This answer in Space Exploration SE suggests that the diameters and rotation rates of both "The space 'ring' in earth orbit..." were "...not even large enough for a near 1 'G' environment... let alone the smaller 'Odyssey' ship sent to Jupiter..." Kubrick being Kubrick, I find this assertion asto...

I don't remember if this was a short story or just part of a novel. When I was young, the librarian at my elementary school would often read to us. He read a story about people, I think just one family, who were living in an underground facility after an alien attack. The attack had destroyed all...

I just remember this one bit of this book: the idea that the protagonists jumped from world to world in a set of parallel universes but, because of the world's differences, it looked like time travel: one might go from an Earth post WWII to an Earth pre-WWII... but it wasn't time travel.

Its about a boy in his teens that lives up in the mountain in Japan. His dad is a scientist and can't go anywhere near the city unless its necessary. He has a strange ability where if he goes near electricity, it will react to him and somehow stop working, hence why he's in the mountains. He wou...

I'm trying to find a short story read in the early 90's, although it was likely in an anthology of older work - probably no earlier than the 60's. I read it in English in the U.S., it was likely written originally in English, and had an odd and memorable tone. My main recollection is that it inv...

I was reading this question and it occurred to me that if the Force is indeed passed down through a family, why would Jedi be discouraged to have one? Were they discouraged from having children in general, even outside of a relationship (brings up an interesting male/female Jedi dynamic)? How wer...

A few years back I remember watching a anime where the main character fell asleep and woke up in a different dimension. I forget exactly what he did there but he woke up with a girl with him. He could only hear the girl say one word which he then gives that word to the girl. Though he can't, ever...

I read this novel or novelisation one afternoon at the city library somewhere between late 1984 and early 1986. It was set in the Star Wars universe and the main story was that there was some sort of crystal on a planet that could amplify /boost the power of a force-user/adept. Luke and Leia are ...

In a book written probably between 1960 and 1980 a science fiction author wrote of dolphin language consisting of reproducing the signals that a dolphin (or other whale, I forget) gets back when it uses its clicks to look at an object. This sounded pretty compelling to me at the time -- not so di...

I write stories. They're pretty bad. Can I ask questions about them on the main sci-fi and fantasy SE? I would try not to do much advertising, and since I am in no way getting paid for having people view them I shouldn't have much of a problem there. Probably most of the questions would be more '...

I read this book when I was younger, I think it was around 3-4 years ago. It was about this girl who was training to be an assassin or something and she had this male mentor and she had to follow his training schedule everyday. One part of this schedule was playing the harp so the girl could focu...

I'm looking for a sci-fi book's title. It was a novel about aliens (Martians I think) who came to Earth not to conquer it militarily, but economically. They sold household appliances at lower prices.

I've recently discovered that Chapter 12 of Deathly Hallows tells us that Grimmauld Place has been hidden to muggle eyes for a long time: The Muggles who lived in Grimmauld Place had long since accepted the amusing mistake in the numbering that had caused number eleven to sit beside number thirt...

I've been wanting to reread this manga for a while but could not remember the name. It's about a noble girl who is secretly a popular author. She is then suddenly engaged to a mostly expressionless man who is mostly known as the prince's bodyguard. Also the noble girl uses her noble status to go ...

The Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index is a means of classifying fairy tales based on their content. For instance Cinderella has a classification of 510A, is a subtype of 510 - Persecuted Heroine, and describes a family of stories in a similar vein. Stories often include common motifs which are also clas...