What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

Group of people living in caves on a planet where the sun speeds up aging. One goes on journey and discovers an abandoned spaceship. Goes inside. Travels back home to discover everyone older. Spaceship has radiation shielding that has slowed the aging process. May be a short story/novella.

I don't know the story, but I do recall an old episode of Andromeda that was probably inspired by it.

Oh! That sounds so familiar. A short SF story from the 50's or 60's, I think. I thought it might be in Tomorrow's Children Eighteen Tales of Fantasy and Science Fiction, but it's not. This might drive me crazy. I hope someone else comes up with it soon.

The Caves of Klydor by Douglas Aurthur Hill, 1985.

Summary: Soon after being exiled to the planet Klydor, five young people begin to suspect that their struggle for survival is somehow linked to the rebel uprising against the Earth's harshly authoritarian government.

April Ann wrote: "The Caves of Klydor by Douglas Aurthur Hill, 1985.

Summary: Soon after being exiled to the planet Klydor, five young people begin to suspect that their struggle for survival is so..."

Thanks, but that is not it. I remember more of it being an older civilization that has regressed to living in caves. Total life expectancy is only mid 20's I believe, so when the 'hero' leaves the caves during the night (as sunlight can kill?),and finds the wrecked? spaceship, for some reason lost to memory he returns later and finds out that more time has passed than he actually spent in the ship. I believe he tries to get others to go to the ship

Was it time that had passed or some sort of accelerated aging?

Possibly a double sun?

Does it end with them taking off in the ship?

No, I don't know the answer, just wondering if I'm thinking of the same one.

Jim wrote: "Was it time that had passed or some sort of accelerated aging?

Possibly a double sun?

Does it end with them taking off in the ship?

No, I don't know the answer, just wondering if I'm thinkin..."

Possibly,possibly. That's about all I can remember. I thought it might have been an A C Clarke story,but I quickly checked through his short stories and nothing jumped out.

Rescue Run by Anne McCaffrey, 1991.189 pgs.

I actually ran across this book at work. The inner leaflet mentions people of "Pern" living in caves, called "The Hold". It's categorized as a novella.

Nope. Rescue Run is a story within the Pern series. While technically science fiction, they're closer to fantasy in many ways (although not as much this book or Dragonsdawn). So no sun speeding aging, no abandoned spaceships (wait. There are some of those, actually), no time travel (um, well, kind of, but it requires a dragon) . . .

Anyway, it doesn't match the OP. But it's a fun read. :)

The pages inside were really cool, it's what attracted my attention. They are bordered with a black band with white starlike symbols.

If it's close enought for a "read alike" maybe I can pull up the right one. I don't know why this one isn't bringing anything close. It seems specific enough.

I'll have to check out my copy at home. I don't recall what the symbols are offhand.

I'm not sure that it's close enough for a "read alike"; thematically the Pern books are classically fantatsy, not SF. This story sounds more thematically SF. Not sure how much something like that affects the kinds of searches you're running though.

If you put in science fiction or fantasy it will give you selections from both genres. Sometimes they crossover and you just don't ever know where that line is.

Right. And McCaffrey's Pern books are right on the line.

Bobbylah wrote: "April Ann wrote: "The Caves of Klydor by Douglas Aurthur Hill, 1985.

Summary: Soon after being exiled to the planet Klydor, five young people begin to suspect that their struggle fo..."

I guess what I want to know about this is did people outside of the ship age faster in the same time span....or did the people in the spaceship "come back to the future" and they were still the same age as they were when they found the ship, but time "back home" had progressed.

So is it a "time travel" story? or not? I'm having trouble finding anything like this under "time travel".

If it is the story that I think it is & can't recall either, the people lived in caves outside the ship aged at a faster pace. When the young man stumbles into the ship, he comes back out to find that the girl he wanted to court was an old woman by then. No time travel involved, just rapid human aging.

That's an interesting question. If two people live in the same place, and then one goes to a place with a faster or slower time stream, have they experienced time travel at any point? Narnia comes to mind.

Jim seems to be on the right track. That is basically what I remember(apart from the 'courting'). There was no time travel, it was just the radiation shielding of the spaceship that somehow negated the aging effect of the sun for the period of time that the person traveling away from their community was inside the spaceship.

Okay this helps a lot! I'll search for "rapid aging" or something similar.

When did you read the book? I'm not getting anything close while searching for "rapid aging"..when I searched "aging" there were over 300 hits.

This one keeps popping up but it doesn't seem to fit.

Ice Age by Brian Freemantle, 2002

Summary: An outbreak of a deadly disease that causes the acceleration of old age and death has climatologist Jack Stoddart heading a team of investigators from around the world to stop the spread of the virus.

I want to say I read it in the mid to late 80's,but not sure when it might have been written. I was reading a lot of sci-fi anthologies back in my late teens.

Red Sun of Darkover by Marion Zimmer Bradley, 1987.

Summary: Spanning generations of Darkover history, this collection of stories journeys into the heart of Darkover power, from the ancient chieri, to the alliance of Ariada Aillard, to Regis Hastur's struggle to bridge the gap between Terrans and the people of Darkover.

Fire Watch by Connie Willis, 1984.

Summary: This collection of short science fiction includes the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novella "Fire Watch," the Nebula Award-winning novelette "A Letter from the Clearys," and twelve other acclaimed stories.

No on both. I really appreciate the effort you are putting into this! For some reason I am thinking it may have been in one of the 'Years Best Science Fiction' books. Any way you can search those to check?

If it is the story I remember, I think I read it in an anthology or magazine back in the 70's. It could have been one of my father's books, so actually from much earlier.

Maybe he wasn't 'courting' the girl, but had an interest in her. I seem to recall he came back to the cave & she was old.

I went through all the anthologies that I have over the past week - nice review. Haven't found it, but I've gotten rid of a lot of them over the years. Could have been one from the library or one that succumbed to age.

Best Science Fiction of the Year 14, from 1985. Unless you know exactly what year it's a little hard to search. The titles don't tell much, but you could probably google each year in the 80's and find more info.

If this story had a man and a woman being stuck inside the ship, somehow unable to move, I've been looking for this story, too.

I remember them only living for days, not years, and there was a battle for this area of land where they'd get a couple more days if they lived there. The protagonist and the girl somehow wound up in the ship, and were immobilized for a day or two, and thought they were wasting their lives, only to find out that the ship kept the aging from happening.

I seem to recall it being in a digest style magazine, probably from the 60's or 70's. Not The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, since this was the 80s when I read the story and I was collecting them then. I'd have made sure to keep it, even if it was in pieces.

Is it Ray Bradbury's "Frost and Fire"? Wikipedia has a synopsis of this short story.

Yay! That sounds just like mine! I think it is, plus my library has a copy of a book it's reprinted in, woo-hoo! I bet it's the OP's story, too. Hope he checks in.

This is definitely the short story "Frost and Fire" based on the descriptions here and on the wikipedia page description for it. I remember this story from 6th grade when our teacher read it to us. I always loved this story and it is probably the only one that he read that stuck with me.

That was 20 years ago. All my previous searches with googling yielded nothing and short of going back to the teacher I thought I'd go the rest of my life never knowing that story again. But I tried searching online again for it and after 5 minutes Google brought me here. I was really worried at the start of the OP's thread when there wasn't an answer but boy was I relieved when by the end of the thread I was finally able to get to know that the story indeed has been discovered.

You can get a reprint of it in the Ray Bradbury short story book 'R is for Rocket', though I distinctly remember my teacher having a photocopied printout he read from so who knows where he picked it up from. I'm gonna have to see if I can get a copy of it.

Yay!

I found it in a bradbury compendium of some sort :)

3 years since the last post on this thread, 15 minutes for a follow up! Old threads never die, they just get indexed by google, waiting patiently for a proper search string.

I really do hope that Bobbylah got around to reading it, though I guess we'll probably never find out since it only was solved many months after his last activity.

I sent Bobbylah a PM w/link to this thread.

"Old threads never die, they just get indexed by google, waiting patiently for a proper search string."

This is a totally true statement, and the only reason that I'm on this site :)

Thanks, people, you saved me having to try to find this story now that I've been reminded it exists! Because I *totally* remember that story. Now I'm wondering if a story I posted is also by Bradbury... it's been years since I read him, but it could indeed be....

Time for the Stars?

thanks for posting the name of this book... been looking for it a long time... someone posted their teacher read it to them... thats how i knew the story .. 5th grade class. mrs lorenger.. this book got me hooked into sci-fi

Serendi wrote: "Thanks, people, you saved me having to try to find this story now that I've been reminded it exists!"

Was this solved?

Bobbylah hasn't posted in this thread since 2009. Really threads should only be moved to Possibly Solved if the OP thinks it might be solved.

Luke @27 has what he says is the solution, but we still haven't heard back from the OP.

Definitely sounds like "Frost and Fire". I know I've run into people searching for it on at least 2 other sites.

ETA: I've also read the story myself. Really liked it.

Feel free to berate me to the max. Totally forgot I asked this question and life just did it’s thing and got in the way. Kept meaning to come back but never did.
I am so happy that the question was responded to by so many members and I believe solved! Frost and Fire is it.
Thanks to all who helped.

Better late than never!

Read it again. Found at:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63874

Definitely the right story.

Great. 12 years might be a record.

We've got another 12 year thread here. Geez, hope mine don't take that long.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...