The other day, something reminded me of the start of a juvenile science fiction book I checked out from a public library sometime in the early 1980s (say, between 1980 and 1984, I estimate). I know I found it in the kid's section, but it was mostly text instead of being, say, a storybook with colorful illustrations on each page. (If it helps, I think it was in the same section as the "Three Investigators" books, written by Robert Arthur, which I was reading around that time.)   English language. Hardcover. I remember nothing about the author (not even whether I'd previously read anything else by the same person).   The problem is that at this moment I only remember the plot of the first chapter or two. I'm hoping someone else will recognize this from the description.  Plot Points   The story is written in the third person, and the protagonist is a boy (pre-teen, I'm thinking). As the story opens up, I believe he somehow finds himself stranded on the surface of an asteroid or uninhabited planet. I have the idea that he'd been separated from his parents, and somehow had landed alone on this ball of rock, but I don't think his parents were dead. (I don't remember the story being that depressing.)  I think the boy is wearing a space suit, but I could be wrong. Possibly the air on the surface of this astronomical body is breathable. At any rate, the boy somehow finds what is obviously a man-made structure; I believe in the shape of a large dome. He enters through the door or airlock (depending on the atmospheric conditions). Once inside, the boy is startled when a voice speaks to him. It turns out to be the Artificial Intelligence (probably not called by that exact phrase within the text) which is basically the permanent caretaker of this place. Either the place had been set up as an aid station for exactly such emergencies as a human being somehow getting stranded in this neighborhood, or else it had been built for some other purpose which may have already been served. (I don't remember getting the feeling that the AI was directing an active mining operation, for instance.)  The AI introduces itself as "Ego." One reason that name sticks with me is that I was so young at the time that, while I may have seen the word before, I was not entirely clear on its precise meaning. I think the AI briefly defines the term to explain why this is a suitable name for it. Ego is quite willing to help a human in distress, but has very limited resources available. (For instance, I don't think it had a fully functional spaceship parked in a hangar nearby, nor could it instantly establish a radio conversation in realtime with any humans located elsewhere.) The kid does not spend the rest of the story just sitting in the dome waiting to be rescued. I'm sure he visits other places and has other adventures before an obligatory happy ending is provided, but I can't remember details of those adventures. (I don't even remember if "Ego" got to do anything in the plot after the first couple of chapters.)   Does anyone remember a piece of juvenile science fiction which started out along these lines?   Note: This particular "Ego" did not have anything to do with the Marvel Comics character known as "Ego the Living Planet." And thus it has no connection with the MCU version of that concept which was recently featured in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (with Ego played by Kurt Russell).
92754
This was the first science fiction novel I completed reading on my own some 36 years ago. Unfortunately the details are very sketchy indeed, but here's what I think I remember:   It was a hard back library book The book was 100 pages long (perhaps exactly or just over) I read it some time pre-1980, possibly in 1979 but it may not have been new then It would've been classified as a "Children's Book" back then, but would be YA or Middle Grade now The POV character was a young boy of about 10-12 years of age It was set on the Moon The boy is rescued by some space gypsies He is befriended by a young space gypsy girl with dark hair When he is returned to his family, his parents are very prejudiced against the gypsies. A scene fragment of transferring from a lunar rover to the entrance tunnel to a lunar base A scene fragment of the boy looking at a computer screen and seeing someone who reminds him of the girl   Like so many here, this is a long term unscratchable itch that I'd love to soothe. Many thanks in advance for any clues or pointers.
81724
I am trying to identify a fix-up novel, where I think I only remember a sub-story from the middle.  It was probably published at least fifteen years ago, but I cannot pin down the date better than that.  The main character volunteers to travel to an alien world (maybe with the first intelligent aliens humans have identified?).  A remote probe had sent back some visual data on the aliens, before the aliens destroyed the probe.  The main character has some history as an amazing explorer or risk-taker, and he is sent to try to establish communication with the aliens.  His chance of coming back alive is rated as being very low.  I don't think it's clear what happens to him on the aliens' planet.  Maybe he doesn't remember it, or he thinks that his mission was a failure, and he eventually decides to return to Earth.  However, upon his return, it turns out that the aliens have modified him, in an attempt to enable communication.  He has become an overpowering telepathic projector; every thought and emotion in his mind is communicated to everyone near him.  This is extremely unpleasant at close range.  (I think there's a scene where his girlfriend is really, really trying to have sex with him after he comes back, but she is ultimately unable to.)  Eventually, he decides that he cannot live around people any more.  I don't recall where he goes, although I think the last part of the book features people from Earth trying to get him back for another mission (perhaps one for which his uncontrollable telepathy might be useful).
43928
My mom read this story in the 1950's when she was a teenager. She recounted the story to me and my siblings many years ago, probably trying to entertain us on some road trip. She has always wanted to go back and re-read it, and of course, we want to read it, too! But she can't remember the title or who wrote it.  The protagonist is a guy who works in an office building and notices one day that the janitor has an extra eyeball in the back of his head that is normally hidden by his hair. The man gradually comes to realize that several people working in this building are aliens. With some snooping, he figures out that the office building is actually a spaceship.  One day, the building starts vibrating, and this guy knows he's got to get out. He hurries downstairs and runs outside. The ground beneath his feet continues to shake. Suddenly, he realizes that the spaceship encompasses the entire block. He sprints toward the street, but just as he reaches the sidewalk, a metal wall shoots up from the ground, basically encapsulating the entire block with him inside, and the block blasts off into outer space.  Can anyone help track down this story?
97360
I'm trying to find an English-language short story I read in a collection about five to ten years ago (I don't have any idea of the original publication date).    Here's everything I remember:   The story is about human astronauts landing on an alien's planet, from the alien's point of view. Every organism on the alien planet is part of a single hive mind, and they can telepathically infect the humans (the aliens view this as beneficial, as any mind separated from the hive must be suffering), but choose not to once they realize that there's an entire planet of humans out there. The narrator alien is an organism that was designed by the hive to mimic a non-essential component on the spacecraft, so it can stow away when the humans return to Earth. The narrator alien is preparing to infect all of Earth as soon as the shuttle's door opens, but the component it replaced was the wire that opens the door, so it is fried instantly by the current.   Despite knowing all these elements of the story, I haven't had luck Googling it, because so many of these elements are very common sci-fi themes on their own, and I don't remember any unique names/terms.  I don't remember if I read this in a Sci-fi anthology book, or in a magazine (like 'Asimov').  Thanks in advance if anyone can help me track this one down, it's been bugging me for a long while.
88862
I seek some help identifying a short book I read in my childbook. It was a science fiction book about a society where due to scarcity of resources, you were allowed a certain life span depending on your achievements and contributions to society. If you exceed the amount before doing something that causes you to get promoted to a higher life span, you will be taken in the night by some sort of police and vanish.   For extraordinary achievements the highest status you could achieve was immortality (I seem to dimly remember the usage of the word amaranth for those people).   The protagonist of the novel was someone who had once been granted immortaility but then had it stripped away from him again due to some misdeed or mistake. Now he tries to get that status again (maybe under a fake identity?), but one of the immortal people is suspicious of him so he murders her. She gets revived later, because that's part of the immortality package.    It ends with him being apprehended, but society decides to invest heavily into space again so that hopefully in the future there is space for everyone to be immortal. The book ends with the protagonists being sent of an explorer into space alone.
69670
I have been trying to find a book I read quite a few years ago. Well, there are 2, one being the sequel.  Now I'm sure my memory has been kind enough to mix parts of the 2 books, but I will do my best with the description.  The cover of the book had a hand print. As far as the story, a boy finds out he has some powers from some guy. I think he had a ring that allowed him to use his power. Later when training the boy, he has him learn to control his power by deflecting rocks or meteors or some rocky item. The boy ends up using too much force and shatters them, but eventually gets the hang of it. Another part close to the end, the boy has a vision, I think, of some other kid getting struck by lightning, so he figures out a way to save the kid, but gets struck by the lightning himself.  In the second book, I remember a part early on where a sign falls from a building toward some child, but the boy uses his power to save the kid; afterwards, no trace of the boy is found. A lady who witnessed it said something like it was her dead son (I'm guessing his mom from the previous book).   I'm having trouble remembering anything but that. I read them in '97 or '98, I believe. As far as the publication dates, I never checked.
41080
I read this story in a sci-fi anthology in the mid 90s, but I remember thinking the book looked pretty old by then.  The story is about a man who wakes up from stasis / cryogenic sleep in the future, only to discover that he's the only human left alive on Earth. He's greeted by a simple robot which is programmed to follow his instructions. He spends some time in the library, but eventually decides to go back to stasis. Before he does, he gives the robot an order, which it interprets to mean that it should expand its own capabilities.  When the man wakes up again next time, many years have passed, possibly centuries, and the robot is noticeably smarter, having gained several extensions and upgrades. For some reason, the man goes back to stasis.  That keeps happening a few times, the man goes in and out of stasis, and every time he wakes up the robot has upgraded itself. Eventually the man gets so depressed about being the only human left that he decides to go back to stasis permanently.  The next time he wakes up, billions of years have passed and Earth is about to end. The robot, who by now is on the far side of the singularity, ushers him into a spaceship and puts him back to sleep.  The man wakes up a final time,       on a planet full of humans. The robot has spent the time when he was in stasis to find a new planet, terraform it, and create human beings to populate it. The twist is that everyone has a green tint, because they were modeled on a discolored picture of the man's wife, that he had in his wallet. The man decides he's fine with this.   I can't remember exactly why all the other humans were dead, could have been a war or a plague or something similar. I also can't remember why he went in and out of stasis, it could have been that he gave the robot a project to complete that would take a long time, and only woke up to check on its project.
11461
I'm looking for the name and author of a novel (or possibly novella). I first read this in the seventies, and might be older than that. It might have been written for teenagers.  The story takes place on a planet inhabited by a primitive humanoid race, roughly stone age if I remember rightly. Visiting this planet is a small team from a more advanced race, also humanoid and with spacefaring technology (obviously!). They are either there to help or observe, no nefarious purposes. I think they are avoiding contact with the primitives, at least initially. It's explicitly mentioned that the planet they are visiting is the third one of a medium sized star, just like their own homeworld. Also orbiting round the planet is an even more advanced race, using high tech to remain hidden from both the others. They are observing the whole situation, and again its mentioned that this is a 'third planet', like their own homeworld.  I'm a little bit hazy on the rest of the plot, but I think the super-advanced race end up revealing themselves, even though they are not supposed to.  The story is told from the viewpoints of both the second and third races (maybe also the first, I forget)  EDIT: For the record it turns out my recollection was faulty, and the second race are indeed coming to the planet for nefarious purposes. And the planet is at the medieval stage, not stone age.
52727
When I was younger (lets go with probably about 20 years ago), I read a f/sf book that I've been looking for ever since, but I can't for the life of me rediscover it.  It centers around a boy who is rescued from (I believe) a flood, by aliens, who take him to a sort of a domed colony, populated by other humans saved from disaster.  The setting in this domed colony is more or less suburban, but there are robots that are considered caretakers, that keep it running, etc. (and actually, it turns out that the robots are the only ones left, and that their creators are not extant).  Over the course of the book, the boy travels to similar domed colonies that house other alien species.  In one, he comes across (this is a little fuzzy in my memory here) a fruit that enables transmogrification, which is used in an alien ritual of some sort.  The only other detail I can recall is that at the climax of the book, this fruit is used to become one of the robots' creators, in order to break into some sort of control center.  This has been bugging me for the better part of a decade - hopefully somebody here is familiar with this book.
98221
I read this in the late 1970s or early 1980s, possibly as part of a juvenile fiction anthology/collection. From what I remember in this story a post-apocalyptic society requires each member to go out before their 18th birthday and kill an "oldster" adult (i.e. I think over 30 similar to the time in Logan's Run) to make room for themselves.  Otherwise they will be killed.   The kids actually cut off the hand of the victim which has a tattoo on it with the birthdate/age. In this case, the world has gotten to the point the person who kills the oldest person gets a "prize" of one more year of life beyond 30. Note, this is NOT Logan's run nor the novel upon which it is based.   The hero in this case finds an old man, the oldest he had ever seen (something like 45-50 I think) making wonderful sounds with a strange device. It was a piano.   He then confronts the old man  SPOILER ALERT     ... but cannot bear to kill him. The old man takes pity on the boy and offers him his hand to take back so he can live. The boy asks if the old man will still be able to play the piano with just one hand. The old man smiles and says "Yes, but not as well. " Then, the boy decides to stay with the old man and risk becoming an outlaw so he can learn to play the piano.
62690
Looking for a trilogy published around the early 80s.  Insect-like aliens are invading earth.  Humans' brains are placed in robotic bodies.  The protagonist is a child in one of these bodies.  He has to learn how to control the robot &amp; conserve his battery power.  Once train, he can fight back against the aliens using heat-guns + physical attacks.    The aliens are landing/spawning on sites all over the globe.  Part of the plot is discovering a method to disrupt their staging points.  It was probably young-adult oriented.  If anyone remembers this, thank you.
63542
This was a 'young-adult' SF novel I read in the late 1970's, about the same time I was reading Voorloper by Andre Norton, Madeleine L'engle's Wrinkle In Time books and the Dragonfall 5 young adult novels. so I am not sure if it is actually one of the Dragonfall 5 stories, but I can't confirm it is or isn't by reading available synposes online.   As I recall, the story went something like this...    * SOME SPOILERS BELOW *  A young person and sibling - I think female protag and younger brother, but not sure - is scheduled to visit their aunt and uncle on another planet but to make the voyage in a timely fashion, must utilize this new consciousness transference technology to transmit their consciousness across the cosmos to a host replica body at the destination. After arriving at the destination the protagonist is impressed by their new body and is aware of the only way to tell they are in a replicant body is a small seam, scar or patch on their back, I think near the top of their spine, just below the collar of whatever clothing they wore.  The mystery begins when the protagonist realizes their hosts also sport the same scar when they should legitimately be in their real bodies.  The plot thickens when the protag or sibling finds a room of people in stasis when their replicant counterparts are roaming the same planet, and is subsequently caught in the act.  Sadly, I do not remember anything else, including the reasoning behind the deception.  I was quite young when I read this novel, so I probably got some of the details mixed up, but would love to know the name and author of the novel if anyone remembers.
47430
This is a book I read about a decade ago. It is a science fiction type book and I got it in the young adult section of my public library. It is a standalone book, not a short story or collection of stories.  Characters The main character of the book is a youngish woman, I'm guessing younger than 30, but I can't remember her name. One of the other major characters/possible love interest is a man named Garth (I remember this name in particular because I had never heard of anyone named Garth and thought it was funny). They meet up with others along the way, somewhere around 10-20 people in total.  Plot The premise of the plot is that a bunch of people on Earth joined programs for "quitting smoking" or "quitting drugs" or "self-improvement". However, these programs were a front, and as soon as they attend their first meeting, they are told to go inside a room/device and suddenly find themselves transported to an alien planet. (One of the characters later jokes that it worked, because she hasn't smoked in weeks due to being on an alien planet with no cigarettes)  Once the main character meets up with other transported humans, they start trying to figure out what to do. They receive some sort of instructions from the aliens who put them there and they are told if they reach a certain place alive, they will be sent back to Earth.   A lot of the conflict centers around people arguing whether or not to follow the instructions they were given. The aliens themselves don't play a huge role until the end (other than giving instructions), and the book focuses more on what the people discover about themselves in the journey (which lasts weeks at least) to this mysterious end goal. I remember it as "a sci-fi sort of Pilgrim's Progress" (minus the heavily religious overtone), because all the different places/challenges they do are supposed to represent some real-life problem someone in the group was facing.  In the end, those that make it are returned to Earth with their memories wiped, but their bad habits gone.  For some reason I thought the title was "The Crystal Arches" for a long time, but I haven't had any luck finding it by that title. Possibly their end destination was a set of crystal arches or something.   I've asked this on a couple other internet sites but haven't had any luck. I didn't think to try here until I saw other questions like this.
101973
I've been looking for a Sci-fi book trilogy that I'm pretty sure was published 2000-2004. Almost positive I read it in high school, think it might fall under YA or something but anyway details that I remember:  The first book starts out with us getting details about the protagonist via dreams I believe. Something about his ship being damaged or lost during the transit home after the war and the soldiers are debriefed during hypersleep. Well, because his ship was damaged/lost, the system never stops the debriefing and forces him to relive the experiences over and over again which causes a lot of trauma to the point where he has constantly recurring nightmares involving those memories.   Anyway, you find out he was a soldier who fought with a power suit of some kind and his branch of the military didn't believe in harming the environment. They fought what he called a "Pure War", only causing destruction to the enemy never the surrounding life. The last war he fought was against some kind of bugs.  Apparently his unit was sabotaged by the local populace who were supposedly helping them with upkeep. The mechanics were putting some kind of alien eggs inside the suits so that they would cause the wearer to go battle crazy and then the suits would explode from the inside out as the alien bug ripped out from their bodies.   He later meets some kind of orphan/thief/beggar girl who you believe is super young at the time. She helps him out because at some point, I don't remember why or how, he has to go on the run from the government.  That's a lot from the beginning of the first book. I don't really remember how it ends but the girl ends up having special abilities later in the series, and you find out that there is an alien inside the protagonist's suit but it's not the bug alien but a different kind/species. Last but not least, the girl and protagonist end up as lovers at some point during end of the first or middle of the second book. I'm not too sure.  Anyways, I hope someone can help me out with this, it's been driving me bonkers. I remember some other stuff, like specific scenes if you think those would help.
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.
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?
77670
I have a very, very vague recollection of this book that I read around 1999-2001.  A kid or tweenager finds some kind of creature -- the visual image in my mind is of something like a horseshoe crab but that's hardly reliable -- that I think can time travel, or allows him to time travel. Unfortunately that's about all I remember of it, but it was such a distinctively weird concept that hopefully someone else remembers it as well.  The overall vibe seemed "dark" to me, as a young person. There might have been another kid involved later on.