[HN Gopher] ID This SciFi Short Story
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ID This SciFi Short Story
Many aeons ago I read a short story in a SciFi anthology with the
following plot, as I remember it: _A man ingests Nanobots [?]
which travel though his body, fixing disease and repairing damages,
etc. Then they start to take over, improving on his human biology
--improving his senses & strength, etc. Eventually, they begin to
expand outside his physical form, 'integrating' him into the fabric
of his house -growing parts of him into the electrical and plumbing
systems, etc._ Note the 'as I remember it' so this may be, at
least partially, inaccurate. But, given the germ of the plot has
stuck in my noggin all these years, I'd love to find that story and
read it again. Anyone recognise it?
Author : Normille
Score : 45 points
Date : 2022-08-14 12:34 UTC (10 hours ago)
| luismedel wrote:
| I read that in Spanish! (Musica en la Sangre/Blood Music[0]).
| Also, I remember a short adaptation of the same story (maybe in
| the Twilight zone?)
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Music_(novel)
| h2odragon wrote:
| perhaps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Music_(novel)
|
| The basic idea has generated a lot of fun scenes of Faustian
| Ascension in several stories. Neal Asher uses it well, too.
| aaron695 wrote:
| dsr_ wrote:
| It's definitely Blood Music.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Not a book, but it sounds very similar to an Outer Limits
| episode. Maybe that's what you're thinking of.
|
| The nanobots cause his body to "adapt" very quickly to any
| environment. A scene that freaked me out as a kid was when he was
| in this water tank for some kind of test or whatever, and the
| nanobots caused his body to develop gills.
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0667978/
| borzunov wrote:
| Yeah, I've remembered this episode as well!
| molbioguy wrote:
| Yes, this sounds like a close match.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0r6w3pNpGc
| awhitty wrote:
| Looks like other commenters identified it as Blood Music, but
| this sounded a bit like "Steve Fever" by Greg Egan [0] to me.
| Similar themes! Great gateway drug to other Egan stories.
|
| [0] https://www.technologyreview.com/2007/10/15/223446/steve-
| fev...
| [deleted]
| joshka wrote:
| Jumping on in unrelated but similar question. A long time back
| (maybe 15-20 years), an author on slashdot wrote an episodic Sci-
| Fi across months of comments about the singularity. I recall
| reading parts of it at the time, but never finishing it. That's
| about all the context I can recall :D
| asicsp wrote:
| Since this seems to have been already identified, I hope someone
| can help me ID a detective short story.
|
| We had this short story as part of high school reading. The story
| is likely from 19th century and my hazy memory indicates the
| author intro said they were one of the earliest writers in the
| detective genre.
|
| Story elements that I remember: Detective gets called to solve
| missing diamonds case. I think there were three people in the
| room and one of them turns out to be the culprit. He hid the
| diamonds in a match box. And I think the thief was left-handed,
| which was the main clue to the solution.
| superb-owl wrote:
| Probably not what you're looking for, but this reminds me of
| Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis series, except with aliens instead
| of nanobots. Their ship is a giant organism, and humans are
| biologically modified to be able to interact with it.
| ezekg wrote:
| Reminds me of this short comic:
| https://www.instagram.com/p/CVuUBtePAQS/
| lampington wrote:
| There are probably a bunch of stories with that premise but I'm
| reminded of Greg Bear's Blood Music
| (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Music_(novel)). I read the
| novel but it's based on a short story he'd published previously.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| It's definitely beat for beat a description of Bear's Blood
| Music, although the story is about a scientist who uses genetic
| engineering to modify his white blood cells into a sort of
| primitive biological computer, and when his employers order him
| to destroy the cells, he injects himself with them to smuggle
| them out of the lab.
|
| The work was originally a short story, but was later rewritten
| as a novel.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Definitely 'Blood Music' by Greg Bear.
|
| They aren't Nanobots. The protagonist unofficially augments his
| own lymphocytes to create thinking 'noocytes' on company time
| and (mild spoiler) injects them into himself when his employer
| forces him to destroy this unauthorised experiment.
|
| [Edit]
|
| It's great sci-fi with elements of horror, especially when
| people who are immune to the noocytes discover what they are
| doing to the world. The "'integrating' him into the fabric of
| his house" you mention actually happens to different characters
| (at least in the novel), which is what is so horrific to immune
| people.
|
| [Edit 2] Another book by Bear that suddenly swerves from sci-fi
| to horror is 'Psychlone', which has one of the most disturbing
| 'stuck in cabin in haunted woods' passages I've ever read. I
| actually got rid of my paperback copy because I really never
| wanted to experience it again. It now seems out of print, and
| is listed in Bear's wikipedia bibliography but doesn't have its
| own page.
| termain wrote:
| I thought the same thing.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Blood Music by a Greg Bear
| BMc2020 wrote:
| RUSS NUKE PANAMA
| BMc2020 wrote:
| A downvote? It's my favorite line from the book.
| BMc2020 wrote:
| Thank you, and the equation was balanced.
|
| _Think like a Dinosaur_ , James Patrick Kelly
| [deleted]
| kampta wrote:
| Another possible suspect -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(novel)
| Throw6away wrote:
| Blood music by Greg Bear (?) comes to mind
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Season 3, episode 2 of Futurama.
| messe wrote:
| _Parasite's Lost_ doesn't fit the description of the nanobots
| (wormlike parasites in this case) integrating the man with his
| house's electrical system.
| Normille wrote:
| Thanks all for the suggestions.
|
| I did think it sounded like Blood Music... which I started
| reading once, but never really got into. But I'm convinced --or
| as convinced as anyone can be about memories from a while back--
| that what I'm barely remembering was a short story. So the fact
| that Blood Music was derived from what was originally a short
| story sounds promising.
|
| Some other interesting suggestions too. I think I can feel a dive
| down a literary rabbit hole coming on!
|
| EDIT: Having followed up some of the leads provided here, the
| basic premise of Blood Music does sound like what I'm trying to
| remember. But I'm convinced the story I'm after was less
| 'expansive' [for want of a better word] and just centred around
| this one guy, gradually warping & merging into the fabric of his
| home.
|
| It would be interesting to find the original short story and see
| if it was like this and then got hit by the _" We need more
| sharks and explosions!"_ stick, when being re-worked into a
| novel.
| lloeki wrote:
| A good place to ask would be scifi stackexchange using the story-
| identification tag. I did that once, got a prompt reply, complete
| with additional context and a short movie adaptation.
|
| https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/65813/conspiracy-a...
| chucksmash wrote:
| +1. I was in the process of linking this exact question as
| well, what a world.
|
| Love that the top answerer shows their work, and as a bonus
| they reached out to the author of the story:
| UPDATE: I emailed Greg Cox about the question. Here's his
| response: > Wow. I had no idea people were >
| still talking about that story, > which I haven't thought
| of for years. > I can't speak for the original >
| questioner of course, but that > description sure sounds
| like my > story, which I wrote nearly thirty >
| years ago! > > greg
| abbeyj wrote:
| This quote is not from the page linked above but I found it
| at https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/2937/story-
| where-t...
| throwoutway wrote:
| Stories like that are what make the internet so fascinating!
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Or an appropriate forum is
| https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsthatbook/
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(page generated 2022-08-14 23:02 UTC)