What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
SOLVED: Adult Fiction
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SOLVED. scifi short novel: mutants after nuclear war
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Your post's title immediately made me think of "Keep Out", from the Young Mutants you cited:http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnL...
It's not a solid match to your details, but if you are conflating stories maybe it bridges some gaps?
Nope, they weren't hostile, and definitely were as they were - not adapted by drugs. But thanks for the online story :)
*election day bump* (get out and vote!)
So I thought I might find the ISFDB entry for this story, and see where it was published, and see if that rung any bells. Of course google brought up some other stuff.In any case, it appears that it was expanded into a novel. So I've ordered that, and we'll see how good the ole' memory is.
"Tomorrow's Children" by Poul Anderson and F. N. Waldrop, was expanded into a book: _Twilight World: A Science Fiction Novel of Tomorrow's Children_
F. N. Waldrop) (Twilight World)
re-read summary of differences:
It appears the book is a fix-up of short stories.
Second story happens after "Tomorrow's Children" (which starts the book off): it follows when a mutant who appears to be autistic and not too-with-it, but (view spoiler)[turns out to be a real brain (hide spoiler)] who ends up interfering with a bandit's plan to take over a town, and then take over the country.
Third story is the one I mostly described: Collie, our MC, didn't have a long tongue: but long legs, wide chest, and could jump far and high, as well as run fast and long, and had blood that was more efficient/more oxygenated. Something like 20-30+ American super-mutants were asked to come to the capital, given stipends and make-work - attempting to coerce them to breed. Boy scout manual/library mention happened, and the scene with Collie (armed with short-sword/knife) vs. bandits with bow+arrow and spear, as well. The 4 mutants were the scout/assault team on Mars, of about 7-8 mutants (and one mutant dog) who went to Mars (one female; thus a lot of drama was had of the romantic/sexual tension). There were no acknowledged mostly-pure mutants on the Siberian side on Mars; a number of the crewmen had deformities. The Siberians kept their good breeding stock home, they'd sent a conquering team; but conversely did have a mutant who had super hearing powers along for their assault on the American colonization attempt (and one who was tall and broad, who was shot down). So it was kinda schizophrenic about whether it was an all-mutant-master team on Mars, or if their master race thing was going on at home. And these were just cannon fodder. In any case, no rapprochement happened.
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I was remembering some short stories, and I found a number of them in these two books:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
This story may be in one of these books, but the toc doesn't spark any recollections, and not all of the stories are described.
Story follows a mutant, who has frog-like powers, can jump - might have long tongue. The post apocalypse is rough (one detail; library was said to contain no useful books for the post-apocalypse; the most useful book was the boy scout handbook). A detail: using crossbows in the bush, out of gun ammo. The reconstituted(?) US government finds him, and several other (4?) mutants who are not defective in any way (one of these mutants is a girl). There are mutant pogroms, and most mutants aren't improvements. They're sent to space/the Moon/Mars. They eventually meet the group sent by the USSR. Around 20 mutants, but the USSR wasn't as picky; some have non-detrimental additional mutations (in addition to the main beneficial ones), eg: 6 toes. In any case, the mutants decide not to fight(view spoiler)[, and that the Earth is on a downhill spiral - and that they're the future of the human race. (hide spoiler)]
This might be "Tomorrow's Children" but I've not found a good description of that story yet.I found "Tomorrow's Children" in google books, and it reads like the first part of the story I described (ie: MC is reconnoitering the US to see what's what and finds that mutants are the future). Perhaps it was expanded, or perhaps I'm conflating two stories...