Ravensquawk
Well-Flown Member
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2006
- Messages
- 321
But not necessarily Sheckley's story 'cause I haven't found it yet.
This forum has been great for finding stories a tad less known than the stories everyone asks about (The Last Question, The Star, Rain, All Summer In a Day), so I wish to put this rather unforgettable scrap of memory out there.
It surprised me how much detail you can supply about a story even remembering only one short passage from it.
Not even how it ended. But -- here goes.
Media: Short story anthology, paperback
Read: By early 1980s; probably a 1970s or 1960s story
Major themes: Alien contact by direct mental communication, hostile intent
Setting: USA metropolitan area, sounded like New York City.
Characters: Told either in first person by one man, or in omniscient third person like "Recording Angel" -- the reader knows his thoughts and emotional reactions
Language: English
Target audience/age group: Adult. It only alluded to the adult language.
Cover: No memory of it, but this wouldn’t be on it!
Ideas that I have already ruled out: Haven’t ruled out anything that fits this type of story.
Plot (as much as I can remember): Only that the protagonist was hearing alien communications. Probably by direct mental contact, rather than radio, and not like the Vogons causing every metal object on the planet to vibrate as a speaker. Direct mental contact is likely for this other reason: the aliens could forcefully control his actions against his will.
Which brings me to the only part of the story I can remember:
His narrative is something like:
“They then made their point clear by controlling my actions. They controlled my voluntary muscles, which were for me no longer voluntary. They had me performing, by demonstration, a common saying which everyone had always thought anatomically impossible. No strength of my will could change my own actions. They then released their control of me, said, ‘If you don’t cooperate with us, we can have you doing that in the Bloomingdale’s window at high noon.’”
It may be an obscure story in both the print world and my memory, but one never forgets a thing like that.
I forget which famous department store it was, though. Wouldn’t matter which one, would it?
It just sounds like something Robert Sheckley would have written. I’ve looked over lists of his short stories, but no giveaways in the title.
Harlan Ellison would have printed the phrase directly. But that would actually diminish its rather horrifying saber-edge effectiveness with a bludgeon.
That causes me to think that this story’s phrasing was actually a tad too subtle for Ellison’s gory verbal H-bombs. (Or F-bombs, come to think of it.)
Robert Bloch could have written something like that. Some of his SF short stories are among the wittiest I’ve read, with more puns than an episode of M.A.S.H. But I think his horror is, well, more deadly. He doesn’t waste effort on embarrassing people when he can off them nastily. Going over anthologies of his stories is not bringing any memories. Well, lots of great memories, but none that match.
Similar phrases in the Unz review search bring up interesting stuff, but so far no science fiction short story.
If this story is found, I could bet a C-note to a pig’s butt you’ll never forget that part of it either.
Get back to me on that.
This forum has been great for finding stories a tad less known than the stories everyone asks about (The Last Question, The Star, Rain, All Summer In a Day), so I wish to put this rather unforgettable scrap of memory out there.
It surprised me how much detail you can supply about a story even remembering only one short passage from it.
Not even how it ended. But -- here goes.
Media: Short story anthology, paperback
Read: By early 1980s; probably a 1970s or 1960s story
Major themes: Alien contact by direct mental communication, hostile intent
Setting: USA metropolitan area, sounded like New York City.
Characters: Told either in first person by one man, or in omniscient third person like "Recording Angel" -- the reader knows his thoughts and emotional reactions
Language: English
Target audience/age group: Adult. It only alluded to the adult language.
Cover: No memory of it, but this wouldn’t be on it!
Ideas that I have already ruled out: Haven’t ruled out anything that fits this type of story.
Plot (as much as I can remember): Only that the protagonist was hearing alien communications. Probably by direct mental contact, rather than radio, and not like the Vogons causing every metal object on the planet to vibrate as a speaker. Direct mental contact is likely for this other reason: the aliens could forcefully control his actions against his will.
Which brings me to the only part of the story I can remember:
His narrative is something like:
“They then made their point clear by controlling my actions. They controlled my voluntary muscles, which were for me no longer voluntary. They had me performing, by demonstration, a common saying which everyone had always thought anatomically impossible. No strength of my will could change my own actions. They then released their control of me, said, ‘If you don’t cooperate with us, we can have you doing that in the Bloomingdale’s window at high noon.’”
It may be an obscure story in both the print world and my memory, but one never forgets a thing like that.
I forget which famous department store it was, though. Wouldn’t matter which one, would it?
It just sounds like something Robert Sheckley would have written. I’ve looked over lists of his short stories, but no giveaways in the title.
Harlan Ellison would have printed the phrase directly. But that would actually diminish its rather horrifying saber-edge effectiveness with a bludgeon.
That causes me to think that this story’s phrasing was actually a tad too subtle for Ellison’s gory verbal H-bombs. (Or F-bombs, come to think of it.)
Robert Bloch could have written something like that. Some of his SF short stories are among the wittiest I’ve read, with more puns than an episode of M.A.S.H. But I think his horror is, well, more deadly. He doesn’t waste effort on embarrassing people when he can off them nastily. Going over anthologies of his stories is not bringing any memories. Well, lots of great memories, but none that match.
Similar phrases in the Unz review search bring up interesting stuff, but so far no science fiction short story.
If this story is found, I could bet a C-note to a pig’s butt you’ll never forget that part of it either.
Get back to me on that.
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