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  #3811 (permalink)  
Old 06-May-2008, 12:23 PM
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Thanks, Mike.

Have a couple I could do - the choice is between one of my favorite short story writers and one of my favorite novelists....

Quote:
Two days, three hours, ten minutes.
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  #3812 (permalink)  
Old 07-May-2008, 06:40 PM
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Bump. Maybe - a bump in the night?

Quote:
People always try to explain.
Face a man, or a woman, with something he doesn't understand, and he'll be miserable until he classifies it. Lights in the sky. And a scientist tells him it's the aurora borealis - or the aurora australis - and he can accept the lights, and forget them.
Something knocks pictures off a wall in an empty room, and throws a chair downstairs. Consternation, until its's named. Then it's only a poltergeist.
Name it, and forget it. Anything with a name can be assimilated.
Without one, it's - well unthinkable. Take away the name of anything and you've got blank horror.
Even something as familiar as a commonplace ghoul. Graves in a cemetary dug up, corpses eaten. Horrible thing, it may be; but it's merely a ghoul; as long as it's named - But suppose, if you can stand it, there was no such word as ghoul and no concept of one. Then dug-up half-eaten corpses are found.
Nameless horror
And from the first hint - it's the short story author - although this story is about 55 pages in hardback ...
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  #3813 (permalink)  
Old 08-May-2008, 01:22 AM
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Sounds Stephen King-ish.

Fred
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  #3814 (permalink)  
Old 08-May-2008, 06:08 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nowhere Man View Post
Sounds Stephen King-ish.

Fred
Hmmm, it does - but it isn't (Stephen King).

You can find the following theme in many of the author's works:

Quote:
I'm not mad, I'm WORSE than mad. I'm -
WHAT TIME IS IT?
It must be two minutes after nine. Three.
What's coming? Cobra, devil, werewolf -
What will it be this time?
At five minutes after nine - WHAT?
It must be four after now; yes, it had been at least four minutes, maybe four and a half -
He yelled, suddenly. He couldn't stand the waiting.
It couldn't be solved. But he had to solve it.
Or go mad.
MAD.
He must be mad already. Mad to tolerate living, trying to fight something you couldn't fight, trying to beat the unbeatable. Beating his head against -
He was running now, out the door, down the corridor.
Maybe if he hurried, he could kill himself before five minutes after nine. He'd never have to know. DIE, DIE AND GET IT OVER WITH. THAT'S THE ONLY WAY TO BUCK THIS GAME.
Knife.
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  #3815 (permalink)  
Old 12-May-2008, 08:03 PM
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Bump.

Quote:
Two days, three hours, ten minutes.
Periodicity.
PERIODICITY.
A connection, at last. Proof that the screwy events were all of a piece. Every -uh- fifty-one hours and ten minutes something screwy happened.
But why?
He stuck his head out in the hallway.
"Nurse. NURSE. What time is it?"
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  #3816 (permalink)  
Old 12-May-2008, 10:18 PM
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Ooh. Argh! I know this one, finally! Now what's the darn title? Spoiler: Linotype machines in heaven, recording everyone's story, and this guy's machine has a stuck mat. Every 51:10:00 it drops an e too early.

Fred

PS. Don't count me as right unless I come up with the answer...

edit: to reveal spoiler text.
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Last edited by Nowhere Man : 13-May-2008 at 10:57 PM.
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  #3817 (permalink)  
Old 12-May-2008, 11:41 PM
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For some reason, I have three authors stuck in my head as possibilities here. I'll go with this one: Richard Lupoff?

No clue which book/story if so.
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  #3818 (permalink)  
Old 13-May-2008, 12:45 AM
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Got it! Couldn't find the book I have it in, but a listing of the author's stories revealed it.

I was thinking Kuttner at first, but that turned up nothing. I knew it was someone from that era, someone who had written more than one story about enchanted Linotype machines. I finally dredged Fredric Brown out of the sludge I call a brain, and turned up... "The Angelic Angleworm."

I hate my brain sometimes.

Fred
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Old 13-May-2008, 03:32 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nowhere Man View Post
Got it! Couldn't find the book I have it in, but a listing of the author's stories revealed it.

I was thinking Kuttner at first, but that turned up nothing. I knew it was someone from that era, someone who had written more than one story about enchanted Linotype machines. I finally dredged Fredric Brown out of the sludge I call a brain, and turned up... "The Angelic Angleworm."

I hate my brain sometimes.

Fred
You have indeed got it, Nowhere Man (Sorry, ABR). I think my next quote would have had to be a spoiler - like how he gets to where he corrects the problem. Brown used madness freely in his work - it even shows in titles: Madball, and What Mad Universe. The collection you refer to might be Angels and Spaceships. I tricked my mom into getting it for me at a book fair in third grade (1954), and my brain has been warped ever since. Take it away Fred ....
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  #3820 (permalink)  
Old 14-May-2008, 01:30 AM
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Dogman will probably get this one.
Quote:
The robot walked over, picked up a can, and opened it with incredible deftness. No beer squirted. Joe was a perfect can opener.
Fred
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  #3821 (permalink)  
Old 14-May-2008, 01:41 AM
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Lewis Padgett (pen name of Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore) "The Proud Robot".
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  #3822 (permalink)  
Old 14-May-2008, 03:39 AM
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Your turn, R. Daneel.

Fred
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  #3823 (permalink)  
Old 14-May-2008, 11:14 AM
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From a short story that is part of a series:

Quote:
"[X]", [Y] said, "tonight, I implore you: stay out of the kitchen, no matter what."

[X] raised his eyebrows.

"I know," [Y] said. "If you hadn't interfered, we'd all have had our throats cut. But at least..." He paused. "we'd have died in accordance with regulations."
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  #3824 (permalink)  
Old 14-May-2008, 04:15 PM
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"Gambler's World", by Keith Laumer. One of his Jaime Retief stories. I think it first appeared in "Worlds of If".
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  #3825 (permalink)  
Old 14-May-2008, 06:12 PM
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You are correct. The title when collected in book form, in the book collection "Envoy to New Worlds", is "Palace Revolution". (I assume that the book collection titles are Laumer's choice, whereas the titles in Worlds of If were selected by the magazine's editor, but who know?)

Your turn.
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  #3826 (permalink)  
Old 14-May-2008, 08:07 PM
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With editors you NEVER know.

OK, new one when I get home.
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  #3827 (permalink)  
Old 15-May-2008, 05:35 AM
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quote:

Quote:
Man with a head-and-a-half
Come and get your half-head
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  #3828 (permalink)  
Old 15-May-2008, 10:09 PM
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"Ancient, My Enemy" by Gordon Dickson. I'm pretty sure, but my library is a shambles.

Fred
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  #3829 (permalink)  
Old 15-May-2008, 10:14 PM
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Your 'brary may be a shambles, but your head isn't.

Your turn, Fred.
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  #3830 (permalink)  
Old 16-May-2008, 12:33 AM
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Quote:
A mass of smoke and ashes and a square bluish shining substance rushed up toward the zenith.
Fred
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  #3831 (permalink)  
Old 16-May-2008, 05:11 AM
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Don't recognize the quote, but it sounds vaguely older, like ... The Skylark of Space?
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