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Questions tagged [story-identification]

Use for identifying a work of SF or Fantasy, including novels, movies, comic books, fanfic, TV series, video games, etc. Use with other tags to specify the type of media, eg. [short-stories]. Use [episode-identification] for identifying a single episode of a known series, whether TV, book, or comic. Use [actor-identification], [character-identification], [music-identification], or [object-identification] for those specific ID requests instead.

375 votes
1 answer
25k views

Story where the number 3 is the monster?

I remember as a child (in the nineties) reading a story where the narrator was a little boy and how he was scared only twice a day – when the clock read 3:33. The 3's would be powerful enough (there ...
zompz's user avatar
  • 4,197
137 votes
2 answers
6k views

Married couple pretend to like each other due to crystal sculpture

Years ago, I remember reading a short story (as I remember it) about a couple whose prized possession is semi-living crystal structure that is sensitive to their relationship; it grows and maintains ...
Howard M. Lewis Ship's user avatar
125 votes
3 answers
6k views

Story where scientist communicates with cities directly

In the story, a scientist discovers that cities have more or less a gestalt consciousness, and that they communicate with each other indirectly through people. He decodes this communication, and ...
Chris B. Behrens's user avatar
102 votes
4 answers
18k views

Story about humanity realizing they are in a simulation

I'm trying to locate a story I read a couple of years ago on the internet. The story revolves around the idea that the Earth, humanity, and our entire universe are all part of a computer simulation. ...
Zoneman's user avatar
  • 3,048
102 votes
1 answer
8k views

Boy transported to another planet where the being who owns the Earth lives

I read this book probably in the late 1990s. I assume the intended audience is teenagers/youth because I checked it out of my junior high library. In the book there is a boy on a plane and the plane ...
Cooper's user avatar
  • 913
88 votes
2 answers
7k views

Short story where human explorers accidentally blind an alien race

I read a short story (probably 20 years ago) about a human scientific expedition that arrives at an alien planet. The planet is covered by a thick cloud layer and orbits a dim red star. The humans ...
HugoRune's user avatar
  • 3,239
88 votes
3 answers
5k views

Time Travel story where an imprisoned psychopath kills people from his past?

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 ...
Ric Millen's user avatar
84 votes
2 answers
3k views

Spambot becomes self aware but every attempt to contact gets filtered

About 3-6 years ago I read a short story (online, I think) formatted as a series of emails sent by a spambot that had become self aware and was trying to make contact but, due to its origins, was ...
tardigrade's user avatar
  • 3,208
83 votes
2 answers
4k views

Movie with magical book showing events of any day in history, except missing days of the Gregorian calendar change

I once saw a movie on the TV sometime in the 1990s. I don't remember a whole lot (maybe I didn't even see the whole movie), only one particular scene, which made quite an impression on my young self, ...
SáT's user avatar
  • 1,268
81 votes
2 answers
13k views

Does anyone know what this fantasy script is from?

My friend keeps on writing it, yet he won't tell me where it's from. He says the third line from the top says : "for what reason."
James Mccoon's user avatar
78 votes
2 answers
12k views

Identify a movie in which aliens believed a sci-fi TV show to be a true documentary

I remember watching a sci-fi movie in the early 00s. It was full of comedy. Here are the details I recalled: There was a space opera TV show in the movie. It seemed a true copy of Star Trek (they ...
user931's user avatar
  • 116k
77 votes
1 answer
8k views

Man serves a sentence for the murder he will be allowed to commit in the future

I recently remembered a short story I had read a while ago in a sci-fi compilation. I tried to identify it, but my Google-fu is not up to the task. Google, however, directed me here. So, I hope ...
Michael's user avatar
  • 733
77 votes
1 answer
4k views

Short story about Neurosurgeon uses nanobots to cure patients, 'reprograms' ex-wife to fall back in love with him

I read this story sometime between 1989 and 1991 in a SF&F magazine (Asimov's Science Fiction? The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction? Amazing Stories?) and I've looked for it for years, in ...
David Hall's user avatar
75 votes
1 answer
11k views

Book in which the "mountain" in the distance was a hole in the flat world

Science fiction novel or short story. Characters were lost or crashed or something on a new-to-them world and were making for a mountain they could see in the distance. But when they reached the ...
Sprout's user avatar
  • 719
75 votes
1 answer
16k views

Soviet statistician deduces the existence of parasites feeding on the human race

This short story would obviously have been written no later than the 1980s, though in my recollection the style was more reminiscent of the 1950s or early 1960s. Darker than a typical Asimov, but ...
DavidW's user avatar
  • 134k

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