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openVampire Turning Human Literature
A few years ago, I read a fantasy book in which there was a vampire who wanted to be human again. He accomplished this by refusing to drink blood; I don't remember if there was precedent or if he was just trying something outside the box, but apparently starving oneself would eventually cause a vampire to become human again.
I remember he was a teenager, complete with pimples—everlasting ones that never changed on account of being a vampire. I think he'd become oddly fond of them over the years, and was even a little sad when, once his vampire-ness started fading, they did too.
He wasn't THE main character—I think he was one of several, like a D&D adventuring party—and I don't think his progression as a vampire-turning-human was incredibly prominent, but it was the most unique part of the book so that's all I really remember from it.
I THINK it was set in a medieval-ish world, but I'm not sure.
openFantasy about reluctant villains Literature
There was a fantasy book about Good defeating Evil for good, just to find out that upsetting the Balance would lead the world to ruin. So main characters turn evil, because someone has to do the job. I'm sure it's somewhere here in the examples for the anti-villain subtropes, but I can't find it. Can anybody remember the title? Thanks!
Edit: Dammit, I'm thick. Villains by Necessity
Edited by ThainenopenBloody Murder Literature
There was a book series I (kinda) remember reading in middle school. It's about a teen girl detective (but not Nancy Drew) and I remember there were these really gross death descriptions. Like some point in one of the books she mentions someone driving a car without a seatbelt and them not being able to find all his body parts and another where her teacher is roasted from the inside out with some kind of huge microwave thing outside his door while he was sleeping and his eyes blew up. I think it has CSI in the name or some version of that.
openDimension Traveling Book Literature
I remember reading this book a couple of years ago. The cover of the book looked like it was from the 1970s, or some time close to that. It featured a boy who could travel through different dimensions. Eventually, a girl joins him. every so often when they travel though dimensions, their bodies would reverse, like they were looking in a mirror. When this happened, the girl had to spend a few days re-learning how to read and see. Because the boy was more experienced, he didn't have to. I believe someone in the story was in charge of protecting the 2nd dimension. Any help in finding this book would be greatly appreciated.
openVarious AU Londons, and a character called by two different names Literature
This was a book I bought new in paperback (in the U.S.) in 2003 or 2004. It involved a group of characters in a city in the British Isles — probably London — slipping among various alternate-universe versions of the city. A nursery rhyme or similar traditional poem was involved somehow.
The most distinctive thing I remember about this — though I don't know if it was deliberate, or an error that might have been corrected in future printings — was that one character was referred to interchangeably by two names. They both began with the same letter, but it didn't seem to be a "real" name/nickname situation, nor anything caused by the multiple-universes plot, because it was never commented upon. To me it read as an error that the author made in revision and the editor failed to catch.
openJustification for WW2 air combat in space Literature
I read this in a collection which also contained a "Section General" story featuring an operation on a crustaceoid alien, but no idea of the title of the collection any more than the title and author of this short. I was going to put this under Old School Dogfighting, but don't have a title for it. The human protagonist is aboard a fighter with kinetic kill rockets and machine-guns, as their enemies, which IIRC were called the Ogliki (Ursine Aliens, as in Six-foot teddy bears with fangs and warlike tendencies) have a technology called The Shield, which dissipates any energy beams at the edge, and anything that is meant to explode will also do exactly that, against the outer radius of The Shield, therefore the only weapons both sides are left with (the humans reproducing the Shield quickly enough) are kinetic kill rockets, machine-guns and railguns. The aliens also have The Weapon, which can mysteriously freeze an enemy ship, leaving it uncommunicative and completely helpless to do anything but drift off into space. This turns out to be a temporal stasis device. The story is framed with a description of a war memorial in an Ogliki village, beginning with a monument to fighting humans, containing a miniature scene of an Ogliki in a wrecked ship with an agressive human crawling toward them to kill them, and ending with a monument to peace, with a human and Ogliki touching (contains a miniature of the previous monument as well).
openBio-tech society Literature
I read an old book recently that I was going to mention under Living Ship, and Organic Technology, but no title or author comes to mind. I don't remember whether I re-donated it (it was in a charity shop) or it's still hanging around my place. The system has been colonised, with the use of bio-tech and bio-mechanical tech, to the point where you can make your children as you wish; live for an awfully long time, though this is restricted by law due to mental decay after a certain age until you are completely insane; wear a living cloak; live in an organic house; and you will be absorbed into a data matrix after your death ceremony, which the living can access, so they are not truly without you. One protagonist is sent to prison (wearing her living cloak) after someone is murdered in her house (and the house ends up dead too), another decides to leave Venus (one of his bioengineered daughters comes with him) looking for answers to some great puzzle, which turns out to be a conspiracy theory to take over the system with a new race of far-more-wildly-engineered posthumans; and one is chasing down someone who is living longer than he is supposed to... There is a crab-shaped prison ship the guy and the young girl make off with, to get to the prison; the throne which people are able to access the matrix of the dead on the ship is a trick, it actually just kills you; and the ship is sentient, protesting that it is highly irregular when the young girl orders a dessert from its food supply system (seriously, that function was installed, didn't you ever think someone would use it? Who built you, the same jokers who come up with the comms connections in Sharp cash registers?) which she promptly spills, as the bioship is on final approach. This comes after the pair have seen a city on a (Saturnian? Jovian?) moon which appears to have been a bio-modified forest.
openEnglish children's book about a fairy tale school? Literature
At least I'm pretty sure it was English. It was essentially about a school where one side of it was 'good' fairy tale creatures and one side was 'bad' (trolls and ogres and such). I thought maybe Francesca Simon (Horrid Henry) might have written it, but it's not showing up on her wiki page. The art style was very similar though. I remember there were some songs in the book, including one about eating worms, and one about the bad side of the school invading the good side.
openI really like this fic, but I didn't get around to finishing it before I lost track... Literature
Does anyone know if this fanfic, I don't remember what it was called, about this ordinary girl who got whisked away to a school for bad fanfic writers set in a magical land? I think it involved a huge crossover with other fandoms, too, it sort of poked fun at the cheesy writing you'll find from some writers. I read the first chapter and enjoyed it immensely, but I lost the title and page of it afterwards. And I'm pretty sure that it was hosted on fanfic.net. Got any ideas on what it might have been?
Edited by cake1openMystery Series Literature
I'm pretty sure that's what it is, anyway. The one I read was about the main kids (2 boys and a girl) and a little sibling go to visit the uncle of the girl, who lives by a cliff, and go searching for treasure.
openSuicidal boy in hospital Literature
This book and movie is about a boy with depression who checks himself into a hospital when he is about to commit suicide. In the movie, they show flashbacks with the actor for the present boy playing the kid version of him.
openA fictional diary about a boy and his dad who turn out to be aliens Literature
I read a book when I was little that I got from the library about a boy and his dad who are ostensibly immigrants to England. The boy records the day's events in a diary his dad makes him write in every day. He doesn't know why his dad's so insistent, but he does it anyway. He gets bullied or something, I don't know. Anyway, to make a long story short, the kid's dad eventually tells him that they're not really immigrants, they were aliens sent to study Earth, and it is time to go back to their planet to return to their True Forms.
What really stuck with me was at the very end, the kid is nervous that their "True Form" will look like the alien monsters that he and his dad just saw at the movies. His dad assures him that while humans do many things very well, imagining creatures from other planets is not one of them.
openHarry Potter fanfic Literature
Hi, Looking for a fanfic - a oneshot, maybe a two chapter fic - that involves Harry after the war with Dumbledore's portrait. I think it's sitting on his desk so he can secretly gloat to it. Anyway, he reveals to Dumbledore that something about the Black family marrying into so many other families is what caused a lot of the inbreeding problems, and the same thing is going to happen again with the Weasley family, what with them having a stupid amount of kids. So he revealed to Dumbledore that he's put a sterility curse on all of the Weasleys, and there's a specific line in there about how Molly is going to be sad because she'll never have grandkids. Any help would be great, thanks!
openI believe the title might have something to do with a green fiddle. Literature
Has anyone else remembered a book about three children, one is a clock makers apprentice who wants to make a full working automaton. As in speaking, thinking, walking, the whole ordeal pretty much like a robot. Another is a girl who works as a maid to make money in order to support her sick father and has a really mean boss. It's when she meets one of the guests I believe she's a voodoo queen that her life begins to get better. The third is another boy who is an orphan who plays a fiddle on the streets for money since he lives with other orphans who are watched over by a man who forces them to pay money, and has a pit he throws them in as punishment. He is the one who finds the magic green fiddle that can play music so beautifully everyone falls in love with the music.
openShort story Literature
While browsing tropes, I read a description of a short story that went something like this: A man lives a blessed life, in which everything seems to magically fall in place for him. He often thinks of himself as the most important person in the world, due his amazing luck, until towards the end he's about to park his car (or leaving his parking space?) when another car crashes into him, killing him. A third car pulls up and parks in what would have been his spot, and inside is the actual Most Important Man in the World. The protagonist's real purpose in life was ensuring said person would have somewhere to park on that day.
I haven't actually read the story in question, but I was wondering if someone else knows where I could find it? I thought the title was "The most important man in the world" but Googling it doesn't turn anything relevant up, so I might be remembering it wrong.
openOld Fantasy Book Literature
I remember there was a fantasy book I read years ago when I was younger. The protagonist was a boy named Ansel who couldn't speak. He was travelling with a dragonslayer named Brock, whom Ansel later found out to be a fraud. Brock was basically tricking people into giving him money and, as far as he knew, dragons didn't exist. One day, the two of them go to this village somewhere and the village people ask them to climb a nearby mountain. The mountain was home to a dragon that, if I remember correctly, was tormenting the village or something. I think it was also a hoarder. Anyway, since Brock was supposed to be a dragonslayer, the village people asked him to go kill it. Brock and Ansel climb the snowy mountain and find a little girl inside a cave on the mountain. Then, suddenly, the dragon appears and, low and behold, Brock and Ansel find out that they actually exist. Stuff happens that I don't remember, I think Brock falls off a cliff at some point and survives. Regardless, there was a point where Ansel ended up having to fight the dragon himself. I don't remember what he did, but he did something so that the dragon could be taken back to the village and put in captivity. After all that, Ansel, Brock, and the girl return to the village to go to sleep. In the end though, Ansel ends up feeling bad for the dragon and sets it free, angering the village people. As a result, Ansel, Brock, and the girl are chased out of the village and have to find something else to do. Brock suggests becoming vampire slayers so that he can continue ripping people off, and I think Ansel gains the ability to speak.
openAlien Kids' Book Literature
I saw something here recently that reminded me of a book series I read way back when, when I was just a little kiddie. Basically, there was an alien boy with purple skin who lived on Earth and went to school there. I think his father was a diplomat or something. Anyway, he befriended some earthlings and there's a whole book series about him. Ring any bells?
openSome horror-genre children's books from the '90s...not Goosebumps, I don't think... Literature
All right, so there's a few different ones. I have a partial name for two of them: 1. "Bites" is one but I don't think that can be the whole name. It was a short collection of stories, most I think if not all involving vampires. I only remember one story though, about a boy who was adopted by a vampire couple. They invited their friends over to help hunt him. It was really odd because if I remember right they said they would have kept him if they could, and they reassured him that all the things he'd need to defend himself were in the garden. I think he defeated all the vampires except one but I don't remember which one. I would like to remember the rest of the stories if only I could...
2. "The Mask" another scary story anthology. The Mask was one of the stories. I don't know the full title, but that story was about a boy who got picked on for going trick or treating without a cool costume. Then he showed them the *human* mask he wore every day and it turned out he was a monster or alien or something. Again I don't remember the other stories or the full title.
3. Okay this one is the hardest for me. Again I think this is an anthology of scary stories and may or may not be a completely different book. (I think yes, because there were no vampires in this one.) I have no idea of the title of the book OR the title of the story. It's about a girl who's discovered literally in a basket on the doorstep of a childless couple. They're white (and American, I think) while she looks Middle Eastern or something like that, and it takes forever to adopt her, but they do. I do not remember what they name her, but I remember the line, "Fondly, her parents called her 'princess'." (yes, I tried Googling it, got nothing.)
The mom dies when the girl's only a few years old, so the dad sends her to boarding school and takes her on trips around the world on her holidays. (He's some kind of scientist. Archaeologist?) During the Main Plot, he takes her to Egypt and the girl (who's now 14-16, somewhere in there, don't remember precisely) goes around Cairo by herself for a bit. She finds a dump but then suddenly *bang* everything changes, and it's like she's transported into the past to when the place was a beautiful ancient city. She takes photos of it and a really weird cab driver takes her back to the hotel. She develops the photos but her dad thinks she's going crazy. The cab driver tells her at some point that she was born in the past, at the Ancient City of (Whatever, it's a name I can't remember) and her real father's the King. She goes back with the cab driver (Who is apparently the King's servant/slave/whatever) and sees her real father's funeral procession, takes photos of that. Returns to present and shows the photos to her dad and the (curator? director?) of the museum, who both still think the whole thing's crazy. She goes back to the cab driver, who takes her to the past again, and this time she doesn't reappear. Her dad and the museum people dig up the old dump and find the tomb she took pictures of, and there, next to the sarcophagus of the King, is...a mummified girl - with a camera hanging around her neck. O_O
So yeah, I remember that story in pretty vivid detail, but not the names of any characters, or the ancient city, or what book it's from. Help would be good if anyone knows anything about it.
Thanks very much in advance.
Kaylee
openKids book about an alien from the 1970s? Literature
My dad is trying to remember a book he read when he was a kid in 1971. An alien gets stranded on earth and befriends a kid. The alien has a handheld computer he can look up any information on. He can't remember anything else except that he "thought it was really cool" xD By any chance does anyone know of anything like this?

I read this book sometime in the lat 80s or 90s. I think it's set in Ireland. The protagonist is a girl who's being forced into an arranged marriage with an older man. Her brother talks about beating up the apocalypse when it comes back, because he thinks it was a being of some kind. Wolves are significant somehow, and I'm pretty sure that the title has something to do with wolves.