I'm trying to find the name of an SF&amp;F book I read a long time ago. One of the ideas in the book was that, as the world had been created by angels, it required a 'Book of Rules' to make the world work. One of the rules was 'All beautiful women shall dress scantily' (or similar); another was 'barbarians shall dress in loincloths' (or similar). One of the lead characters was a barbarian who had previously been a trucker here on Earth who dies (or was dying) in a crash.
121210
I read a series in the 80s and am trying to figure out what the name was.  Here is what I can remember about it.  Starts out with a guy, think he is a truck driver, giving a lift to an old man.  Then a lady is picked up also, but she wasn't really part of the initial plan and is just an innocent bystander.  The old man has the truck driver drive him to a ferry that transports them to a leftover portion of Earth where fantasy creatures exist.  Since this world was just the leftovers of the Earth they had to write laws to govern how everything interacted.  The truck driver was brought by the old man to help save this alternate world.  When they make the crossing the truck driver is given a new body that is made from his thoughts, he is described as a barbarian that looks like Geronimo.  He has the body of a barbarian, but has to go through rigorous training to be able to use the muscles, since one of the laws is that nothing can be gained without effort.  I think the lady became a sorceress.  Later in the series his new body dies and he is brought back to life, but another law states that he can't have the body that died or his original body, so he comes back as the body he had when he was in the marines and around 22.  He also becomes a True Were later in the series so that he turns into whatever living thing he is close to when the full moon rises.  At one point he is suspended over a snake pit filled with snakes with silver nitrate venom.  The thinking is that the moon will rise and he will turn into a snake and fall into the pit with the other snakes and be bitten and die because of the silver nitrate.
7143
I'm a huge fan of SF from the golden age of SF, so this could be a fairly old book.  It was a story about a "generation" starship or sublight starship.  I believe most of the story was about their journey and some of the problems and difficulties.  I believe that something strange is observed along the way which later turns out to be them being passed by an FTL starship which was developed, on their long voyage, after they left Earth.  When they arrived at their destination they were amazed and, I believe, disheartened to be greeted by people from 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.
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.
115131
I'm looking for a book (or series of books) which I read as a kid (around 1995). I don't know a lot about the storyline anymore but I remember that there were two distinct alien races in the book with whom humans interacted. One of the races was lizard-like and had as a trait that they had sort of a bladder that filled up when they were upset. When it was full they would go to some sort of temple and release it. They then went completely berserk and fought each other. Sometimes, when they didn't make it to a temple in time, this could happen in the outside world. I think the other race focussed on bio-organic and space ship development and I think they were shaped like small pyramid, but I'm not entirely sure about the last part. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
65670
I read this in the early 1990s when I was a teenager and I have no idea whether it was old or new at the time.  Changing your body involves going in to a tank of liquid. People wear bodies of many and various different types (probably chosen mainly for fashion reasons) but certain body types are prohibited although I don't really remember any of the reasons why.  The main character is persuaded by someone to change his body to an illegal type. Perhaps he becomes involved in some kind of secret underground organization. The new body is of a type that he has never seen before. The main thing that I remember about it is that it has a panel of lights built into the chest and after he has learned how to he is able to communicate with other people in bodies of this type at incredible speed by flashing these lights.  I've spent considerable time web searching with no joy whatsoever. I'd love to re-read this book... the image of the flashing-chest-array communication has been stuck in my head ever since I read it but I can't remember whether anything else about it was noteworthy.
21122
I'm looking for a book in which the main character was sent to a prison type planet made of crystal. He wakes up with a symbiotic creature plugged into his ear. The creature is able to communicate through plug in. The creature manufactures new crystal parts for the main character to survive, but does it when he's sleeping; such as changing out his eyes and later internal organs.  Read it in the mid 80's, but I think it was written earlier. Any help on this title would be appreciated. Thanks
44427
I need help remembering a SciFi book with an economics theme to it, and it was sort of Dragon related.   There was one SciFi story I read a long time ago that I can never remember the name of. It was about a galaxy where free enterprise was the name of the game, so long as you didn't break any laws almost anything went. Most sentient races were reptilian, and the galactic head honchos were a species we called Dragons. Mammals were by default second class citizens, so we had two strikes against us for being the new kids and for being hairy lumpy mammals.   The only other species that would talk to us were these giant rat things that made their living as galactic trash pickers and gossip mongers. The rest of the universe didn't care about humans at all. Even intelligent flowers had higher galactic status.   And somehow a lost colony figured into it all. We had a colony once and it had been wiped out by the flowers. Only, they weren't all gone. They were being used a slave labor. One of our ambassadors finally got to talk to a dragon, and the dragon quoted some obscure bit of galactic law. Which ended the story with a mercenary human army being hired by one race to clear out the flowers, and us getting our colony back.
53801
I really want to reread a book I read years ago. I can't remember the title, but I remember that for most of the book it just appears to be a classic fantasy book, but part way through the main character finds a ruined city and a robot, and it turns out it is a post-apocalyptic future several millennia after a nuclear war. Does anyone know what book this is? I really want to read it again.  As a side note, it could be by Philip K. Dick, but I'm not positive on that one.
102077
There is a book I read in the 1980s or 1990s from a Ca.  library. It was a hard copy not a paperback. It is not "To Outlive Eternity/Tau Zero" by Poul Anderson (I have that one). It may have been written by a woman or someone whose last name starts with an "L".  A large crew of men and women are in a new super fast space ship. They are being chased by someone and they outrun the collapse of the universe, but they have lost their home planet. They watch as the universe is reborn. They go into orbit around a planet that looks like it can support life like theirs. They are moving super fast. They look like a ring of radiation going around the planet. They put down 10 super metal markers with scientific info onto the surface of the planet. They watch the planet develop and form life like the dinosaurs and then evolve into human like life forms.  There are 2 warring countries on the planet. They block or turn off the sun to freeze the planet and force the countries to form one world government. The planet gets freezing cold and the people start to freeze. The countries agree to form one world government. The people on the ship are welcomed to the planet.
8000
I am looking for the title of a science-fiction book describing a colony (utopia) on another planet that has been established as a social experiment. The inhabitants had been brought up only by robots and therefore work perfectly as a society. I think there is no formal government and people work on what they are interested. If any catastrophe happens, they are able to form groups of specialists who react to the threat. Later there comes a group of outsiders who decide to join and live in the utopia. I am not sure, but author was probably Canadian.
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.
81984
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.
20704
So my dad told me about a short story he had once read. It must be older like before 1986. It is about two men who traveled through space and found a dead planet. On it was what he calls a super museum. They set it up as a heritage/legacy for those in the universe that were intelligent enough to find it. As a twist it turns out that this planet is actually earth and that the men must have traveled to the future. (Kind of like planet of the apes)  I have found a few topics that looked similar. But it's not resurrection bij a.e van Vogt.(because they know it is earth they are visiting) Although this seems very similar. He also says it is not all the way back from michael Shaara.   Anybody have any idea? If it helps, the story was translated to Dutch and was in a book with other stories as well. I don't know if they were from one author or various. It has been bugging me for years as my dad always told me the story moved him deeply and as I love science fiction I would love to read it. Just found this site so thought to give it a go.thanks in advance!
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.
44601
I read this quite a while back, part of my parents library (they're in their 50s now) I think the book was probably published in the 70s or 80s, my copy was paperback. I don't recall the cover art, but I have vague recollections of a satellite on the cover and maybe blue with grid-lines below it?  I've made concerted efforts to find it again but to no avail. My parents don't remember it either, but mum's an avowed book-aholic and buys a lot of books, reads them once and forgets about them, so that's not so surprising.  The key parts I remember:   Both the Soviets and Americans were working on psychic techniques and technologies, with real and tangible results including Remote Viewing. MK-ULTRA was explicitly namedropped in relation to the American psychic program. The Soviets and Americans both had orbiting superweapons, One was a microwave laser (or something very similar) and the other used slivers of the brains of psychics to blow people's brains up in a wide area. A super-psychic (male) took offence to the state of the cold-war and took control over the orbital weapons by manipulating the onboard computers psychically. There's a gruesome description of a psychic weapon being tested on monkeys in a lab, the POV character throws up afterwards in horror. I think there might have been more than one POV character. There's an extended description of the psychic orbital weapon as experienced by people in its area of effect. Similar to the monkeys, it builds up, starting with alzheimer-esque hand-shaking and building up to seizures and screaming before their brain liquifies fully and either comes out the nose and ears or outright blows the skull open. (this is one of the more vivid recollections I have of the book) I remember that the super-psychic was working wholly alone and did most of his psychic stuff from motels halfway around the world from events. I believe the super-psychic also killed other psychics explicitly. The weapon satellites had code-names Both weapons were used on cities in the course of the story I vaguely recall an office building getting targeted specifically at one point.
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.