About fifteen or twenty years ago, I read an article (online, I think) which discussed, among other things, the structure of science fiction , which are put together from pre-existing pieces of shorter fiction.  Among general facts about the genre, it described some interesting specific examples.  One piece of trivia that was mentioned was that an author had actually used the same piece of short fiction in two different fix-ups!  I don't remember any other details; in fact, I think there weren't really any other details given.  However, it sounds like a fascinating and strange thing for any author to do.  Does anybody know what the author and story invovled were?  (From the context in the article, I am pretty sure it was not van Vogt, since he was identified in a different part of the article as the author who coined the term "fix-up.")
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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.
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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
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It''s quite common for academic papers and such to have a short title intended to catch the casual browsers's interest, followed by colon and a longer more explanatory alternative.  I know  is a lousy example (I couldn't easily find a better/shorter one), but even so I'm sure this Catchy Title : Longer version conveying more information about the work format is also used in fictional works.  Is there a standard name for that secondary title. It's not really an "alternative title". The only thing that comes to mind for me is , but I know that's not right either.
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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.
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Arthur C. Clarke wrote a short story about a huge matrioshka brain that sends out probes to the far reaches of the Universe to find out more information.  I cannot recall the title, and was hoping someone else knew.
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I recently read the .  This book had the idea of the time you live as something that can be used to pay for things. When you run out of "money" you die.  I was wondering is this the original source for this idea? Or does anyone know of an earlier book with the same idea?
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In the story I'm trying to recall, everybody on their thirteenth birthday (?) is assigned by some kind of brain analysis method a profession and given some kind of pill (?) that instantly (?) grants them the required knowledge and skills to start working immediately. Some professions are more sought after than others, especially in view of the olympic (?) games regularly held on a profession-by-profession basis.  The protagonist, however, is turned down from this system and dismissed with some general reason and has to work his way to adulthood the boring old way: studying from books. Eventually he rejects from his status as a "special" student and goes on the run, hiding from the teachers and envying the normal people.      Eventually, it turns out that the protagonist was actually smart enough that being spoonfed premade information was a waste. What he actually was assigned to was advancing the bundles of knowledge themselves, as well as being front line in the technological progress.  "Somebody has to write those textbooks! You can infuse knowledge about how to use today's technology, but you can't do that for tomorrow's - people that get assigned a profession become tied with their assigned technology and are only as relevant as that. If you want more, you must learn how things actually work, and there's no shortcut for that." (not an actual quote, but a specific passage as I remember it.)  The troubles the protagonists underwent were actually planned and necessary for him to acknowledge and accept his role in society.   This story was certainly longer than a couple pages, but it wasn't very long either. If it's a short story, it was probably written by Asimov, but I can't be sure. It rings me of Brave New World given the theme of government-issued population planning, but it certainly doesn't fit with anything else in the actual plot. Any idea?
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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.
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I'm looking for a book of science fiction short stories. One of the stories describes the experiences of a man who finds himself in a corridor with a dead body. The corridor turns out to be a Möbius strip. I must have read that late 1970s.
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I am looking for the title of a short story where a space craft is made up of various creatures from around the universe.  If I remember correctly the skin of the craft is made of creatures. the computer is just a giant brain. The engine creature suffers some form of malfunction and a nearby suitable replacement is located which happens to be a human. Although not as good as the original the human will suffice. At first he is reluctant but then discovers he loves it. I think they call propelling the craft as "pushing".   I hope somebody can help. I had this book many years ago and I don't know what I have done with it.
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A while back a guy came into the place where I was working. He had a book (I don't remember the name). The book was, according to him, scifi. I told him, "Great! My favorite scifi is the Skylark Series by EE Doc Smith!" He sort of tsked this, saying, "Oh, that's only space opera." I really didn't know what to think of what he said. The funny thing was, I remembering looking at his book thinking, what makes his book scifi any more than mine.  I started thinking about this incident the other day and am once again curious:  What is the difference between space opera and science fiction? What identifies each genre specifically?    NOTE: I had originally asked this on meta due to the closed question:  which is very similar to my question. It was subsequently moved to the main site.
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I'm looking for a plot line (it should be a short story) that depicts Earth population (or their close descendants) establishing contact with another intelligent life form deep into space.   After careful studying of DNA samples and language / communication symbols they then realize that the civilization in question is also from Earth but that they departed very long ago and travelled throughout the galaxy in the completely opposite direction so that they are now meeting practically at the point of the circle opposite to Earth. There might have been some anatomical differences as well.  As far as I can remember, the story concludes shortly after that.  This should be a work of a well-known SF author, so I'm hoping for a quick response (if time didn't corrupt my memory too much).  I don't think it was part of an anthology, but it's entirely possible it was in a magazine.  As for the timeline, I've read it about 2-3 years ago, but since I have a passion for older SF works it might not be of much use.  Edit: Not sure if this could help but for what it's worth, it might be contained in .
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In the 1960s I read book--an older children's book, I think--which I loved, and still remember, roughly.  I have no idea what the title is or who the author is, and I'm wondering if anyone knows this one:  Scientists had invented a device which they didn't fully understand, and which had puzzling effects.  For example, when a pencil was put into the machine, it disappeared, and then reappeared inside out: The lead was on the outside.  When people went into the machine, they came back dead, having died from fright.  Finally they sent a very open-minded person into the machine.  She was an artist, I think.  She was able to return alive, and described an alternate universe in which geometry was very different.  I distinctly remember that there were supposedly square triangles or four-sided triangles--or was it three-sided squares?  (This is, of course, a literally contradictory claim, but I didn't see the matter as clearly then.)  Thanks!
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I read a story some years ago (probably about 35) in an monthly sci-fi anthology...  It's set in a prison.  The main character is a psychopath who has sessions with a psychiatrist - in these sessions he always blames a person in his earlier life for his condition: uncle, father, mother, sibling... each time returning to his cell - time travelling to his earlier life and killing that person...   Example: He blames his father for leading him into bad ways - goes back in time and kills his father. Next session he blames his mother (and the fact that he grew up with no father in his life) - goes back in time and kills his mother.  Next session he blames a carer (and the fact that he grew up an orphan) etc...  The story had a very clever dénouement, which is hidden in a spoiler section below.  I would love to read this again - any ideas?    Edited to add: I hope I have explained the format sufficiently - the point is, the psychiatrist helps him to identify where he began to go off the rails and who in his life was responsible. Later when he is alone in his cell he goes back in time (the mechanism for this is not explained - it's as if he can will himself to go to that time) and kills the person identified as responsible.  When he attends his next session: his reality, his history, is different so another person has to be identified as the cause of his problems... the story has a Groundhog Day feel to it...  The final paragraph, the end of the story, has him       sitting once again in front of the Psychiatrist and as if it is suddenly dawning on him he looks up slowly, 'realising' that all his problems started when he first came to see this psychiatrist!  Thus leaving the reader in no doubt who will die when he later travels back in time to just before his first session with the psychiatrist...
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I found a box of books in the attic of a new house at age 12, the summer of 1963.  It contained 2 sf anthologies.  One was Damon Knight stories.   The other one was a hard bound collection of multiple stories by multiple authors with many different themes.  The  (not Damon Knight) story I recently remembered involved a pathetic guy (with blond roots) who has been trying to seduce a beautiful non-stereotypical blond.  She demonstrates, in the last paragraph, a "trick"  that causes a fire poker to suddenly sag.  I didn't get at age 12, but when something reminded me of the scene a while back I did and started laughing out loud.  It probably would have been funniest when I was a high school sophomore, but I would like to see if I can locate the story and maybe even the anthology.  Ah, retirement.  I think the  was yellow.
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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.
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I read a collection of Sci-Fi short stories back in the 1970's or early 80's that had one about a couple in love who kept losing each other. The book was my dad's so the story itself could be much older than that. I am very fuzzy on the details as I was young when I read it and it was so long ago. I believe the woman/girlfriend was "taken" (by some bad guy aliens??) while she was sleeping. I think it involved time travel and the man had to search through time to find her. After he found her, when he was asleep one time, he somehow was then "taken" and I think transported through time and had to fight his way back to her again. He may have been some sort of police officer. I just remember in the end, at night when they went to bed, the couple always wore handcuffs so they were never separated when they went to sleep ever again. Does this ring a bell with anyone?  (There is a possibility it is in a short story collection that also contained " The Twonky " by Lewis Padgett (1942), as I remember reading that story around the same time)