(Found) two ancient stories

[eatatpetes]

I'm trying to track down several stories I read decades ago, (which were possibly decades old even then). The first is in the style of Fritz Leiber or Harry Harrison .. or Alfred Bester, in a scene of urban decay there is a gathering of friends, one of who is a woman who appears in public totally naked and would "verbally cut to pieces" anyone who even so much as appeared to notice .. or something along those lines ... I believe there may have been streets disrupted by jackhammers as they pass through on their way to their meeting place.??

another is of a guy who comes out of suspended animation to a world where he now has a quarter of a million dollars, where resurrection is normal and people might kill others just for a joke. The person who kills the main character says " so you're the guy with a quarter of a million" before he does the deed ... the over-joke being, of course, that the guy with a quarter million had forgotten about inflation!

there's also one about a character named, I think, Abelard something .. who arrives at a party as the story starts. He is African-American, meets a white girl ... they trip back and forth around the earth in subways cut at chords through the earth (evidently they didn't know about the fluid upper mantle when this was written) and one of the characters (Junior?) blows up one of the trains as his statement of political will, with his own friends in it, including the girl met by the negro in the first scene, who is pregnant. The explosion rips her open exposing a black baby.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The first one reminds me of "Coming Attraction" by Fritz Leiber, in which the only part of a woman which is taboo to reveal in public is the face, which is covered by a mask.

The third one sounds like "Turn Off the Sun" by Ray Nelson.

Both are fine stories, both way ahead of their time.

 

[eatatpetes]

thank you, looking up those now.

 

[eatatpetes]

thank you Victoria Silverwolf, but Coming Attraction, though in the same milieu (and I'm enjoying it thoroughly), is not the one. I'm not sure if in the one I'm seeking, clothing is by itself as much of an issue. Rather, the naked woman is the one reference I can recall. I think I lost the book or book it was in just as soon as I'd started and it was so bent it was irresistible. Instead of one protagonist, it had a group of them as I recall ... who proceed from a scene similar to the start of coming attraction, to somewhere else, possibly high up. Very frustrating ... remembered just like a dream it was so long ago.
... all I'm picking up of Turn off the Sun is a collaboration of Nelson's with Phillip Dick called Ganymede takeover, apparently with turn off the sun as a line in it ... unless I'm readign Google wrong

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I wasn't too confident on the Leiber.

And I got the title of the Ray Nelson wrong.

It's actually "Turn Off the Sky." Sorry about that.

Here is a link to all the places it has been reprinted (not too many, I'm afraid.)

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?40843

Nifty cover art for the story on its original appearance:

Note the black man, the white woman, and a hint of the train they ride.

 

[eatatpetes]

thank you again, just bought a copy of the British Venture citation ... now for the other two. Maybe I should just try anything by Fritz Leiber, Harry Harrison or Alfred Bester

 

[Bick]

Victoria, I've noticed from several posts that you have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of SF but your avatar would suggest more of a leaning toward fantasy - have you always read heaps of SF?

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Victoria, I've noticed from several posts that you have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of SF but your avatar would suggest more of a leaning toward fantasy - have you always read heaps of SF?

Thank you for the kind words, but there are certainly many people more familiar with the field than I am.

In any case, I have been reading speculative fiction since the 1960's. I do tend to read more SF than fantasy, but I certainly enjoy good fantasy whenever I find it.

(I tend to avoid both space opera/military SF and heroic fantasy, but enjoy many other subgenres.)

I picked this avatar just because it's pretty.

 

[eatatpetes]

I certainly agree with Bick! are you able to suggest any of the others with that knowledge? as I'm still eager to find the other two stories, much as I have enjoyed Coming Attraction.

 

[eatatpetes]

Actually, I'm wondering if I can use Abelard Rosenbergs face for my Avatar/pic .. maybe when I'm familiar enough here to even know how to do it. Yours is beautiful btw

 

[Danny McG]

I know this is an old query. The second one in the OP's list about the man who wakes in the future with money but forgets about inflation is THE AGE OF THE PUSSYFOOT by Frederick Pohl

 

[eatatpetes]

I know this is an old query. The second one in the OP's list about the man who wakes in the future with money but forgets about inflation is THE AGE OF THE PUSSYFOOT by Frederick Pohl

Thank you dannymcg...nearly three years later! I don't have much internet access.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Thank you dannymcg...nearly three years later! I don't have much internet access.

Hey, he was three and a half years late answering your question -- it all works out!

 

[The Ace]

The story with the naked woman is, "We all die naked," possibly by James Blish. and the action takes place in the upper levels of a flooded New York.