SW in Mainstream Fiction

Discuss all the SW in the media and share links to videos etc.
User avatar
sumuderguy
Shrink Aprentice
Shrink Aprentice
Posts: 44
Joined: Mon Feb 19, 2018 12:16 am
Location: canada
Gender:
Contact:

SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by sumuderguy » Thu Dec 16, 2021 10:41 pm

So I saw the posts for the SW on TV and in Anime but didn't see one for fiction so I thought I'd get things started. My offering is Small World by Tabitha King who we all know as the wife of Stephan King. I won't go into the details of the book itself other than what Mrs King said in an on stage interview with her hubbie saying something to the effect like 'I only write for myself not an audience' which really shows in Small World.

What I did like about Small World were the descriptions of the Minimizer itself and the dialogues between Roger Tinker and Dolly? about shrinking things down to size. The parts where objects and persons actually get shrunk down are pretty brisk, instead the focus is on Lenya Shaw not getting it not realizing that she is now five inches tall (the woman has to actually tell her near the end). It's only in the last dozen or so pages of the book that things get interesting when the inventor of the shrinking device has it turned against him leaving him and 2 kids and their mother stuck at doll size. The book literally ends with something like "blah blah they are now small and have to live this way...and so they did" Seems awfully abrupt for a book that's what 312 pages? I just wanted maybe more of an epilogue: do they ever get back to normal? etc. Does the woman's husband also decide to get small and be reunited with his family?

Here is a direct link to the book at Open Library...
https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1648142 ... orld00king

Here is a link to Amazon...
https://www.amazon.ca/Small-World-Tabit ... oks&sr=1-1

Are there any other SW offerings from mainstream fiction?

User avatar
foreverlurk
Shrink Master
Shrink Master
Posts: 925
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:07 pm
Location: Quebec, Canada
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by foreverlurk » Fri Dec 17, 2021 2:24 am

I didn't like it but maybe someone here will : the graphic novel "In The Small", by Michael Hague.

When a mysterious cataclysmic event, "the blue flash," causes the population of the earth to shrink in size to six inches tall, suddenly humanity has the tables turned on itself: The very civilization it has created becomes its greatest obstacle to survival. Animals and the environment, which have long suffered under the rule and/or destruction of humans, are now some of their most feared enemies. Amid the confusion and turmoil, two strong teenagers, 18-year-old Mouse and his younger sister Beat, emerge as the most promising leaders, eventually setting out on a quest to discover the secret that could redeem this strange new world.

I really wanted to love this, but nope... didn't like the characters, didn't like the artstyle, didn't like the story... it was clearly meant to be a series but it ended after just one issue. Someone even secured the movie rights, but nothing came out of it.

Here is the link on archive dot org:
https://archive.org/details/insmall0000hagu/
Attachments
its-2.jpg
its-2.jpg (554.42 KiB) Viewed 15588 times

User avatar
foreverlurk
Shrink Master
Shrink Master
Posts: 925
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:07 pm
Location: Quebec, Canada
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by foreverlurk » Fri Dec 17, 2021 2:59 am

"A very strange dollhouse", by Jennifer Dussling

A creepy short story about a weird girl and her dollhouse... There's two versions with different artwork.

Color:
https://archive.org/details/verystrangedollh00duss/

Black and white:
https://archive.org/details/verystrangedolls0000duss/
Attachments
dollhouse.jpg
dollhouse.jpg (326.12 KiB) Viewed 15572 times

User avatar
foreverlurk
Shrink Master
Shrink Master
Posts: 925
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:07 pm
Location: Quebec, Canada
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by foreverlurk » Fri Dec 17, 2021 3:35 am

"Sixty-eight rooms", by Marianne Malone

There's four books in this series, all contain some shrinking. Two young teenagers, Ruthie and Jack, have found a magical key hidden in the Thorne Miniature Rooms at the Chicago Art Institute. The key allows them to shrink themselves to 5 inches tall, and explore the museum from that size.

In the second book, they bring a woman named Dora (unbeknownst to them, an art thief) and show her how they can shrink using the key. This is the part were they grow back to full size, while leaving her tiny:
Dora turned just in time to see them growing in midair. The whole thing happened so swiftly—including Jack picking up the square and putting it in his pocket—that she didn’t get even a glimpse of it.

"How did you do that?" she exclaimed, her mouth agape.

"Nothing to it,” the full-sized Jack said to the tiny woman on the ledge. "You just toss the key to the floor. Try it."

"I don't know...", she began.

"Really, Dora, don’t be afraid," Ruthie coaxed. Being so large in comparison made Ruthie feel very powerful.
At the end, they figure out she's the villain then manage to foil her plans, even leaving her tiny in the museum (she'll grow back to normal after a while, sadly).

Here's the link:
https://archive.org/details/stealingmag ... /page/192/
Attachments
68rooms.jpg
68rooms.jpg (130.26 KiB) Viewed 15554 times

User avatar
foreverlurk
Shrink Master
Shrink Master
Posts: 925
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:07 pm
Location: Quebec, Canada
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by foreverlurk » Fri Dec 17, 2021 4:02 am

"Strange birds", by Judith Heide Gilliland

A young girl goes on a quest to find her parents (which are presumed dead at sea). She discovers tiny, winged horses/pegasus, and accidentally find a way to make herself small enough to ride them. This is the part where she eats the magical berries that shrinks her down:
Suddenly a fit of dizziness overcame her. It was from watching Cyclone fly in circles, she thought. But the dizziness turned into something else, something like a roller coaster ride called the Plunge, which Anna had tried once at the amusement park. Once had been enough. Now she felt as if she were falling again, falling fast and leaving her stomach behind.

It was poison, thought Anna, closing her eyes tight. Down and down she plunged, speeding through space. A high-pitched whining noise seemed to be coming from inside her head. "Is this what it feels like to die.^" she asked out loud.

Suddenly she stopped falling. The whining noise stopped. It was deathly quiet.

Anna opened her eyes. She was sitting in a small boat of some kind, rocking gently in a pool of water. She stared at the boat in the dim light. A thick rope on top of it was tied into a neat bow. It had a familiar look to it. Nearby, a large hill rose out of the water.

She peered over the edge fearfully, wondering how deep the water was. It looked cold and nasty. She shivered violently.

It was then that Anna noticed her clothes had disappeared.

She looked at the boat, the rope, and the hill again. This was no boat, she realized. It was her shoe! That bow on top was the one she tied this morning. The pool she was floating in was the puddle of water at the bottom of the well. And the hill was the clothes she had just been wearing.

Now Anna was shivering so hard she could barely stand up. And it seemed to be getting colder by the minute.

"My socks, I have to find my socks," she muttered, bending down and reaching into the toe of her colossal shoe. Her teeth chattered and her hands shook with the cold. She dragged out a sock, which was now much bigger than she was. Anna sat down in her shoe and worked at the hole in the toe of her sock, making it bigger.
She manages to get help from a friend, eventually discover a way to get back to normal size. Later on she has to shrink again to ride the mini-horses (she has some doll clothes ready that time!), and finally find the island where her parents disappeared (spoiler : they've both been shrunk). This is when she lands on the island:
The cool morning air smelled sweet, and Anna walked through it feeling very odd, as if she were watching herself from ten feet away. She could see herself, eight inches high, the only human being on this strange island, stepping over pebbles as if they were rocks, jumping over twigs, standing waist-high in grass. Small as a mouse.

Anna looked up at the sky with alarm. Were there hawks about? Owls? Was she, could she be . . . prey? Suddenly she felt weak and vulnerable.
Here is the link:
https://archive.org/details/strangebird ... /page/130/

User avatar
Bloodthirstybutcher
Shrink Master
Shrink Master
Posts: 790
Joined: Tue Nov 10, 2020 10:36 pm
Location: Nebraska
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by Bloodthirstybutcher » Fri Dec 17, 2021 4:45 am

Image

I think I’ve got a copy of this laying around the house somewhere.
"People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis, you can't trust people, Jeremy."

-Super Hans, Peep Show

shrinky
Shrink Adept
Shrink Adept
Posts: 199
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2018 12:52 am
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by shrinky » Fri Dec 17, 2021 8:31 am

I will recommend this very well done shrinking woman story called 'Shrunk' by horror author Tom Holland.

https://www.amazon.com/Shrunk-Tom-Holla ... 853&sr=8-1

It's only 99 cents on Amazon. Give it a try.

User avatar
scidram
Shrink Adept
Shrink Adept
Posts: 64
Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2018 1:54 pm
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by scidram » Fri Dec 17, 2021 5:32 pm

The Tiny Wife, by Andrew Kaufman

A robber charges into a bank with a loaded gun, but instead of taking any money he steals an item of sentimental value from each person. Once he has made his escape, strange things start to happen to the victims. A tattoo comes to life, a husband turns into a snowman, a baby starts to shit money, and Stacy Hinterland discovers that she's shrinking a little each day, and there is seemingly nothing that she or her husband can do to reverse the the process.

https://www.amazon.com/Tiny-Wife-Andrew ... 1770864040

Some of the side stories aren't well developed, but most are, and the main focus of the novella is Stacy's shrinking, which is pretty good.

chocolatejr9
Shrink Master
Shrink Master
Posts: 468
Joined: Sun May 27, 2018 2:31 am
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by chocolatejr9 » Fri Dec 17, 2021 8:18 pm

I remember one of the Fablehaven books had an SW moment. Wanna say the second one?

User avatar
foreverlurk
Shrink Master
Shrink Master
Posts: 925
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:07 pm
Location: Quebec, Canada
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by foreverlurk » Sat Dec 18, 2021 4:15 pm

chocolatejr9 wrote:
Fri Dec 17, 2021 8:18 pm
I remember one of the Fablehaven books had an SW moment. Wanna say the second one?
You're right... they drink a shrinking potion and shrink out of their clothes:
Kendra unstopped a third vial and drank it. Seth was right, it made her tingle. It felt like her limbs were on pins and needles, as if they had fallen asleep and now feeling was returning most uncomfortably. As she shrank, the tingling sensation intensified. Whenever Seth knew her led had been aleep, he always tried to poke the tingly limb. It drove her crazy. This was much worse, stinging tingles starting at her fingertips and toes and racing through her whole body.

Before Kendra fully recognized what was happening, her shirt was all around her like a collapsed tent. She crawled to an opening through one of her sleeves. “Close your eyes, Seth,” she called, noticing how high and squeaky her voice sounded.
Here is the link:
https://archive.org/details/riseofeveni ... /page/302/

Unversed
Shrink Aprentice
Shrink Aprentice
Posts: 35
Joined: Thu Oct 07, 2021 5:09 am
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by Unversed » Sat Dec 18, 2021 10:28 pm

Micro by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston

The last novel partially written by Jurassic Park's Michael Crichton before his passing, the story follows seven biology graduate students who are invited to visit CEO Vin Drake and his corporation Nanigen on Hawaii. When one of the students uncovers a conspiracy involving Drake killing his brother, Drake uses a device that shrinks down all the students to half an inch in size. They manage to escape into the forests where they must use their scientific knowledge to try and survive the harsh climates, all the while uncovering more truths about Nanigen's nano technology, and avoiding assassins sent out to try and kill them. During the adventure, all but the main boy and girl end up dying through various means (rainfall, birds, the assassins, etc.) In the end, the two manage to return to normal size, and Drake is killed by a micro bot that was enlarged with them, which also destroys the machine. Afterwards, the two become a couple, though the main girl also desires to return back to the micro-world, having been attracted by its beauty.

The story is essentially an adult "Honey I Shrunk The Kids", and I think it does a very good job at capturing that essence of both sheer scale of the world and the danger all around. It's also nice to see whenever a story like this can throw in competent and knowledge characters that can adapt to these environments, while still keeping it increasingly perilous, especially with how the stakes escalate. If you like shrinking in fiction this is definitely worth a look.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1642111 ... 0cric_k1r0

https://www.amazon.com/Micro-Novel-Mich ... 133&sr=8-1

User avatar
Dr.Minimizer
Shrink Adept
Shrink Adept
Posts: 100
Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2020 6:33 am
Location: Ohio, USA
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by Dr.Minimizer » Sun Dec 19, 2021 7:22 pm

The Micronauts, The Microcolony, Revolt of the Micronauts...by Gordon Williams
This is a trilogy of books in which scientists are playing around with the idea of miniaturizing people to save on resources and living space. There is no "shrinking" - instead they clone a smaller version of your body and transfer your mind into it. In the first book a team is sent in to rescue some scientists who were lost in the wilderness. In the second book they actually try to form a colony of little people (see book cover) but are menaced by a fox. The third book is later on in the colony's life and this time a human (unaware of their presence) gives them fits. Throughout all of it you get the occasional glimpse of what's going on back in the real world but nothing ever comes of it...making you wonder if there were going to be more books that never got written. (I would love to see this same setting revisited a couple hundred or even thousand years later, perhaps after giant society has collapsed and mini people are slowly expanding and prospering.)
Attachments
mc.jpg
mc.jpg (257.88 KiB) Viewed 14584 times

User avatar
foreverlurk
Shrink Master
Shrink Master
Posts: 925
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:07 pm
Location: Quebec, Canada
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by foreverlurk » Mon Dec 20, 2021 5:41 pm

The Little Country, by Charles de Lint

Link:
https://archive.org/details/littlecountry00deli
"Jodi...?" Denzil asked.

His heart leapt as he rounded the stone, dropping when he saw no sign of her there. But Ollie had something in his hand. It looked like a little pink mouse that was squealing and flailing its limbs about...

But a mouse never had limbs like that, Denzil thought. Nor a shock of blond hair. And now he could make out what the little creature was saying.

He knelt down quickly and pried Ollie's paw open. A tiny nude Jodi Shepherd spilled out onto his palm. She immediately covered herself up with her hands. Denzil turned away, blushing, until Taupin shook the lint from a handkerchief that he pulled from one of his voluminous pockets and offered it to the diminutive Jodi. Denzil looked back at her, once she'd wrapped herself up in it.

"Now do you believe me?" she asked in her high piping voice.
Attachments
518ToP7yKQL._SX342_SY445_QL70_ML2_.jpg
518ToP7yKQL._SX342_SY445_QL70_ML2_.jpg (25.5 KiB) Viewed 14326 times

User avatar
foreverlurk
Shrink Master
Shrink Master
Posts: 925
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:07 pm
Location: Quebec, Canada
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by foreverlurk » Mon Dec 20, 2021 6:11 pm

"The Princess and the Rogue in the Tears of Hathor" by Richard J Johnson

Video preview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hizDbYNj56Y

Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Princess-Rogue-T ... 1524549509

There's a few chapters involving a shrunken princess. A priestess uses magic to shrink her (out of her clothes) down to six inches. The evil priestess humiliates and threathen her when she refuses to pretend she's a doll and dance in her palm, in front of her party guests.
“Little doll, are you ready to dance for me, or would you prefer a hot wax bath?”

Li looked at the priestess. “Priestess, I have had a change of heart. I would like to be your doll, and to please you at your party. I am happy to dance for you.”

The priestess, surprised to hear these words, placed her back in the dollhouse. She then leaned over the dollhouse and spoke, “And why should I believe you?”

A sinister smile crossed the priestess face. “So you understand you belong to me and will do as I say?” Li bit her lip. “Yes, if you treat me well, I will do as you ask.”

“Dance on the palm of my hand,” the priestess said as she placed her palm next to Li.

“As you wish,” said the princess.

Li moved her body in an oscillating wave, like a belly dancer. She spun and whirled, graceful as the wind, throwing her hair back as she moved. She hid her face for a few moments behind her hands, as if she was flirting with the priestess. She then spun on one leg, finishing by coiling into a sitting position on her palm.
She manages to escape and spend a few chapters in her tiny size, before finding a way to grow back to normal.
Attachments
princess.jpg
princess.jpg (110.69 KiB) Viewed 14314 times

User avatar
foreverlurk
Shrink Master
Shrink Master
Posts: 925
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:07 pm
Location: Quebec, Canada
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by foreverlurk » Thu Jan 06, 2022 1:05 am

"Night Flight" by Lawrence Watt-Evans

https://www.amazon.com/Flights-Fantasy- ... 0886778638

Short story about an imprisoned princess (Kirna) being rescued by a slightly clueless wizard (Deru)... the rescue plan is to shrink themselves out of the prison tower and fly out through the window and then get back to normal size once safely outside. But during the escape, they get attacked by an owl, and end up falling to the ground, separated from each other (and from the antitode).

Sadly she quickly finds the growth potion and there's not much but still, I always likd the idea of shrunken princesses (damn you, Parisa!)
Everything seemed distorted.

Then she remembered why; she was only about two inches tall. That clumsy young wizard had shrunk her, carried her out the window . . . and then what? Had he carried her off somewhere and abandoned her?

No, he had dropped her, when that owl had attacked. She remembered the vast rush of air as she fell, and the utter helpless terror she had felt, and the crunch as she had hit a bush.

The bush must have broken her fall, though, because she was still alive, albeit somewhat bruised and battered.

And she was, she realized, under that same bush, a few feet from Gar's tower.

But where was Deru? Had the owl gotten him?

For one thing, if the owl had swallowed him, she doubted it had managed to remove his pack first, and that was where the antidote to the shrinking spell was. The idea of spending her entire life able to meet chipmunks and large spiders face-to-face did not appeal to her.

It wasn't fair! She was a princess. These things weren't supposed to happen to her. People were supposed to obey her and protect her, not lock her up or steal her blood and tears or shrink her down to nothing or carry her around like a sack of onions—and drop her!

Attachments
176895.jpg
176895.jpg (40.51 KiB) Viewed 13416 times

User avatar
foreverlurk
Shrink Master
Shrink Master
Posts: 925
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:07 pm
Location: Quebec, Canada
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by foreverlurk » Tue Feb 15, 2022 2:18 am

"Fractal Mode" by Piers Anthony

https://archive.org/details/fractalmode0000anth_i6n5/

I don't remember much about this book, I read it as a teenager (if you look at the cover, you can guess why) but never finished it. I just remember there was a nice SW scene (technically, it's Giantess to SW), here it is:
He played, and the sound spread out across the sea and made it shimmer, and across the land and made it quiver. It reached into the sky, and the clouds shivered and turned to haze. "I feel it!" Earle cried. "I can change the size of the one for whom I play. I will make me large, to match you."

"No, make me small to match you," Kara said. "We shall still both be large for this world, and we can remain here together in comfort."

Earle agreed. Since he now had the power, and could invoke it anywhere, they decided to get safely to the shore first. She quickly took him up and floated to the shore, where they sat side by side on the edge of the water, she towering over him as he dangled his feet in the water. To her, the bank was merely a rise, and the sea here barely covered her toes.

He played for her, and she began to shrink. It was working! Once started, the process continued by itself, so he put aside his dulcimer and reached up to hold her huge little finger.

It grew steadily smaller, until he was able to grasp her huge hand. The hand became smaller, along with her body, until at last she was his size. She got up and stepped out of the sea to stand before him. She had shrunk entirely out of her clothing and was naked.

Delighted, he embraced her and kissed her on the lips, physically, for the first time.

But she continued shrinking. Horrified, he tried to hold her, but she shrank in his arms. He took up his dulcimer and played, but the spell would not be reversed. It was running its course, heedless of his will. He had invoked a spell he did not properly understand, and now was paying the penalty.

Helpless, he watched her diminish. Her own mandolin, formerly a tiny thing in her huge hand, remained as it was, and now was far too large for her to play. It slid off the bank and partway into the sea. He was now too large to be her lover. She diminished to a quarter his height, to an eighth, a sixteenth. All he could do was shield her with his huge hand, preventing her from falling into the sea.

Then, less than a twentieth of his height, she stopped. She was now the same size as a native of this planet. Their problem of size remained; they had in effect changed places.

Suddenly he understood. "The magic makes a person fit the world!" he exclaimed. "It makes folk grow or shrink, depending on the world, so that thereafter they can reside there in comfort."
Attachments
330685.jpg
330685.jpg (1.3 MiB) Viewed 12505 times

PickUpArtist

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by PickUpArtist » Wed Feb 16, 2022 12:07 am

The book "DREAMSHORES: MONSTER ISLAND" by Mike Robinson has several hand-helds involving two different characters. There's one featuring a Cyclops, the other a Dragon. Here's the Cyclops:

Then, a giant shadow fell over her, and a large, solid thing struck her body with all the force of what felt like a car. Huge rubbery fingers enclosed her, trapped her in the very fist of the Cyclops and before she had even the wherewithal to resist she was being lifted high, her legs kicking at air.

“No!” she cried, pounding the thing’s thumb and forefinger. The fist squeezed her. She gasped.

The monster brought her closer to its two massive heads, both savagely ugly, accented with that much more realness than they’d possessed in their close-ups onscreen. The two faces grunted, rippled with different expressions, brows furrowing as Sierra hung there heaving in its grasp. Were the heads talking to one another? About her?

She took in that monstrous totality. The Cyclops was the Cyclops, no mistaking it. The big two-headed, strutting brute of ancient terror, the booming xenophobe that had chased off Ulysses’ men on this very beach.

“Put me down,” she muttered.



It goes on for a little longer. The Dragon scenes happen like a few times.

User avatar
Little Sally
Shrink Master
Shrink Master
Posts: 683
Joined: Tue Feb 01, 2022 5:48 pm
Location: UK
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by Little Sally » Wed Feb 16, 2022 12:28 am

A lovely descriptive passage.

What an illustration that would inspire! (I'll keep that in mind for future work) ;)
sally g, reincarnated.

User avatar
foreverlurk
Shrink Master
Shrink Master
Posts: 925
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:07 pm
Location: Quebec, Canada
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by foreverlurk » Sat Feb 26, 2022 10:03 pm

"Fleabrain Loves Franny" by Joanne Rocklin

https://archive.org/details/fleabrainlo ... 2/mode/2up

Story about a wheelchair-bound girl befriending a magical flea that lives on her dog. A very mean nurse is taking care of her, and here she had enough of her abuse and punish her in the best way I know: by shrinking her to bug size.
"Make her smaller than a mouse but bigger than a gnat!"

Fleabrain's leg gave a "thumbs"-up wriggle.

"My dear girl, what are you talking about?" asked Nurse Olivegarten.

"Actually, the size of a large spider will do", said Franny.

"What are you talking about? Eh?"

Fleabrain bit Nurse Olivegarten behind each of her ears. Pfffft! There was a pungent smell of firecrackers and popcorn, mingled with that of decaying lilacs.

"Eh? Eh? Eh?"

Three seconds was all it took. A miniaturized Nurse Olivegarten now stood at the tip of Franny's clodhopper shoe, the nurse's mouth wide open in astonishment.

Franny leaned over to get a good look at this tiny being, a squeaking, quaking speciment of Nurse Olivegarten. How wonderful to be looking down at her instead of up! Franny felt huge and strong and free.

"Well? How does it feel to be smaller than me?" Franny asked.

It would have been so easy so squash her, but Franny just couldn't.
Attachments
flea-cover.jpg
flea-cover.jpg (200.27 KiB) Viewed 11553 times

wayyellow
Shrink Adept
Shrink Adept
Posts: 52
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2018 2:50 am

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by wayyellow » Sun Feb 27, 2022 12:31 am

One that I enjoyed as a kid was called 'The Two-Thousand-Pound Goldfish,' although the shrinking content is extremely minimal. The book itself offers a coming of age story about kid whose mom is a wanted criminal (an eco-terrorist or something) and who has had to grow up without her. His biggest love in life is monster movies, though, and he continuously fantasizes about one day making his own (about a giant mutant goldfish). At the beginning of the book, however, there's a movie that he goes to see in a theater where the military decides to use an experimental shrinking cloud to take care of some kind of kaiju...

1.png
1.png (210.36 KiB) Viewed 11512 times
2.png
2.png (238.79 KiB) Viewed 11512 times
3.png
3.png (236.1 KiB) Viewed 11512 times
4.png
4.png (233.36 KiB) Viewed 11512 times

User avatar
foreverlurk
Shrink Master
Shrink Master
Posts: 925
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:07 pm
Location: Quebec, Canada
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by foreverlurk » Sat May 14, 2022 9:51 pm

"Asunrath", by Marie-Thérèse De Brosses, 1967

This one is from France, never been translated and very hard to find in physical copies. Haven't read it yet, but here's my very limited understanding of the story:

Young girls are disappearing from a village. The truth is that they are being abducted and shrunk by an evil scientist, ending up about two inches tall and kept in a miniature city built to keep them safe from insects and other dangers, "Asunrath". The whole city is protected / surrounded by nets and moats filled with insect poison. There's also a normal-sized dog keeping watch, to prevent any escapes. The girls are kept as pets and slaves. The main narrator is the inventor's son, Xavier, who rescues one of the shrunken girls, Éléonore. Xavier is in love with Éléonore; they want to rescue the other girls... but he somehow ends up shrunk too, with Éléonore still in his pocket. She shrinks again, and now smaller than an ant, Éléonore has a mental breakdown and panics, running away and falling to her death into the insect poison pit. Xavier, heartbroken, still manages to rescue the 20 shrunken girls and restore them to normal size. He kills his father and destroys his invention. But nobody believes the story, and the few girls who told the truth actually end up in mental institutions.

Best I can do right now, I'll try to give a better synopsis when I get a copy. :D

There's some very nice illustrations by French cartoonist Claude Serre, here's a few of them.

Image

Image

Image

Image

User avatar
Olo
Shrink Adept
Shrink Adept
Posts: 113
Joined: Sat Jan 27, 2018 11:04 pm
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by Olo » Sun May 15, 2022 1:53 am

foreverlurk wrote:
Sat May 14, 2022 9:51 pm
"Asunrath", by Marie-Thérèse De Brosses, 1967
Fabulous find and illustrations!
Links to all my Stories and Images may now be found here.

Enigma12
Shrink Adept
Shrink Adept
Posts: 193
Joined: Sun Feb 28, 2021 4:40 am
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by Enigma12 » Sun May 15, 2022 3:53 am

I swear the French can come up with interesting stuff. Not my cup of tea but their usual SW works seem to involve death and tragedy a lot don’t they.

User avatar
foreverlurk
Shrink Master
Shrink Master
Posts: 925
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:07 pm
Location: Quebec, Canada
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by foreverlurk » Sat May 28, 2022 9:49 pm

"Les Pionniers de l'Esperance", "Le Jardin Fantastique"

Another French SF series, this graphic novel is by Roger Lécureux and Raymond Poïvet, the story was first published in the magazine "Vaillant" in 1953. It's about a group of explorers/scientists/heros called the "Pionners" (one of them is female, Tsin-Lu).

A scientist working on a shrink ray calls the Pionners for help, after his young female assistant had an accident in his lab. Only her clothes remain, no sign of the girl, now smaller than an insect.

Image

They end up searching for her in the backyard, and of course they do the only logical thing one would think of : shrink themselves down (they don't want to step on her, I guess?). They end up using spider silk as makeshift clothes.

Image

Haven't found the complete book yet, will update this post if I do.

Enjoy!

User avatar
foreverlurk
Shrink Master
Shrink Master
Posts: 925
Joined: Wed Apr 04, 2018 4:07 pm
Location: Quebec, Canada
Gender:
Contact:

Re: SW in Mainstream Fiction

Post by foreverlurk » Fri Mar 10, 2023 5:46 pm

"Polly Thumb", by Helen Cresswell

Kind of story that would have triggered me as a child, LOL. Some nice illustrations in this one.

https://archive.org/details/pollythumb0000cres/mode/2up

Image

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 15 guests