"Help Me Find the Story I'm Thinking Of" commission giveaway! · 7:53pm Dec 10th, 2013
I have my laptop! It is all shiny and new, with a better screen and, more importantly, an actual keyboard so I don't have to get my writing fix by tapping out rambling essays on an iPad. But that's not why you're here.
So, First Contact is Magic is wending through the approval queue as we speak. It is heavily inspired by a short science fiction story I read a while back. I did my best to duplicate its basic plot (although it's an alien fleet and the tech exchange is much more one-way) and sparse, dialogue-and-character-free writing style. I cannot for the life of me remember what it's called or who wrote it, so I'm crowd-sourcing.
Help me find the story I'm thinking of! Post the name and author if you know it here, NOT in the comments of the story itself, and if you're the first one that gets it right I will write you a 5,000 word (ish) one shot on the prompt of your choice. Yes, even that.
Seriously, this has been driving me crazy.
Hurry up and figure it out before Meeester makes me write tentacle porn.
He does something besides just approve stories?
You know you want to write it anyway :o)
....you know, I think I've read it too....
glugh.
There was a new outer limits with a theme like that.
1593509
He's been requesting in several of Obs' blogs that our next collaboration be tentacle porn.
1593511
But then how will I have plausible deniability when some future employer of mine stumbles onto this account? I need a fall guy!
1593531
Right? And I think the author was someone who I know of, but I DON'T KNOW WHO!
I've read thousands. Give me more details. Any names at all? Where it was? When you found it? Any details at all for the love of god
1593556
It was definitely a short story. I remember that I read it on the internet on a PDF, but not the name of the thing.
1593558
I've been wracking my brain trying to Google-fu into it by chance. It was a PDF on the internet, looked like a scan of a book. Someone in an essay somewhere else online suggested it as a counterpoint to the idea that you should fill a story with vivid imagery and personality as a way of worldbuilding, while this story was much sparser in detail and showed the benefit of going to the other extreme...
Not all that helpful, I know.
The closest thing I can think of is Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke, but I'm not really sure if that's what you were going for. Sorry. :(
Sounds a lot like the probe sections of The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C Clarke. If it was a short story this is unlikely. Unless someone created a pdf with only those chapters, they were fairly self-contained.
The Road Not Taken by Harry Turtle Dove?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken_(short_story)
1593576
Nope, not a book. And the aliens literally don't arrive at Earth until the last line of the story. The idea is that the conquest is entirely done through 'soft' imperialism and cultural diffusion.
1593609
It wasn't any longer than this story is, and there were no real characters to speak of. Thanks for trying, though.
1593610
'Fraid not. There's no contact other than talking to the approaching fleet in the story I'm trying to remember. Good try anyway.
That is the sneakiest way of getting me to read a story I've ever seen.
I think this basic story's been told and retold for a while actually.... you're probably not going to find anything concrete.
Any chance it was written by one Killgore Trout?
This sounds almost like The World's End, which was a movie, but I don't think that's it.
Well, it got me to look up a good deal of sci-fy that I haven't really read in forever.
Alas, I have no idea. Sorry. I did find this, though!
Dammit. Dammit dammit dammit. I know I've read this before, but I can't remember it either. You've successfully trapped me, and now it's driving me crazy as well. Crap.
Any chance you read it on Clarkesworld Magazine? It reads a lot like George RR Martin's sci-fi stories, but I don't think it's one of them. It also reminded me of some early Cordwainer Smith stuff, but I'm almost positive that's not right.
Still working at this. I was reminded of both The Greks Bring Gifts and To Serve Man, with the whole non-conventional invasion, but those are both out. Various elements are present in A Fire Upon the Deep, High Yield Bondage, and And Having Writ... , but no. This is really going to bother me.
Other folks have suggested Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke, but that's a novel. How about the short story that Clarke wrote first, Guardian Angel?
I am not really a fan of Science fiction, sadly, but I would like to help! Time for Meowy to type random words in the google search and come up with a result...
...
I found First Contact by Murray Leinster, but I can't find a link to the story so I don't know if it's the correct one. (At least I tried!)
'Turing's Apple', by Stephen Baxter? There's no alien fleet in that one, though, just a probe with an AI on it.
Oh gosh, i read that for some strange reason Idk. That tentical porn
Well it's a shame I don't know what story that is, because I really wanted to commision a Big Mac X Bloomberg fic.
1595454
Oh my god. Why would you do that?
Well, I don't think I know the story you are looking for, but it reminds me of one of my favorite first contact short stories, "Sshhh..." by David Brin (from the anthology Otherness). It's a cool little mind twister about how to "survive" cultural first contact with a superior, benevolent race. Also, for first contact being communication only, it reminds me of Asimov's The Gods Themselves and Robert Sawyer's Factoring Humanity and Rollback. Those three are novels, though, so no dice.
I wish I had a bit more writing talent, because I really wanna see a FFXIV and FiM crossover. I really think it'd be good if written properly!
P.S. I think I misinterpreted the blog title... Oh well! Still wish I could find the fic that I'M thinking of ;(
1595570 lol, you act like that's the craziest fic there is out there.
The only two I know of is "First Contact" by Murray Leinster (Featured on an X-1 Radio Broadcast)
If not "First Contact", then perhaps "Pictures Don't Lie" by Catherine Mcclane
I can send you a .wav of each show if you want. I've had them for a couple of years.
1593613
You see my comment. I am fairly certain now that it is "Pictures Don't Lie", as the aliens don't arrive till the very very end, while they communicate with each-other.
1596169
I'll check it out! Got a whole bunch of possibilities to hunt through now, between restoring my new computer to full functionality and replying to comments and finishing Reign and, oh yeah, real life it might take a bit.
1596104
True, true. Not by a long shot.
Well after a quick google trip I found two stories but I don't think either are what you're looking for but I'll list them for you anyway, just in case.
P.S. by Eric Frank Russell
and
Dear Pen Pal
These don't seem like the one you described but memory is a funny thing like that.
-Reader Out-
I know this is probably wrong, but it reminds me a lot of 2001: Space Odyssey, which is a movie, but its based off of Arthur C Clarke's The Sentinel... so... I suppose that will be my guess...
Here's one list that might have it. It doesn't sound like it, though--nothing really fits well with your story.
Otherwise, I've got nothing. Maybe if you had a character's name, a key phrase (or close to it), something--I've got 8gb or more of sci fi (and a respectable library of paperbacks, too), but I haven't read it all.
The story does have a vaguely familiar feel to it, though.
I'm sorry. I found a piece of a similar story written by a woman in 1951 but I can't for the life of me remember who wrote it or what it was called. It wasn't your story though, as it was told through characters.
1594517
It's probably not that one; it involves humans and aliens accidentally meeting in space. It's a really good story, though.
1596169>>1596319
I found an online version of "Pictures Don't Lie."
1604150
Neat. I prefer the radio version though.
Since I've seen a few people guess it, I figured I'd throw up a link to a book containing Leinster's First Contact: link . I'd recomend everyone give it a read, as well as any of the otehr stories there. They;re all great.
Regarding the search, I've given up. It's going to bug me for days, but I've eliminated every guess I could come up with. Damn.
1608475
My top favorites in that collection:
MIMSY WERE THE BOROGOVES, Lewis Padgett*
FIRST CONTACT, Murray Leinster
THE NINE BILLION NAMES OF GOD, Arthur C. Clarke
THE COLD EQUATIONS, Tom Godwin
*adapted (loosely) into the film The Last Mimzy.
Has anyone figured it out in the eight months since you posted this yet?
2459405
Alas, no. I've abandoned hope of ever running across it again. At least I got a story out of it
Is the contest still open?
If so i'd like to guess Hitchhikers Guide to the Galixy by Dugless Atoms (sory, if I miss spell that)
If that's not is, what is the premiss/plot of the story?
2459823 still? So here's an interesting question for you: how many years do you think until computer intelligence is flexible enough that a computer could take what you said about the story and find it on the Internet?
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/261809/to-those-who-can-hear-me