Quite some time ago (perhaps 12 years ago?) I was loaned a novel which I cannot remember the name of.  Someone invents a way to create stable wormholes in time too small to travel through, but used to view events in the past. Results in the removal of all personal privacy, crimes are watched in court from any angle - nothing can be hidden.  People begin to walk around wearing masks with projections from these wormholes on them, so you could be wearing the face of a Roman Centurion with his facial expressions changing in real time. I don't remember too much else about the finer plot.  Pretty thin on description, but if it sound familiar to you....
4459
Read it in the 90's. I remember one specific part where the inventor of the peeking mechanic has his Eureka moment, and has the presence of mind to give a thumbs-up/wave to the future, when they look back on his Eureka moment.  I also remember that they had computer screens that were like plastic cloth that they would just unfold on whatever surface was handy.  Sorry I don't have much more to go on.  Please and thank you!
14051
A little help please. The story I'm looking for is probably late-50's to mid-60's, and may well have occurred in an SF magazine.  A professor is demonstrating his new time machine to a scientific audience. The machine looks like two large spheres touching each other. In operation, one is sent back into deep time (let's say, although my memory has dropped this particular datum, 10 billion years). It will then return to the present, then bounce off its twin and jump back half that temporal distance (5 billion years), return, bounce half again (2.5 billion years), etc. Each trip will take half the time (in present-day units) as the previous, so the whole thing will be over in a finite time.  Before anyone can stop him, he activates it. He begins lecturing the audience, asserting that whatever has happened has always happened. At decreasing intervals the sphere reappears and bounces with a resonant "Boing!". At each jump, the narrative establishes that the appearance of the sphere did change history, and these changes are reflected in the professor's speech.  So it becomes something like "(Boing!) And those who say that this is dangerous might as well be claiming that the day is not 26 hours long (Boing!) or that there are three moons, not seven (Boing!)", etc. And when the final (Boi-Bo-B-B-Boing!) fades away he raises his tentacles in triumph and cries, "See? Nothing has changed!"
26348
I read this story in the 1990s or early 2000s, I believe. It was about a world with three layers or zones, and in order to travel from one zone to the next, travellers could only do so naked, otherwise a force field in the tunnel would prevent their passage. The second layer had many voice-activated &quot;magic&quot; devices, such as flying chairs, and put an emphasis on the number 6. The third layer had demons, and placed an emphasis on the number 5. The end of the story is that the system was devised to trap demons in the third layer, and the technology and numerology of the second layer was supposed to make it inhospitable and/or its population unsusceptible to the demons.
86204
I read this novel back in the mid-80's but I'm pretty sure it was written in the 70's.  Strange things start to happen around a homeless man - like the laws of chance are changed.  The investigators discover that they can figure out what is going to happen next by interpreting the dreams/vision of the man.  One such dream is of a large body of water that is split into two pieces. Turns out that means that "C" (sea) - the speed of light has been halved.  The homeless man had become the embodiment of the creator essence. The creator was hiding, because it was tired of trying to keep the universe working and from the fight with is adversary - chaos.  At the end of the book, the creator allows the world to be destroyed and recreates it - except that planets are cubes and move in squares.  Yes - it was rather bizarre.
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).
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!
61751
It's been about 25 years since I read a story in an anthology.  The only details I remember from it are that a guy is told that if, while walking down a road (or something similar), he mentally forces himself to think of dimensions opposite of what they are (down is up, left is right, etc.), he will be able to move into another dimension.  He succeeds, but that's all I remember of the story.
71912
I don't remember when I read this. At least 20 years ago but maybe more. Nor the length. Probably not a very short short story but whether a novelette or a full length novel I have no idea.  It was at the same time SF and fantasy, because the only thing I remember is that one of the characters, while in a spacesuit in the vacuum (SF!) was able use his "phantom-hand" (Fantasy!).  I think that at some point he had lost an arm and developed this strange telekinetic power which he interpreted as a "ghost arm". Later he was grafted an artificial arm, but retained his telekinetic power as a "third" arm that could penetrate matter and for instance wipe his sweat from his brow while in his space suit. I don't remember anything more, alas.
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 .)
121014
I read a short (in the range of 5-20 pages) science fiction story a while ago, and can't remember the title of the story or its author at the moment.  The basic story is that of a super-savvy computer hacker who got all of his knowledge of computers removed from his brain, temporarily (one year?) for cybercrime, including (IIRC) some form of identity theft, and is released into the public without any jail-time or anything. This is very hard on him, for this future-Earth relies heavily on highly interconnected computers for basic and daily needs. This is not immediately clear at the start of the story, but it becomes apparent after a little while.  Part of the story includes the main character (I don't remember if he is granted a name in the story) wanders into a cafe or a bar, and is invited to play a game of digital, . He has to turn down the invite, though, because he doesn't know and is blocked from knowing how to use computers. He also really doesn't want the other characters to know this, because apparently having your computer knowledge removed from your brain for cybercrime is a major stigma in that society. The character also has difficulty using his (futuristic equivalent of a) credit card, as that also requires some computer knowledge.  Any ideas?
74729
In the novel they have worked out teleportation but the data is transmitted, meaning that they can make copies of it and generate multiple copies of a person if they choose to do so, or regenerate them if they get killed or injured.    A big part of the book was the use of micro-black holes as a building material, and the construction of a dyson sphere around the sun, along with terra-forming Venus.
20000
As I remember the being from a multi dimensional universe seemed to change form as different parts of it interacted with our 3 dimensional universe.  I read it in the 1963 paperback edition of The Best of Science Fiction edited by Groff Conklin.  is a list of the contents.  The  has stories that are not in the 1963 edition.  Anyone familiar with either edition should be able to identify the story.
115760
I was 12 years old in 1988 and, that year, I spent most of my savings on a large format hardcover book where the authors attempted to tell the story of mankind's expansion in the universe.  They did that by taking characters, settings, technologies and plot devices from famous novels or pulps and juxtapose it with more or less random cover art. The result was extremelly well put together and -- at least to my young mind -- very convincing.  Needless to say, this book has been a kind of gateway drug for me.  Unfortunately, I lost this book about 15 years ago. I have no idea who were the author(s) or the editor(s).  Here is what I remember:   the book was written in French but I kind of remember that it was translated from the American the book measured about 30 cm x 40 cm it had one of those removable jacket that I lost quickly so I have no idea what it looked like the actual covers were blue-gray and off-white and represented a two tone space scene with no title all the art was in full colour most of the art came from sci-fi books but there was also Conan-type fantasy when they needed to illustrate a planet returned to barbary or whatever   That's it.  Do you know this book?
72354
I've read this book about 15 years ago, but I think it's older than that.  In the story people use some sort consciousness transfer technology to travel to distant solar systems. So basically an alien from planet A would want to visit Earth, and you would like to visit the planet A, by mutual agreement you'd transfer your mind into the alien's body and alien's mind would be transferred into your body.  So the main character decides to travel and swaps bodies with an alien. However, he/she isn't able to return back to his/her own body and instead is transferred to another alien's body and so on. As the story progresses the protagonist jumps from body to body until he/she slowly loses his/her own identity.  Also the story is written in a funny/light tone.   I've read this story in Russian but I am sure that it was translated. The story was a part of collection of short sci-fi stories.
76902
I read this story about five years ago (so make it about 2009) and the book (from the library) was reasonably tattered, but I'd say only 5 to 10 years old (this is just a rough guess). This was a novel, I think about 300 pages, but again I don't recall it very well so that could also be completely wrong.  I do remember it wasn't a huge tome though.  Most importantly: the narrative.  This story involved a teenage boy who was recruited by a man on a motorbike to help in some expedition; I think they were part of a group involved in some sort of missions against an evil group (again I can't recall exactly what).  This man (who I think was his Uncle 'Bob' or something like that) took him to a subway station and they only just made it to a portal to another world.  I think I'm missing a huge portion of the story, but at the end I recall they ended up in another world (through a portal of some description).  It was an ice world with a pre-Industrial civilization.  The key part of this novel that was members of this group trying to thwart the antagonists could only use a dog whistle; nothing else from a different world/time period could be used in that place.  This was emphasized regularly and when the main character went to the ice world, he got into considerable grief with his mentor (the Uncle Bob character) for using a torch from his original time period.  I think it was set about the early 2000s.  One last piece of information I recall was that this guy was regularly going on about three girls who were perfect at everything they touched.  He had a crush on one called Courtney.  Sorry for the vague details at the beginning, but hopefully the narrative description could prove useful.  Thanks ;)
52833
While reading  question, I recalled that I had read a similar story in my English textbook. The details were a bit different from this question though. An alien (who I think is a convict) convinces a human to exchange consciousnesses with it because it wants to be free. The human appears to be reluctant but at the end, it is revealed that       the human is suffering from some disease and will die soon and is happy to have gone through with the exchange.   I read it ~10 years ago at school and some of the details are probably wrong.
114373
I read a short story about a huge underground prison shaped like a ferris wheel. One goes down and comes up 50 or so years later.  It was in  Alfred Hitchcock horror collection or similar-style scifi collection.  The cover was similar to this, though I believe it was not this (it may have been a competitor, but was this books shape and size):    Does anyone know this story?