Name that book?

[KenIsaacson]

Originally Posted by nyrath

I'm pretty sure that is A.E. Van Vogt’s “Far Centaurus”

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?41417

That's it, for sure. I've had a feeling all along it was by Van Vogt, but I could never find it.

Thanks much!

Ken Isaacson

[orjanb]

Way back in the 80's, in English class, I read a short story that I have been unable to track down. I believe that it's of British origin, since Swedish schools at that time tended to lean towards teaching "proper" English.
Anyway, the story's about a man who visits the unemployment agency, to fill in the forms to make him eligible for unemployment. For some reason everyone is very busy and he is shown to an empty room. After sitting there for a while, a janitor comes and asks for his name. After telling him, he promptly begins to paint his name on the glass door. Later, a salary clerk comes by, noticing the new name on the door, and lets the man know that he's now on the salary list.
After that, the man comes to "his" office every day, bringing a briefcase with a book and his lunch, picking up his weekly pay checks.
Nobody knows who's hired him so everybody thinks he's working for some other department.
He has inadvertently became a part of the system.

As I said, I have no idea who wrote this, I don't have the English book anymore, and nobody I've tried to explain the story for has ever heard of it. It could be a Roald Dahl story. Except it is not.

[odiakkoh]

This is a vampire book.
Vampires can be made 2 ways. I forgot the first way but im pretty sure it was the dracula type of drinking their blood but not killing them thing. The second is to impregnate a woman and the baby vampire basically eats (or bursts) out of the mother, killing her. Women cannot become vampires (might be wrong on that one). The characters in the story (vampires and not) were not discriminatory on who they had relations with. There are 2 or 3 main vampires in the story and a third boy who they turned, they unknowningly captured an aquaintance of his but he didnt say anything and let them feed.

Its been 7 years since i read this so i dont remember the plot at all lol. I lost contact with the friend i borrowed it from.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by orjanb

Way back in the 80's, in English class, I read a short story that I have been unable to track down. I believe that it's of British origin, since Swedish schools at that time tended to lean towards teaching "proper" English.
Anyway, the story's about a man who visits the unemployment agency, to fill in the forms to make him eligible for unemployment. For some reason everyone is very busy and he is shown to an empty room. After sitting there for a while, a janitor comes and asks for his name. After telling him, he promptly begins to paint his name on the glass door. Later, a salary clerk comes by, noticing the new name on the door, and lets the man know that he's now on the salary list.
After that, the man comes to "his" office every day, bringing a briefcase with a book and his lunch, picking up his weekly pay checks.
Nobody knows who's hired him so everybody thinks he's working for some other department.
He has inadvertently became a part of the system.

As I said, I have no idea who wrote this, I don't have the English book anymore, and nobody I've tried to explain the story for has ever heard of it. It could be a Roald Dahl story. Except it is not.

Sounds like a Kafka story to tell you the truth.

BOb

[KenIsaacson]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Sounds like a Kafka story to tell you the truth.

BOb

Uh, or a news story out of Washington...

[orjanb]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Sounds like a Kafka story to tell you the truth.

Yeah, it sure got some Kafkaesque over it... Reminds me a bit of Vonnegut as well, though I'm pretty sure it's not him.

[BenG]

Originally Posted by odiakkoh

This is a vampire book.
Vampires can be made 2 ways. I forgot the first way but im pretty sure it was the dracula type of drinking their blood but not killing them thing. The second is to impregnate a woman and the baby vampire basically eats (or bursts) out of the mother, killing her. Women cannot become vampires (might be wrong on that one). The characters in the story (vampires and not) were not discriminatory on who they had relations with. There are 2 or 3 main vampires in the story and a third boy who they turned, they unknowningly captured an aquaintance of his but he didnt say anything and let them feed.

Its been 7 years since i read this so i dont remember the plot at all lol. I lost contact with the friend i borrowed it from.

Was it Poppy Z. Brite's Lost Souls?

[odiakkoh]

Originally Posted by BenG

Was it Poppy Z. Brite's Lost Souls?

Actually I think it is! Thanks. Man my memory sucks. My description was mostly wrong. How were you able to figure it out?

[rdjack21]

I want to say 10-15 years ago while in the grocery store I picked up this really cool first encounter book. I have not seen this book since anywhere nor do I remember the title or who the Author was. But I loved the concept of this book so much I would like to read it again.

The Story:
The book starts out with a NASA Scientist asking the leading SciFi Authors why they thought SETI never found or heard any thing. I don't remember who all the Authors were but one of them was Asimov. Any ways the theory they came up with was that if you could be heard you could be found. With this information and a reasonable tech level you could take out your neighbor with a kinetic energy weapon. So the question became could you as a race accept the possibility that your neighbor could make you extent. At this point all the messages got quite and the NASA Scientist aren't we pretty much telling everyone where we are and Oh my God what are they seeing!

The first part of the book deals with this question from the Alain's perspective where they are trying to determine the possibility of those crazy humans of attacking them and the consequence of them striking first. For instance one down side is that they must ensure that they get all of us because if any of us survive we will know where they are and will want revenge.

The rest of the book deals with the actual attack.

Over all it was a really cool book and I really liked the premise and would really love to read it again.

Thanks

[BenG]

Originally Posted by odiakkoh

Actually I think it is! Thanks. Man my memory sucks. My description was mostly wrong. How were you able to figure it out?

It's beem a while but I remember the birth of the baby.

[TrashcanMan]

Hi Folks,

I'm looking for the name of a story i read quite a few years ago, i can't recall if it was in a compilation a lá "Alfred Hitchcock presents" or "Tales of the unexpected" , or somesuch , but basically it involves a guy working in a shop (pawn?) with an old man who forbids him to go upstairs/out the back of the shop, but the owner himself regularly disappears to indulge himself in whatever it is he's hiding from his younger cohort.

Anyway the young guy steals the key (i think the pandoras box is upstairs) and finds that there's a stage set up with some lifeless dolls/Marionettes on it.... gets creeped out...legs it.

Now- i think the old man dies or something/disappears (upstairs) and being the inquisitive sort the youg guy goes again upstairs where he sits on the stage on a lone chair and puts the puppetsd/dolls on his lap....and the story ends with them .."moving all over him.."...

sorry for the scant details i think the author is either Bradbury,Blackwood,or maybe even lovecraft but can't for the life of me recall the title, or maybe ramsey campbell,robert bloch...

i distinctly remember being creeped out by it, including some of the imagery, like "...the smell of moldy peaches.." when describing the musty attic...also the size of the upstairs is far , far too big to be the ordinary upstairs of an asverage building....

Any and all help appreciated

[nyrath]

Originally Posted by rdjack21

I want to say 10-15 years ago while in the grocery store I picked up this really cool first encounter book. I have not seen this book since anywhere nor do I remember the title or who the Author was. But I loved the concept of this book so much I would like to read it again.

The Story:
The book starts out with a NASA Scientist asking the leading SciFi Authors why they thought SETI never found or heard any thing. I don't remember who all the Authors were but one of them was Asimov. Any ways the theory they came up with was that if you could be heard you could be found. With this information and a reasonable tech level you could take out your neighbor with a kinetic energy weapon. So the question became could you as a race accept the possibility that your neighbor could make you extent. At this point all the messages got quite and the NASA Scientist aren't we pretty much telling everyone where we are and Oh my God what are they seeing!

The first part of the book deals with this question from the Alain's perspective where they are trying to determine the possibility of those crazy humans of attacking them and the consequence of them striking first. For instance one down side is that they must ensure that they get all of us because if any of us survive we will know where they are and will want revenge.

The rest of the book deals with the actual attack.

Over all it was a really cool book and I really liked the premise and would really love to read it again.

Thanks

THE KILLING STAR by Charles Pelligrino and George Zebrowski

[rdjack21]

Originally Posted by nyrath

THE KILLING STAR by Charles Pelligrino and George Zebrowski

Well the story sounds right but I could have sworn the one I read had a different cover Now I just need to see if I can find a copy to read.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rdjack21

Well the story sounds right but I could have sworn the one I read had a different cover Now I just need to see if I can find a copy to read.

Covers change all the time.

[nyrath]

Originally Posted by rdjack21

Well the story sounds right but I could have sworn the one I read had a different cover Now I just need to see if I can find a copy to read.

There is no (legal) ebook version that I am aware of.
Dead tree versions can often be found at www.bookfinder.com (make sure you set the book type to "any", leaving it on "new" means only outrageously expensive entries will appear)