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From: wildbill@ucbvax.ARPA (William J. Laubenheimer)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Do you recognize this story?
Message-ID: <2303@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 1-Oct-84 18:50:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.2303
Posted: Mon Oct  1 18:50:49 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Oct-84 05:43:07 EDT
References: <12440@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 28

> I'm sure this mailing list gets a lot of this, but I'd really appreciate
> a pointer to a short story with the following rough plot:

> A young alien boy lives on Earth, and he is unaware of his origins.
> Apparently he has a sense of ``winding number'', in that if he were to walk
> around the block, he would feel a desire to turn once in the opposite
> direction, to regain his equilibrium.  Naturally, he attempts to suppress
> this strange behavior, and as he gets older he is able to tolerate larger
> winding numbers---at the end of the day he stands on his bed turning and
> doing backflips.  The purpose of the sense is to orient him with respect to
> his home, which is a distant star.

> This summary may be considerably distorted, since it is second- or third-hand.

> Thanks much,
> Peter.Monta@cmu-cs-g.arpa

It's not a short story, it's a novel. The title is \\The Revolving Boy//.
I believe the author is female, but I don't recall the name. It's
been a while since I read it.

The boy is not an alien. What he is is the first human born in space,
the result of some unauthorized screwing around during a space mission
crewed by a married couple.

                                        Bill Laubenheimer
----------------------------------------UC-Berkeley Computer Science
     ...Killjoy went that-a-way--->     ucbvax!wildbill