This is a Sci-Fi short story from 50’s or 60’s about a parallel universe being pulled inside out through a portal using a winch in this universe. The effort goes wrong.
374V: Pulling a Parallel Universe Inside Out (Solved!)
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Category Archives: Science Fiction
374B: Entertainers Disappeared to Another Dimension
The book was about people from the entertainment industry in Hollywood (actors, writers, producers etc) who start disappearing. Turns out they are somehow being transported to some alternate universe or past time period that’s medieval like. There is some reason they don’t want people from there to know (I can’t remember why) so they start going around in a traveling wagon putting on a Shakespeare play – Hamlet I think, and advertising a miracle cure all – I think it was aspirin. The idea is people from our world/time period would recognize both but the people from there wouldn’t!
371T: Power Armor Fantasy
Hello! For the past few years I have been looking for a novella whose title and author has escaped my mind. In the spring of 2017 I was perusing Old Firehouse Books in Fort Collins, Colorado. They had a display of new novellas available. Among the display were books like Neon Yang’s “The Black Tides of Heaven” and others. One of the paperbacks present described a “power armor fantasy” by one or more of the marketing blurbs on the back. The summary talked about a female warrior who was concerned with ensuring her sons were able to become men and warriors themselves. The cover art included a head-and-neck portrait of this mother character wearing the power armor. This was centered above some kind of landscape or battle scene. The whole thing had a Warhammer 40 vibe to it. I have scrolled through the available books offered at this bookstore, searched the archived articles and posts, and even called the store outright to no avail. If you have any luck finding this book, you would put this nagging thought of min.
371R: Pedestals
I am trying to remember a book from the 70s or 80s (or before) that was stories based on artwork. Probably science fiction. One of the stories was about a planet? Galaxy? With pedestals. And a whole city would lower down onto the pedestal and then at some point lift off and move to a different pedestal.
369V: After the Nuclear War
Looking for a paperback book series that I read on base, in Honduras in 2001-2003. It is based after a nuclear war and the protagonist has a group of folks he scavenges with. . . I think he is like a Clint Eastwood type gun slinger. When he gets mad (?) his vision turns red and he enters like a berserker state. In 1 book, they visit Philadelphia(?) a nuke site that was turned to glass. Another book has them visiting a research bunker in Alaska(?), where the scientists are either holed up or coming out of a hibernetic chamber or something. . . any help is much appreciated!!
369H: Murder Mystery in London with clones
I have posted this query on Reddit and on Stack Exchange previously.
This would have been after 1996 – 2005 ish, and I’m pretty sure it was a newly published book.
It starts with a woman who has hallucinations, and runs into an alleyway where she finds a body that looks just like hers that has been murdered. Later on, she finds a beautiful man who says he’s from another parallel universe and seems to think he’s connected with Arthurian legends, i.e. he talks about Merlin, wizards, and so on.
It starts off looking very magical and predictable, with the woman and the handsome man trying to hunt down the murderer. Then it goes somewhere else entirely.
There were seven murders in total at various points around London — they thought that it might be Jack the Ripper based, but it turns out the murders occurred at ritually significant distances around the city, and that Jack the Ripper was actually the last time they tried this, to open a portal between the worlds.
They think that the slimy enemies from another dimension are responsible, and the handsome man calls to Merlyn, his boss, to help out and ensure the slimy enemies don’t get a foothold.
They succeed, but then the woman finds that the slimy enemies are not responsible for the murders. The handsome stranger turns out to have murdered her clone himself as part of the ritual that would allow his reality to enter hers — she is actually the clone, and the original was murdered. Her confused memories and hallucinations are because she ran off before the stranger could finish creating a convincing replacement and so she still retains some memories of the original.
The handsome stranger is actually a useful idiot that is handsome and dumb precisely because he’s a facade that covers what the traders actually look like (they’re distinctly non-human and not nearly as affable). He’s a construct.
And there’s the Handsome Stranger’s manager… who appears as a kindly wizard based on Merlin? Again, he turns out to have been orchestrating the entire thing, and the whole “help us save your reality against evil slimy things” turns out to have been a dispute over trading rights to Earth between two equally slimy organizations.
The book ends with humanity establishing trade and goods with the unbound reality and becoming less and less human — strange buildings, humans with gecko like arms and legs living on walls, etc. Very creepy, and very hard to forget.
367Q: Old SF story I am seeking
I probably read it sometime before 1970, but I might be lying.
I don’t remember if it’s a short story or an episode in a novel.
It involves a small crew of some sort of exploration or trading vessel.
They land on a planet that lacks space travel but does have powerful artillery and clever control stuff.
At a key point in the plot one member of the crew, a small creature who can jump far and fast, is hiding outside the ship.
The locals have the ship surrounded and have pointed an artillery piece at the main port.
The shells are not powerful enough to damage the exterior of the ship, but if they open the door even for a fraction of a second, they will get hit with a shell.
Finally they decide to chance having the outside guy jump through the air toward the door. The control computer opens the portal just long enough for the guy to fly through.
Sadly, the artillery shell that is automatically fired when the port is seen to open gets through the door.
It destroys the (sentient) computer that controls the ship.
In the milliseconds before it is destroyed, however, the main computer downloads a route “home” into the “idiot” nav computer so that they can get away and get home.
They mourn the dead computer.
The lesson I took from it is how human-centric my intuition about response time is and how really fast computers are.
My vague recollection is that the author was Poul Anderson and it involved a small (fiveish?) crew of humans and non-humans that adventure around. It may be one of the Technic Civilization stories, but it might not.
366Z: Unknown name of a Science Fiction title of a family that uses mirrors
I read part of this book 25? years ago. It was a stand alone book or maybe the first in a series. The book was “normal” sized, not hugely big.
I only read a half to 2/3rd of this Sci-Fi book, do not remember even how it ends.
The female protagonist ( late 20’s, early 30’s ) is coming back home after years away. Maybe hilly, maybe country like area. But the family lives in a large large home that has mirrors on many surfaces. Somehow they help Earth by using the mirrors. Going thru the mirrors?
Her family helps Earth along with some other families that have mirrors.
There’s an attractive Sheriff new to town who sparks her interest. He has friends from his military days who send him beers. He was special forces and likes the different beers his old buddies send him.
He tells her that he knows there is something going on with the family / maybe the small town? / but he trusts the folks and hopes they would tell him what was going on.
366S: “No time, only duration” (Solved!)
Forgotten author name, likely American or British – collection of short stories with sci-fi/horror-type themes. I read the book `eons ago’ – so probably 60s or 70s.
The story of interest describes where 3 characters wind up inside a room where there is “no time, only duration,” so they’ll supposedly live forever if they never leave the room. An epilogue then tells us “a building was torn down and 3 skeletons were found in it…..”
The cover had some odd-looking creature on it, reminiscent of the YELLOW SUBMARINE animation style.
364S: YA 80s sci-fiction book about a young woman and an alien who gets stranded on a planet together
A young woman joins the crew of a starship / star organisation and she has green eyes, she meets an alien navigator (his hair is white blond) but changes color, they get stranded together and had kids before being rescued.