The Glade 4.0

I've recently had 2 sci-fi stories that I read many years ago come back to tickle my brain, but can't recall quite enough detail to enable me to find and re-read them.

The first is a short story about a farmer witnessing an alien spaceship landing on his planet. The twist is that the farmer is a Martian and humans are the aliens piloting the spaceship.

The second may be a short story or it may be a novel. All I can remember is a scene that takes place in a kitchen and involves a young girl being goaded into stabbing someone with a fireplace poker that was heated on the stove.

I know it's not much to go on (hence my not having discovered these titles on my own), but I'm hoping someone will read this and say "Oh yeah, I know that one!". Please don't let me down

edit : 3rd story - involves a man who at the end of the piece awakens to find himself wearing a distinctively-colored jumpsuit that identifies him as someone who has been found to be insane.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

Nope, I don't think I ever read those books. I would have remembered the first one, but the second one might just have been forgotten, the details are a bit scarce.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Isnt the first one from the Martian Cronicles?

I'm pretty sure the first one is a short story by Robert Heinlein. I'll take a look at my books when I get home. It might be Asimov, but either way, I'm sure I have it.

I suspected so, but when I read the Wiki article, none of the plot summaries struck me as familiar.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

I know I've read the 1st one too.

I though it was from martian Chronicles. Maybe you read it in an Anthology of short stories?

My memory goes with this.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Most likely. Wish I knew. I can't even swear by any specific age at which I read any of these stories other than to say with 100% certainty that it was more than 10 years ago.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

I'm willing to bet that the first one is the unedited version of Stranger in a Strange Land.

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No, it's not Stranger in a Strange Land. I would recommend asking over on librarything.com in the Science Fiction Fans group. They are generally very happy to identify stories from half-remembered descriptions.

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I have nothing to contribute to this thread other than the "Glade Hive Mind" should be the title of this board, or the title of the group of moderators. Or something. lol...

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Ron Paul 2012

The first story sounds like a Twilight Zone episode (original series) that starred Agnes Moorehead as a terrified farmwife fighting off tiny alien invaders.