One of the tricks of being able to identify lost book titles

[conuly]

is knowing what sort of books pop up frequently. If you have the knack, you can get the right book even if every specific detail in the description is incorrect, which I've done before, thank you.

If a query asks for a chapter book with a lot of fantastical, vaguely steampunkish drawings, they mean The Edge Chronicles. Blue light in the desert is The Transall Saga. Virtual reality game that controls society? Epic. If they mention time slowing down in the basement it's Marco's Millions, if they mention eyeballs it's The Beasties, if they mention little creatures like bugs with weird customs it's The Boxes - actually, let's just say that there's a decent chance that if it could possibly be a Sleator book it is a Sleator book and you should just link his bibliography all over the place.

If they ask for a book and at any point mention the words "virtual war", then the book they are looking for is called Virtual War. It is most definitely not Ender's Game. (It's never Ender's Game, though there's always a comment from somebody who thinks it might be.) Somehow these people always remember the phrase "virtual war", but they never remember to google it. If they did, it'd pop right up for them. They also all think their specific request is very hard to find. It is not.

And now you know!

Comments

[antisoppist]

I was about to say if it isn't any of those, it's House of Stairs, but then I remembered it's a Sleator book :-)

[conuly]

Yes, as is The Boy Who Reversed Himself, another fave. That one really needs a reprint with a better title.

[silveradept]

Some books clearly make an impact on their readers, but only in fragmentary ways. At least they consistently remember the same fragments?

[conuly]

Usually. Somebody recently was looking for The Windsinger, but they skipped over all the parts people usually mention (test-based caste system with color coding, the eponymous wind singer, twins, the scary death chanting child-shaped monsters) to focus on... the time spent with the underground mud dwellers. Who remembers that and forgets all the rest? This person, apparently, and if The Windsinger didn't come up twice a week, every week, I would never have gotten it.

[oracne]

It's your mutant power!

[conuly]

So long as I've read the book in question.

[wendelah1]

You're good.

[conuly]

It takes skill. It takes practice. It take skill and practice.

[peristaltor]

I've only managed to ID one book in the sordid history of pouring over those requests. (I tend to read one author, then get the entire catalog, even the unknown by others titles.)