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openNo Title Literature
There were at least two books, I remember that much. One of the two main characters was a half-Asian guy who could have been the son of Charles Manson (though he knew that his father was probably an unknown hanger-on, since his blood type was incompatible with Manson). In what was, IIRC, the second book, there was two Asian-type vampires. One who could detach his hands from his body and operate them independently, and a girl whose head and innards would detach from her body and fly around.
openNo Title Literature
I remember reading a series of books when I was in primary school about a (I think) green long-necked dinosaur and a group of kids. In one of them (I think the first one), the kids build the dinosaur a giant kennel to sleep in, and in another one the dinosaur got his neck tangled around a climbing frame. Can anyone remember what the series was called? I think it was named after the dinosaur's name, but I can't remember what that was...
openNo Title Literature
Years ago I found this book in the children's or YA section of the library and read the beginning of it, but didn't finish it. It involved a first contact between humans and aliens, and was told from the POV of one of the aliens. I remember them encountering just one human initially — I THINK it was a girl or woman, and that she was lost or somehow in trouble.
The aliens had a pretty low-tech society, probably just living in villages of huts, and I remember them playing a game with rocks or sticks, or maybe drawing with sticks in the dirt; and the POV alien ended up using this somehow to communicate with the human... by drawing pictures in the dirt, or arranging twigs into pictures, or something like that.
I feel like it had the word "star" in the title.
openNo Title Literature
There was a sci-fi short story that would make a good addition to the "Talking through Technique" page. I probably read it in the late 80s or early 90s. It took place in a world where people used cloning to achieve immortality. If you died, a clone would be made and your memories would be uploaded into it. However, you had to periodically download your memories into a computer; they could only bring you back to the last point you made a backup.
The story begins with a woman waking up as a clone and being told that she'd been murdered — twice, as a matter of fact. The last copy of her never made a backup before being killed again. She was an artist who made works of art out of weather patterns (this is far enough in the future that things like controlling the weather are run-of-the-mill). At one point, a tornado springs up that she hadn't programmed. At that moment, she realizes that the only person who could have done that is herself — one of her past selves that had been "murdered" had actually been kidnapped and then escaped. She is then able to track down her other self.
openNo Title Literature
This was a children's book that was read to me in the '80s. Only a few pages long, with big scary colorful illustrations. It was about a boy who met a Goblin and told him his name was "Me Myself." Near the end the boy burned the Goblin and escaped, and when the Goblin's mother asked who did this to him he said "Me Myself." I'm pretty sure this was the whole book, and not a story in a collection.
It seems to be a retelling of the tale of the Brownie of Fincastle Mill, but I remember distinctly that the creatures were called Goblins and not Brownies. I've done a lot of searching online, but come up with nothing.
Edited by FloydPinkertonopenNo Title Literature
I read this book in 2007 or 2008. It was about a girl who went to an evil boarding school, though the only thing that really sticks in my head about this boarding school was that they had pterodactyls in one of the towers. I think she lived with her grandmother or her aunt? Her name may have been Emma. Oh, and the school had 'St.' in the name. Google has unfortunately not been my friend—and here I was thinking 'girl goes to boarding school with pterodactyls' would be specific enough. Can anyone help?
Edited by IridescentIndividualopenNo Title Literature
I remember reading a fairytale about a young man, who wants to learn witchcraft and therefore is becoming an apprentice of a witch, who lives deep in the forest. However the witch only pretends to teach him real magic, because she wants to eat him as a special meal on sunday/ a holiday, but the witches daughter/ real apprentice falls in love with the man and wants to rescue him. Therefore on the day when the witch wants to eat him, she wakes the man early and they flee into the woods. Before they leave she spits on the doorstep and whenever the witch asks something the spit answers with the voice of the girl ("You can stay in bed a little longer, I`m still chopping the wood/ making fire..."), but once the sun has dried the saliva, the witch realizes she has been scammed and chases after the lovers. It`s a typical, yet very detailed Magic Escape from there on. (The lovers transforms into Rose and rosebush, lake and fish... to escape the witch).
I remember that it was featured in a book of german fairy tales, yet I cannot find it in my collection of Grimms` fairytales, probably it`s Bechstein. I have very fond memories of this fairy tale and would be thankful for any help!
(Ive posted this exact question about a year ago on the surlalune-forum, but never got a response. Now I remebered the tale again... I hope one of you can help me!^^)
Edited by LayLayopenNo Title Literature
America's Stepbrother, America's Enemy
Alien Space Bats timeline where the United States is sent to Orwell's 1984 universe, and takes on the Superstates one at a time.
openNo Title Literature
I remember this fantasy book about two powerful wizards battling against each other. One was a necromancer and had an undead army, while the other was more of an illusionist. I think he mainly used a mirror for his tricks. One hero was sent to stop the conflict. He destroyed both wizards, but died in the final battle with the illusionist. In the end, there were gods arguing with each others. They placed bets on the wizards, and they couldn't decide who won. In the end, they all agree the hero was the best of all their pawns, and accorded victory to the goddess who bet on him. The end.
I read it around the 2002 in a library, and I fear it's an obscure and not very good book. But it's the first fantasy novel I ever read, and I'd really like to know the title. Can you help me?
openNo Title Literature
Actually a bit of a weird one, since I don't think a ton of people will know about it. It was a compilation of short stories by youth authors who competed in a contest or something, published around either Thunder Bay, Ontario or Spruce Grove, Alberta (which is near Edmonton) in Canada. There were for short stories I really remember:
One was a story about a kid who fell into an acid lake in the badlands and wound up in the time of the dinosaurs. He did, however, manage to find his way home via the same acid lake.
Second was a story about giant ants and I think using the power of idioms to save the day (it happened once in a blue moon, and at the end of the story it said "The moon was blue".
Third was a story about a young warlock, and it was sort of a slice of life story. The main character had a fondness for bat wing and tomato sandwiches. I think his relatives were evil.
Fourth was a story about a girl who was on a swim team and had a rivalry with a teammate who was named either Mikayla or Veronica. The rival and main character both made it into the Olympics; the main character placed silver, but found out that the top swimmer (the rival) was using steroids and informed the judges.
The book had a blue, green, and brown cover (paperback) with white text on the front. The text inside the book was blue.
The reason I'm not sure anybody might have heard of this is because the book was given only to those who placed at a certain level in the contest or something - it might have even been for a homeschool group. If anyone has any knowledge about the title, I'd love to know.
Edit: The book was published between 1999 and 2003, in case dates would help. I'm not sure which year it was, so that's why I've got that range.
Edited by TanglemorphopenNo Title Literature
It's a series of four or five books I read 9 or 10 years ago (I picked them up at my local library and at the time they were on the 'newest stuff' shelf, so I guess they were published in the late 90s or early 00s), written by a Scandinavian (Swedish?) author. They're set during WW 2 and the protagonist is a young Austrian girl of Jewish heritage, whose parents manage to send her to Sweden (or possibly Norway, I don't remember) before being sent to different concentration camps. In Sweden she lives with a foster family and at first it's a nightmare for her because of the different culture and language barrier, but then she gets accustomed to her new life. The books chronicle her teenage years in Sweden, and in the end she manages to find out her father survived the concentration camp and goes to the UK or the US with him to study Medicine.
Can anyone help me with this?
openNo Title Literature
A book I read in the second grade. All I remember was a boy who was around 10 years old and either hispanic or puerto rican or asian with a camera. I know for sure he wasn't white. His family was teaching how to use the camera "like a pro" as he put it in his words and they taught him things like how to remove the lens cap and stuff. I read it in the mid to late 90's.
Edited by CanzetTheCoyoteopenNo Title Literature
Tabletop Game Module, I think it was Dungeons and Dragons. One of the encounters was a Death Titan or Death Giant or something; he was making your party put together some MacGuffin. You were NOT supposed to beat him; but if you did AND you put his macguffin together, the book says your party is in a lot of complicated trouble; because a lot of entities would kill to get it.
openNo Title Literature
Two children's or teens' books, probably from the 90s or early 2000s (#2 might be older).
1. A kid goes to New York City. All I remember about him is his mother telling him to DTIP (Don't Take It Personally), because he is sensitive. It might be around Christmas. He meets a funny little man (maybe an elf or gnome or maybe just a funny little man, I don't remember) who befriends him. They go through doors and halls that normal people don't know about or use. They eat ostrich burgers. A remote control is central to the plot; the edition I remember had a glittery (foil) cover with a picture of the remote control on it.
2. A girl discovers an old (stone?) staircase (in her house or the house she just moved into). If she goes (up or down?) the stairs she ends up back in time. When she's there, she's like a ghost—she has to learn how to grasp solid objects, for instance. She makes a friend there, but I don't remember the plot.
openNo Title Literature
A while ago, I read a novel about the yakuza. By a Japanese writer. Not Yakuza Moon, fiction. Anybody know of any novels about the yakuza?
openNo Title Literature
I'm looking for a short story published in the magazine Highlights for Children in the early 2000s. It was particularly thoughtful, mature, and subtle for a kids' story, which is why the memory of it has stuck with me and why I'm interested in reading it again if possible. Obviously, the date and publisher have made it extremely hard to locate so far (since I don't have a collection of Highlights back issues), and unfortunately I don't remember the author or title, but if anyone else happened to read this story, even supplementary memories about it would be appreciated.
Okay, on to the description of this elusive story. It took place in 19th-century America and involved a character named Oren (pretty certain that it was Oren, not Orion, but could be wrong), who was either a runaway slave or a boy who met him. I think that the point-of-view character was the aforementioned boy, who lived in a fairly isolated location with his mother; the two gave the runaway slave shelter in their cabin, but the exact details of why and how that happened are hazy in my memory. Stars - the Big Dipper and North Star in particular - were an important motif in the story, especially in its conclusion, if I recall correctly.
openNo Title Literature
Here's two in one, help on either will be MUCH appreciated:
The first is a Star Wars novel, possibly (don't quote me here) part of the X-Wing Series, about a planet where ace pilots are the elite warriors and they have to stop the Imperial forces from capturing the planet's massive military infrastructure and all its missile production.
The second, and this is the most obscure, I recall as a kid this toy line. I know it very vividly but not the name—it was these little playsets containing humanish warriors, the playsets were shaped like human organs such as a heart or brain. The bad guys were "diseases" that attacked the organs, such as these white spikey things representing heart problems or fiery robots representing fever in the brain etc. I think, I can recall buying it around the early to mid 90s.
Anyway, it's all like HYPER-MEGA OBSCURE but if anyone can help thanks a pantload.
openNo Title Literature
Okay, so I remember one book, I believe Goosebumps, about a guy named Al, after Albert Einstein. He came from this family of smart people, but he had a dumb dog. His mom gets him a chemistry set and he accidentally makes a blob monster that makes you stupid, which is unfortunate because he needs to go to a Thinking Tournament or such.
He goes to school and meets his partner who is also named Al, but is a redhead girl, and he gets blob-stupid juice on all the competitors. The tournament or whatever is a disaster because he got the only right answer, and his parents are disappointed. The blob monster grows and threatens to steal all brains worldwide but his dog is so stupid that the monster explodes and everyone is smart again. Which book was it?
(Also, his sister had a cat that was really smart. She was training it like the one in Meet The Parents, but it was the first victim of the really dumb blob, and I don't think it got anything back by the end.)
openNo Title Literature
There was a collection of horror short stories I remember picking up in a library years ago. The front cover showed the terrified shadow of a kid at the top of the stairs, and we could see that downstairs, there were some autumn leaves blowing into the house through the front door. The front cover's image was from one of the stories in the book, where a boy has to, for one reason or another, rake the front yard of this weird old woman's house. Eventually, the old woman dies, but her spirit comes back to haunt the kid, and the story ends with her entering the house one evening with a bunch of leaves blowing in, and her calling his name. I may have gotten some things wrong about the story, but it has been a while.
Another story in this collection is about a studio exec looking over a movie script sent to him about a young pizza delivery guy (or mechanic, I can't remember which) fighting off giant alien (or mutant) mosquitoes, and eventually triumphing. The story ends with it being revealed that the exec (and presumably his colleagues) are mosquito creatures disguised as humans, and with him saying that he'd love to meet up with the author of the script, and "discuss" it with him.
Edited by Jozin

A Scifi? book dealing with an elf in a post-apocalyptic world? If I remember, it was Baen published, but...
I remember an eBook form, and this was as early as 2011 or so.