearly arrived well before the main characters, but if I recall correctly, they did not arrive 200+ years before, more like 20.  Eventually we meet some slavers who may have been pirates before being taken.  I think that they enslave one of the main characters for a period of time before he is rescued.  There may be some weird religious imagery at this point in the story as well.  The most bizarre bit of the book involves the eventual encounter of the main characters with an extremely advanced race of hominids who have evolved from a completely different ancestor, perhaps Gigantopithecus.  They are huge, gorilla-like people who are peaceful and have technology that is way beyond our lineage.  At one point in the story the humans, perhaps with the help of the Gigantopithecuses, look through what is essentially a catalogue of possible Earths.  They see dozens of different planets, each of which has a slightly different timeline, before moving on to some with wildly different histories, like an Earth that has become completely engulfed in ice, from which the Neanderthals come.  This might have been the explanation for all of the people from various time periods arriving at nearly the same time on the story's Earth.  The next bit is spoilered to avoid giving away the ending:      The main characters and the Gigantopithecus and Neanderthal who have teamed up with them figure out how to manipulate a forcefield protected computer/crystal/teleporter thing of mysterious origin in order to send them home (or perhaps just stop more people from being zapped to this place.)  The Gigantopithecus makes a deal with the main characters, they achieve their goal.  The humans had, at one point, promised the Neanderthal that they would help get it home.  The Gigantopithecus understands that to be an unbreakable contract (it cannot lie) and so the price of its help winds up being transportation of the Neanderthal, along with an unwilling human companion (a woman who has been unpleasant throughout the story, if I remember right) back to the ice world from which the Neanderthal had come.
86798
I really hope someone can help me. There is a book I read years ago and cannot remember the name of it but would love to read it again.   If I remember correctly it was about people living in a tree and they would get into a bubble or something like that to move up the tree. People thought they were dying but it turns out they were moving up a level in life.   Apparently the same author wrote a story about someone digging up an old teacup handle that is about 3 meters long but it turns out the human race was modified and are now tiny.  Hope I haven't made all this up because they sound like crazy ramblings.  :-D
85990
It's a story I read in 2 or 3 parts in a Greek sci-fi magazine called 9 around 2004 (give or take a few years), but it may be a bit older than that. This is what I remember (and I hope it's all accurate):   The protagonist used to travel a lot, mainly using high speed media like aircraft. It was established in the story that as he traveled more frequently and with more speed, he would gradually cross over towards (sort of) higher planes of existence (and that everyone in the setting could do the same, although most people simply didn't bother). These higher planes of existence were apparently still Earth, but the environments and the inhabitants were increasingly more alien and life in them was increasingly luxurious. As far as I recall, the protagonist's goal was to reach those higher levels (either for the luxury or for some other reason I can't recall). If he failed to maintain his "speed" for too long, he would fall back to lower planes of existence, with more familiar characteristics and significantly lower quality of life. His wife had died some time ago and her grave was apparently in the lower planes. He did visit her once near the end of the story, before starting to build up "speed" again.   I don't happen to know the original language of the story because what I read was a version translated into Greek.
35750
My son was telling me about a book that he read last year in class that had a picture of a bee on the cover, but where its abdomen is a syringe (with the needle in place of a stinger). It was kind of post-apocalyptic where people were being driven insane by bee stings or something. Somehow he's not even sure of the major plot points. :)  Anyway, we would like to figure out the title and author of this book. Apparently it is fairly recent, and a second book in the series was released this year.
26305
I read a short story, can’t remember if it was part of a larger narrative or just on its own.  It was about a crew that was taking a bunch of space tourists to a planet that had plants with seeds in glass-like structures that make certain sounds. The main character in this story feels connected to this planet because there’s a Valley of Sound, where there’s a large number of these glass plants that make all sounds imaginable.  People can almost pick out a loved one’s voice for instance. I absolutely love this concept but can’t for the life of me remember what the story/book was called!
87825
I am looking for a story about the future of mankind, in which most people have been enslaved in a virtual reality. It ends with the revelation that the people are just lying there imagining their lives with their heads in a trough of feed.  It explains that chemists began to create compounds that could be released into the air to manipulate citizens - causing them to live, shop, think as desired by whoever was in charge. Eventually these tools got subtle enough that they could simulate reality using just these airborne compounds.  This was clearly a prescient view of what later became computer-based virtual reality fiction.
81551
Trying to find a short story. I first read it approximately five years ago. It was part of a short story collection from various authors. I can only guess at the original published date, but the paperback I read it in was in good condition and seemed fairly new. Written in English.   Story focused around a woman, who for some reason had been injected/infected with a form of nanotechnology (I think that was the term used). These nanobots initially repaired any injury or damage the woman received. However as the years pass the nanobots have repaired so much of the woman that little or no flesh or blood exists, even replacing elements of the brain. The woman is still lucid and self aware.   The consequence of the repairing is the woman is now unable to die, and immortal (I think). As the years pass by she witnesses the end of the earth and the death of the sun in a supernova.   This is as far into the story as I can remember. If an answer was to include where I can read the story again that'd be great.   I'm familiar with many of the works of classic sci-fi authors, and I believe if I'd heard of the author before I would have remembered their name, and therefore found the story myself.
78007
I've read a story online in the past couple of years, possibly on Tor.com, involving the end of the world, which I would like to reread.  A female scientist has calculated the exact moment some wave of destruction, most likely the Big Rip, will hit earth. She's awaiting that moment together with her mother. A probe has been constructed that might survive, but humanity will not, so there will be no-one to read out the data. Her partner has committed suicide, since he (like many other people) doesn't want to witness the destruction.  I went through the stories on Tor.com but I haven't found it yet.
67519
Upon realizing it is a sarcophagus, he decides to sacrifice himself (I think by disconnecting his air) and exist in it for eternity along with the original creature. It may have been in an old Omni magazine, or some other periodical. I thought it may have been in the anthology "Dead Astronauts" but I did not find the story in there.
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.
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.
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).
20198
A few years ago I read an excellent sf book about nanobots that went out of control. In the book they were used for weather control, when they went amok the scientists threw in yet another bunch of nanites and so on, until Earth became uninhabitable, teeming with nanites, I remember the weather also became cold. The planet still could be visited but when they lost cloaking the nanites would attack.   Also, some humans in the book merged with nanites, they could behave benevolently but I forgot the plot too. I only remember fragments of this book, I would like to read it again in English. (loaned a long time ago from a library here in Sweden but they closed the library).   I only know that it was written by an Anglo-American contemporary SF writer, probably 30-55 y.o.
40431
I read the story over ten years ago while I was still trying to learn English, so I can only vaguely remember that the story is about a cop trying to track down a criminal who had superhuman abilities. Some of his abilities were pyrokinesis, using his mind to form a golem from earth and roam around while he stays in the room and stopping time. Eventually the cop was able to catch the criminal and shot him dead.   If anyone could identify the book I would be very grateful. I'd love to read it for nostalgic purposes.
39786
I remember reading a story about an alien who came to earth and gave/sold a human a little device.  It was the size of a pen, and when you aimed it at something metal, the metal became malleable, like clay.  A second time, and the metal resolidified.  When the alien came back not long after, human civilization had completely fallen to pieces because of it.  Does anyone know the name and author of the story?