10-21-2008, 02:04 PM | #1 |
Zealot
Posts: 120
Karma: 170
Join Date: Jul 2008
Device: PRS-505
|
Help me place this SciFi!
I have no idea if this is the right sub-forum - it's not about something I'm actually reading, so I thought here was most apt.
A couple of years ago I was staying at a friend's and read an anthology of SF short stories, all by the same author. They were pretty bleak, and Ellison-like; one of them was about a world in which all the humans lived underground in bunkers to avoid the radioactive pollution from nuclear war, but sent robots up top to keep fighting, and the robots decided never to tell the humans it was safe, so they could live in peace up top. In another, a primitive society worships a computer that they think is a god, and every year, a challenger has to ask it an unanswerable question, but if the computer can answer, they are "eaten" by the computer (dissolved in acid.) The friend has no idea what book it was (wasn't hers) and I am thinking it's either Philip K Dick or Ellison, but can't find anything to confirm this. So, I promise vast (well, according to what I can give) karma points to anybody who can tell me who wrote this, in what book, or just confirm that they've read it too and I'm not going crazy(er). |
10-21-2008, 02:07 PM | #2 |
Enjoying the show....
Posts: 14,270
Karma: 10462843
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Arizona
Device: A K1, Kindle Paperwhite, an Ipod, IPad2, Iphone, an Ipad Mini & macAir
|
Well, if anyone can answer this, I want a copy too!
|
Advert | |
|
10-21-2008, 02:11 PM | #3 |
Guru
Posts: 776
Karma: 2475053
Join Date: May 2007
Device: Galaxy Tab A (2019) - iPhone 11 - KA1 - Onyx Boox Nova Pro
|
I remember reading something like what you describe a few days ago but can't remember were, maybe it was at FantasticFiction.co.uk or was it Amazon......I'm looking....
|
10-21-2008, 02:21 PM | #4 |
Hi There!
Posts: 7,473
Karma: 2930523
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Ft Lauderdale
Device: iPad
|
This is a classic. So why can't we remember who wrote it?
Googling.... Eliminate Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein... Googling Silverberg... EDIT: Silverberg writes too much. I kept seeing stories I want to re-read, like "Sailing to Byzantium" and getting distracted, because then I went to the Yeats poem that originated the title, read that and fell back in love with Yeats, etc. Last edited by DixieGal; 10-21-2008 at 02:39 PM. |
10-21-2008, 04:24 PM | #5 |
Enjoying the show....
Posts: 14,270
Karma: 10462843
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Arizona
Device: A K1, Kindle Paperwhite, an Ipod, IPad2, Iphone, an Ipad Mini & macAir
|
HA!
I think I got this one........
http://www.amazon.com/Penultimate-Tr...pr_product_top Still looking for the other.......is this the one you are looking for, RWJ? |
Advert | |
|
10-21-2008, 04:31 PM | #6 | |
Guru
Posts: 776
Karma: 2475053
Join Date: May 2007
Device: Galaxy Tab A (2019) - iPhone 11 - KA1 - Onyx Boox Nova Pro
|
Quote:
|
|
10-21-2008, 04:37 PM | #7 |
Enjoying the show....
Posts: 14,270
Karma: 10462843
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Arizona
Device: A K1, Kindle Paperwhite, an Ipod, IPad2, Iphone, an Ipad Mini & macAir
|
|
10-21-2008, 04:58 PM | #8 |
Guru
Posts: 776
Karma: 2475053
Join Date: May 2007
Device: Galaxy Tab A (2019) - iPhone 11 - KA1 - Onyx Boox Nova Pro
|
This is from Amazon.co.uk:
Product Description World War III is raging - or so the millions of people crammed in their underground tanks believe. For fifteen years, subterranean humanity has been fed on daily broadcasts of a never-ending nuclear destruction, sustained by a belief in the all powerful Protector. Now someone has gone to the surface and found no destruction, no war. The authorities have been telling a massive lie. Now the search begins to find out why. Does it sounds like the one he mentioned? |
10-21-2008, 05:01 PM | #9 |
Enjoying the show....
Posts: 14,270
Karma: 10462843
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Arizona
Device: A K1, Kindle Paperwhite, an Ipod, IPad2, Iphone, an Ipad Mini & macAir
|
Yes, thats why I posted it.......couldn't be two books with that same plot?
|
10-21-2008, 07:24 PM | #10 |
Wizzard
Posts: 1,402
Karma: 2000000
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: UK
Device: iPad 2, iPhone 6s, Kindle Voyage & Kindle PaperWhite
|
Not sure - it sounds a bit familiar, but not completely so... Was there a StarTrek-type of plot along those lines?
|
10-21-2008, 11:06 PM | #11 | |
Zealot
Posts: 120
Karma: 170
Join Date: Jul 2008
Device: PRS-505
|
Quote:
On a slight tangent, I read The Man in the High Castle over the summer and it kind of blew my mind. I have no patience for postmodern political theory or history, but postmodern art can be just fantastic and provocative and challenging and enlightening - what art is supposed to be, in other words. Thank you all for helping me to unearth this. |
|
10-21-2008, 11:16 PM | #12 |
Koby-rific!
Posts: 941
Karma: 191112
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: 2' From My MacBook Pro
Device: Kobo Sage,Kobo Aura One, Glo HD,PRS-T1,PRS-950, PRS 300, PRS 350
|
L.Ron Hubbard does the writers of the future program that is a collection of short Sci-Fi stories I think they are on Vol 20 or so. It may have been one of them.
JJ |
10-22-2008, 03:58 AM | #13 |
Tatütatuter
Posts: 390
Karma: 3148
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Germany, Baden, Karlsruhe
Device: Aura H2O, Glo HD, Paperwhite, PRS-950
|
That sounds like one of Isaac Asimovs robot short stories around the three laws of robotics. But which one of them - i don't know.
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
New SciFi: 2184 | MartinParish | Self-Promotions by Authors and Publishers | 33 | 12-26-2010 09:59 PM |
SciFi history? | mike_bike_kite | General Discussions | 351 | 09-26-2010 02:34 PM |
Looking for a particular type of scifi/fantasy - can you help? | Shadowplay | Reading Recommendations | 72 | 06-19-2009 04:24 PM |
New SciFi Ezine Out | Gibbo | News | 18 | 04-26-2009 10:07 AM |
SciFi/Fantasy | kezza | Deals and Resources (No Self-Promotion or Affiliate Links) | 2 | 04-13-2003 11:52 AM |