What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
Query abandoned by poster
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ABANDONED. SF, Short story, counter on forehead
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Hope this story gets found. It's sounds like a great story.
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It's very frustrating that I remember so much about the story, but have no clue at all as to the author or title! The more I think about this story, I think that it must have been a short story published in a magazine... The library I had at the time had a ton of volumes that were a year's worth of magazines re-bound into a single hard back with a generic mono-colored cover (so no cover art to remember).
I remember they had volumes for Amazing Stories, Astounding Stories, Orbit, Galaxy, Wonder, then a couple for more generic sounding names... Science Fiction and Fantasy Fiction, I think? There's probably more magazines they had that I don't remember, though, and I don't live in the same town any more, so there's no way I could go back and browse through the volumes.
bump...The more I think about this one, the more I'm sure about the magazine thing, which would mean it would be pre-1970 since the library's re-bound magazine volumes tapered off around 1960-1965.
I'm assuming that the author took his idea from car odometers. Looking at Wikipedia, it says that Odometers were common in cars by 1925, so that would probably be the earliest possible date it could have been published, though it's more likely to be 1930s at earliest since that's when cars became really wide-spread.
I'm sure it would have taken some time for the concept of an odometer turning over to be well known. So, say, 1935/1940 as the earliest possible date? Very little to go on!
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I don't think the ISFDB is would be that helpful since I can't remember any concrete details like title, author, magazine name, or even what decade it would have been published in... But that first link you gave names a couple of indexes/catalogs that either give story descriptions or have lists of stories by motif and that sounds like it might be productive. Thanks for the suggestion! When I get a free day, I'll spend some time at the library and flip through their copy of that book and see if I can find the story.
There can't be that many Lady of Shalott motifs in sci fi short stories, can there?
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Oh! I didn't know that was there! That's neat.In that case, I'll take a stab at guessing what some words in a synopsis might be.
bump.I've spent some time searching ISFDB, and can't find it.
Not sure if it just doesn't have a synopsis filled out, or if it's so obscure and old it's not in there at all, or if I'm just not hitting on the correct key words to find it.
bump.Though, after this long with no suggestions, I'm starting to think this might have just been a particularly vivid and memorable dream.
Ugh I know how you feel, I'm trying to find a book as well and the futility of the search makes me unsure if I'm not just making the stuff up. This might be a long shot, but do you remember which library you read it from? Maybe you could ask the librarian to dig through old records - then you can begin the slow and tedious task of looking through all the volumes (if the library still somehow keeps it).
I wasn't using my own library card at the time, so I'd be pretty appalled if they handed over checkout records, assuming they still have them after all this time.I do know more or less which magazines and the broad date range but that spans decades worth of half a dozen or so magazines. I checked out 90-95% of them at one point or another, so even if I had a list of my checkouts it wouldn't narrow it down much.
I've browsed through the nearby city library's selection but they don't have everything, and the magazines they do have are missing quite a few issues prior to 1985 or so. My local library doesn't have any issues that old at all.
Ah, I see. Would it be possible to reach out to the different magazines, asking if they still sell old volumes, and if so, if they have a particular issue with your story in it? (I'm not sure what's the procedure of making contact with magazine people, or if it's even accepted to randomly email them.) They probably don't sell old issues any more, but you might talk to someone who is willing to help you do a quick search in their database (if they have one) with some keywords that appear in your story. Highly unlikely to happen, I know, but it's a different angle of attack if it's something you would like to try.
That's an avenue I hadn't considered... I'll email one or two to test the waters and see what they say.
Though I'm sure some of the magazines are out of business or have changed hands by now.
Good luck :) Would love to know the responses.
Ha! Just heard back from the largest one... Their response was that I should ask around on the internet.
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following - probably haven't read this one, but it sounds fascinating.
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Melanti (OP) was last active on the site in August 2020.
A woman in her young teen years either does or doesn't do something, which causes the death of her friend. As a result, she was convicted of negligence or something of that nature. Her sentence was to have some sort of display implanted in/affixed to her forehead for everyone to see that counted the time elapsed since whatever it was she did or didn't do. The idea was that then everyone would be aware that she'd caused something horrible, and how long ago it was.
The story takes place decades later when she is a very elderly woman. She's still haunted by guilt for her action/lack of action, and an outcast to society because they're constantly reminded by the time display. She's about to run out space on her display, the upper limit of how much time can be shown.
I recall lots of musing because it's going to reset back to zero, and she feels that when it does, her period of being outcast would be over. She'll feel that she's paid her debt, made up for whatever it was that killed her friend, and thus that she'll be free of the guilt she has had for decades.
(view spoiler)[At the end of the story, the display rolls over like an odometer, back to 0. She feels better, feels like she should be free of guilt, can rejoin society, not be outcast, etc. She goes outside and everyone is horrified. She has not looked into a mirror since her display hit the maximum, but it has kept counting up and now the numbers showing are low. Everyone assumes that she's committed another crime RECENTLY, and that's why the number is so low, and thus she's even more outcast than she was before. (hide spoiler)]
The entire story takes place in the hours just before the timer turned over and maybe an hour or so afterwards. Anything before that time was told as a flashback. The woman in question spent the majority of her time (now that she was elderly and didn't work) staring at the display in the mirror - just watching the timer count up. I believe that she could also see out her window by looking in the mirror and watch people go by in the street outside.
I believe it's a short story or novella, though I'm not entirely sure. It was sci fi, but not hard SF and I don't remember any details about the setting other than it was rather populated. Nor do I remember any names. I think I read it in the mid 90's, and at that time I was reading lots of anthologies of SF stories originally published in the 30's and 40's, though it could be anywhere from 1900 to 1995.
Any help would be greatly appreciated! I'd really like to read this story again.