1.
Indianapolis
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Indianapolis, is the capital and largest city of the U. S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. It is in the East North Central region of the Midwestern United States, with an estimated population of 853,173 in 2015, Indianapolis is the second most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and 14th largest in the U. S. The city is the economic and cultural center of the Indianapolis metropolitan area, home to 2 million people and its combined statistical area ranks 26th, with 2.4 million inhabitants. Indianapolis covers 372 square miles, making it the 16th largest city by area in the U. S. The city grew beyond the Mile Square, as completion of the National Road and advent of the railroad solidified the position as a manufacturing. Indianapolis is within a single-day drive of 70 percent of the nations population, Indianapolis has developed niche markets in amateur sports and auto racing. The city is perhaps best known for hosting the worlds largest single-day sporting event. The city is notable as headquarters for the American Legion and home to a significant collection of monuments dedicated to veterans and war dead, the most in the U. S. outside of Washington, D. C. Since the 1970 city-county consolidation, known as Unigov, local government administration has operated under the direction of an elected 25-member city-county council, Indianapolis is considered a high sufficiency global city. In 1816, the year Indiana gained statehood, the U. S. Congress donated four sections of land to establish a permanent seat of state government. Two years later, under the Treaty of St. Marys and this tract of land, which was called the New Purchase, included the site selected for the new state capital in 1820. The availability of new lands for purchase in central Indiana attracted settlers. Although many of these first European and American setters were Protestants, few African Americans lived in central Indiana before 1840. The first European Americans to permanently settle in the area that became Indianapolis were either the McCormick or Pogue families, on January 11,1820, the Indiana General Assembly authorized a committee to select a site in central Indiana for the new state capital. The state legislature approved the site, adopting the name Indianapolis on January 6,1821, in April, Alexander Ralston and Elias Pym Fordham were appointed to survey and design a town plan for the new settlement. Indianapolis became a seat of county government on December 31,1821, a combined county and town government continued until 1832, when Indianapolis incorporated as a town. Indianapolis became an incorporated city effective March 30,1847, Samuel Henderson, the citys first mayor, led the new city government, which included a seven-member city council. In 1853, voters approved a new city charter provided for an elected mayor
2.
Indiana
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Indiana /ɪndiˈænə/ is a U. S. state located in the midwestern and Great Lakes regions of North America. Indiana is the 38th largest by area and the 16th most populous of the 50 United States and its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th U. S. state on December 11,1816, before becoming a territory, varying cultures of indigenous peoples and historic Native Americans inhabited Indiana for thousands of years. Indiana has an economy with a gross state product of $298 billion in 2012. Indiana has several areas with populations greater than 100,000. The states name means Land of the Indians, or simply Indian Land and it also stems from Indianas territorial history. On May 7,1800, the United States Congress passed legislation to divide the Northwest Territory into two areas and named the section the Indiana Territory. In 1816, when Congress passed an Enabling Act to begin the process of establishing statehood for Indiana, a resident of Indiana is officially known as a Hoosier. The first inhabitants in what is now Indiana were the Paleo-Indians, divided into small groups, the Paleo-Indians were nomads who hunted large game such as mastodons. They created stone tools made out of chert by chipping, knapping and flaking, the Archaic period, which began between 5000 and 4000 BC, covered the next phase of indigenous culture. The people developed new tools as well as techniques to cook food, such new tools included different types of spear points and knives, with various forms of notches. They made ground-stone tools such as axes, woodworking tools. During the latter part of the period, they built mounds and middens. The Archaic period ended at about 1500 BC, although some Archaic people lived until 700 BC, afterward, the Woodland period took place in Indiana, where various new cultural attributes appeared. During this period, the people created ceramics and pottery, an early Woodland period group named the Adena people had elegant burial rituals, featuring log tombs beneath earth mounds. In the middle portion of the Woodland period, the Hopewell people began developing long-range trade of goods, nearing the end of the stage, the people developed highly productive cultivation and adaptation of agriculture, growing such crops as corn and squash. The Woodland period ended around 1000 AD, the Mississippian culture emerged, lasting from 1000 until the 15th century, shortly before the arrival of Europeans. During this stage, the people created large urban settlements designed according to their cosmology, with mounds and plazas defining ceremonial
3.
Science fiction
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Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been called a literature of ideas. Science fiction is difficult to define, as it includes a range of subgenres and themes. Author and editor Damon Knight summed up the difficulty, saying science fiction is what we point to when we say it, a definition echoed by author Mark C. Glassy, who argues that the definition of science fiction is like the definition of pornography, you do not know what it is, in 1970 or 1971William Atheling Jr. According to science fiction writer Robert A, rod Serlings definition is fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science fiction is the improbable made possible, Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possible worlds or futures. Science fiction elements include, A time setting in the future, in alternative timelines, a spatial setting or scenes in outer space, on other worlds, or on subterranean earth. Characters that include aliens, mutants, androids, or humanoid robots, futuristic or plausible technology such as ray guns, teleportation machines, and humanoid computers. Scientific principles that are new or that contradict accepted physical laws, for time travel, wormholes. New and different political or social systems, e. g. utopian, dystopian, post-scarcity, paranormal abilities such as mind control, telepathy, telekinesis Other universes or dimensions and travel between them. A product of the budding Age of Reason and the development of science itself. Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan considered Keplers work the first science fiction story and it depicts a journey to the Moon and how the Earths motion is seen from there. Later, Edgar Allan Poe wrote a story about a flight to the moon, more examples appeared throughout the 19th century. Wells The War of the Worlds describes an invasion of late Victorian England by Martians using tripod fighting machines equipped with advanced weaponry and it is a seminal depiction of an alien invasion of Earth. In the late 19th century, the scientific romance was used in Britain to describe much of this fiction. This produced additional offshoots, such as the 1884 novella Flatland, the term would continue to be used into the early 20th century for writers such as Olaf Stapledon. In the early 20th century, pulp magazines helped develop a new generation of mainly American SF writers, influenced by Hugo Gernsback, the founder of Amazing Stories magazine. In 1912 Edgar Rice Burroughs published A Princess of Mars, the first of his series of Barsoom novels, situated on Mars
4.
Fantasy
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Fantasy is a fiction genre set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. Most fantasy uses magic or other elements as a main plot element, theme. Magic and magical creatures are common in many of these imaginary worlds, in popular culture, the fantasy genre is predominantly of the medievalist form. In its broadest sense, however, fantasy works by many writers, artists, filmmakers. Fantasy is studied in a number of disciplines including English and other studies, cultural studies, comparative literature, history. The identifying trait of fantasy is the reliance on imagination to create narrative elements that do not have to rely on history or nature to be coherent. This differs from realistic fiction in that whereas realistic fiction has to attend to the history and natural laws of reality, an author applies his or her imagination to come up with characters, plots, and settings that are impossible in reality. Fantasy has often compared with science fiction and horror because they are the major categories of speculative fiction. Fantasy is distinguished from science fiction by the plausibility of the narrative elements, a science fiction narrative is unlikely, though seeming possible through logical scientific and/or technological extrapolation, whereas fantasy narratives do not need to be scientifically possible. The imagined elements of fantasy do not need an explanation to be narratively functional. Authors have to rely on the suspension of disbelief, an acceptance of the unbelievable or impossible for the sake of enjoyment. Despite both genres heavy reliance on the supernatural, fantasy and horror are distinguishable, horror primarily evokes fear through the protagonists weaknesses or inability to deal with the antagonists. Beginning perhaps with the earliest written documents, mythic and other elements that would come to define fantasy. MacDonald was an influence on both J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. The other major fantasy author of this era was William Morris, lord Dunsany established the genres popularity in both the novel and the short story form. Many popular mainstream authors also began to write fantasy at this time, including H. Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Indeed, juvenile fantasy was considered more acceptable than fantasy intended for adults, nathaniel Hawthorne wrote fantasy in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys, intended for children, though works for adults only verged on fantasy. Political and social trends can affect a societys reception towards fantasy, in the early 20th century, the New Culture Movements enthusiasm for Westernization and science in China compelled them to condemn the fantastical shenmo genre of traditional Chinese literature
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Henry Kuttner
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Henry Kuttner was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror. Henry Kuttner was born in Los Angeles, California in 1915, Henry Kuttners great-grandfather was the scholar Josua Heschel Kuttner. Kuttner grew up in relative poverty following the death of his father, as a young man he worked for the literary agency of his uncle, Laurence DOrsay, in Los Angeles before selling his first story, The Graveyard Rats, to Weird Tales in early 1936. Alfred Bester told this anecdote about Kuttner, Mort Weisinger introduced me to the informal gatherings of the working science fiction authors of the late thirties. I met Henry Kuttner, whom Bester described as medium-sized, very quiet and courteous, once I broke Kuttner up quite unintentionally. I said to Weisinger, Ive just finished a story that takes place in a spaceless, timeless locale where theres no objective reality. Its awfully long,20,000 words, but I can cut the first 5,000, apart from the flesh-eating animals, Masson eventually comes face-to-face with a burrowing zombie-like creature. This often-anthologized tale made recent appearances in The Gruesome Book, edited by Ramsey Campbell, other Kuttner stories are also tinged with Lovecraftian horror. Rats was also adapted as part of the anthology film Trilogy of Terror II. Kuttner was known for his prose and worked in close collaboration with his wife. They met through their association with the Lovecraft Circle, a group of writers and their work together spanned the 1940s and 1950s and most of the work was credited to pseudonyms, mainly Lewis Padgett and Lawrence ODonnell. Both freely admitted that they collaborated in part because his page rate was higher than hers, in fact, several people have written or said that she wrote three stories which were published under his name. Clash by Night and The Portal in the Picture are sometimes attributed to her, according to de Camp, it was typical for either partner to break off from a story in mid-paragraph or even mid-sentence, with the latest page of the manuscript still in the typewriter. The other spouse would routinely continue the story where the first had left off and they alternated in this manner as many times as necessary until the story was finished. These stories were collected in Robots Have No Tails. In her introduction to the 1973 Lancer Books edition, Moore stated that Kuttner wrote all the Gallegher stories himself, in 2007, New Line Cinema released a feature film loosely based on the Lewis Padgett short story Mimsy Were the Borogoves under the title The Last Mimzy. In addition, The Best of Henry Kuttner was republished under the title The Last Mimzy Stories, marion Zimmer Bradley is among many authors who have cited Kuttner as an influence. Her novel The Bloody Sun is dedicated to him, roger Zelazny has talked about the influence of The Dark World on his Amber series
6.
Americans
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Americans are citizens of the United States of America. The country is home to people of different national origins. As a result, Americans do not equate their nationality with ethnicity, although citizens make up the majority of Americans, non-citizen residents, dual citizens, and expatriates may also claim an American identity. See Names for United States citizens. S, virgin Islands and Northern Mariana Islands in the 20th century. It also includes influences of African-American culture, westward expansion integrated the Creoles and Cajuns of Louisiana and the Hispanos of the Southwest and brought close contact with the culture of Mexico. Large-scale immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from Southern and Eastern Europe introduced a variety of elements, immigration from Asia, Africa, and Latin America has also had impact. A cultural melting pot, or pluralistic salad bowl, describes the way in which generations of Americans have celebrated and exchanged distinctive cultural characteristics, in addition to the United States, Americans and people of American descent can be found internationally. As many as seven million Americans are estimated to be living abroad, the United States of America is a diverse country, racially, and ethnically. Some other race is also an option in the census and other surveys, people of European descent, or White Americans, constitute the majority of the 308 million people living in the United States, with 72. 4% of the population in the 2010 United States Census. They are considered people who trace their ancestry to the peoples of Europe, the Middle East. Of those reporting to be White American,7,487,133 reported to be Multiracial, with largest combination being white, additionally, there are 29,184,290 White Hispanics or Latinos. Non-Hispanic Whites are the majority in 46 states, there are four minority-majority states, California, Texas, New Mexico, and Hawaii. In addition, the District of Columbia has a non-white majority, the state with the highest percentage of non-Hispanic White Americans is Maine. The largest continental ancestral group of Americans are that of Europeans who have origins in any of the peoples of Europe. This includes people via African, North American, Caribbean, Central American or South American and Oceanian nations that have a large European diaspora, the Spanish were the first Europeans to establish a continuous presence in what is now the United States. Martín de Argüelles born 1566, San Agustín, La Florida, was the first person of European descent born in what is now the United States. Twenty-one years later, Virginia Dare born 1587 Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina, was the first child born in the Thirteen Colonies to English parents. 8% of the total population, Hispanic or Latino Americans constitute the largest ethnic minority in the United States. They form the second largest group after non-Hispanic Whites in the United States, hispanic/Latino Americans are very racially diverse, and as a result form an ethnic category, rather than a race
7.
Clare Winger Harris
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Clare Winger Harris was an early science fiction writer whose short stories were published during the 1920s. She is credited as the first woman to publish stories under her own name in science fiction magazines and her stories often dealt with characters on the borders of humanity such as cyborgs. Harris began publishing in 1926, and soon became well liked by readers and she sold a total of eleven stories, which were collected in 1947 as Away From the Here and Now. Her gender was a surprise to Gernsback, the editor who first bought her work, clare Winger was born on January 18,1891, in Freeport, Illinois and later attended Smith College in Massachusetts. In 1912 she married Frank Clyde Harris, Harris gave birth to three sons. She died in Pasadena, California in 1968, Harris wrote her most acclaimed works during the 1920s. In 1930, she stopped writing to raise and educate her children, Harris published her first short story, The Runaway World, in the July 1926 issue of Weird Tales. In December of that year, she submitted a story for a contest being run by Amazing Stories editor Hugo Gernsback, Harriss story, The Fate of the Poseidonia, placed third. Harris soon became one of Gernbacks most popular writers, Harris eventually published eleven short stories in pulp magazines, most of them in Amazing Stories. In 1947 Harriss short stories were collected under the title Away from the Here and she wrote one novel, Persephone of Eleusis, A Romance of Ancient Greece. But the exception, as usual, proves the rule, the exception in this case being extraordinarily impressive, for many years Harris claimed to have been the first woman science-fiction writer in the United States. While this can be debated, Harris is recognized as the first woman to publish stories in science fiction magazines under her own name, even though Harris published only a handful of stories, almost all of them have been reprinted over the years. Lupoff also wrote that hile todays reader may find her prose creaky and old-fashioned, the Fate of the Poseidonia has also been reprinted a number of times and is credited as an early example of a science fiction story with a heroic female lead character. Other of Harriss stories are noted for featuring strong female characters, such as Sylvia. Harris also wrote one story utilizing a point of view. Persephone of Eleusis, A Romance of Ancient Greece Away from the Here and Now, Stories in Pseudo-Science. A Runaway World The Fate of the Poseidonia A Certain Soldier The Fifth Dimension The Menace From Mars The Miracle of the Lily The Artificial Man A Baby on Neptune with Miles J. Breuer, M. D
8.
Greye La Spina
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Greye La Spina was an American writer who published over one hundred short stories, serials, novelettes, and one-act plays. Her stories appeared in Metropolitan, Black Mask, Action Stories, Ten-Story Book, The Thrill Book, Weird Tales, Modern Marriage, Top-Notch Magazine, All-Story, Photoplay, La Spina was born Fanny Greye Bragg on July 10,1880 in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Her father was a Methodist clergyman and she was married to Ralph Geissler in 1898 and gave birth to a daughter, Celia, two years later. The following year, her husband died, in 1910 she married Baron Robert La Spina, an Italian aristocrat. Her first supernatural story, The Wolf on the Steppes was sold to Thrill Book in 1919 and she won second place in Photoplay magazines 1921 short story contest gaining her a $2,500 prize. Her first book, Invaders from the Dark, was published by Arkham House in 1960, weaver of Weird Tales, Greye La Spina in his Doors to Elsewhere. Cheadle, Staffordshire, UK, Alchemy Press,2013, pp. 45–61, Works by Greye La Spina at Project Gutenberg Works by Greye La Spina at LibriVox Greye La Spina at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
9.
Gertrude Barrows Bennett
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Gertrude Barrows Bennett was the first major female writer of fantasy and science fiction in the United States, publishing her stories under the pseudonym Francis Stevens. Bennett wrote a number of highly acclaimed fantasies between 1917 and 1923 and has called the woman who invented dark fantasy. Her most famous books include Claimed and the lost world novel The Citadel of Fear, Bennett also wrote an early dystopian novel, The Heads of Cerberus. Gertrude Mabel Barrows was born in Minneapolis in 1883 and she completed school through the eighth grade, then attended night school in hopes of becoming an illustrator. Instead, she working as a stenographer, a job she held on. In 1909 Barrows married Stewart Bennett, a British journalist and explorer, a year later her husband died while on an expedition. With a new-born daughter to raise, Bennett continued working as a stenographer, when her father died toward the end of World War I, Bennett assumed care for her invalid mother. During this time period Bennett began to write a number of stories and novels. In the mid-1920s, she moved to California, because Bennett was estranged from her daughter, for a number of years researchers believed Bennett died in 1939. However, new research, including her death certificate, shows that she died in 1948, Bennett wrote her first short story at age 17, a science fiction story titled The Curious Experience of Thomas Dunbar. She mailed the story to Argosy, then one of the top pulp magazines, the story was accepted and published in the March 1904 issue. Once Bennett began to care of her mother, she decided to return to fiction writing as a means of supporting her family. The first story she completed after her return to writing was the novella The Nightmare, the story is set on an island separated from the rest of the world, on which evolution has taken a different course. The Nightmare resembles Edgar Rice Burroughs The Land That Time Forgot, while Bennett had submitted The Nightmare under her own name, she had asked to use a pseudonym if it was published. The magazines editor chose not to use the pseudonym Bennett suggested, when readers responded positively to the story, Bennett chose to continue writing under the name. Over the next few years, Bennett wrote a number of short stories and her short story Friend Island, for example, is set in a 22nd-century ruled by women. Another story is the novella Serapion, about a man possessed by a supernatural creature and this story has been released in an electronic book entitled Possessed, A Tale of the Demon Serapion, with three other stories by her. Many of her stories have been collected in The Nightmare
10.
Pseudonym
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A pseudonym or alias is a name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which can differ from their original or true name. Historically, they have taken the form of anagrams, Graecisms. Pseudonyms should not be confused with new names that replace old ones, actors, musicians, and other performers sometimes use stage names, for example, to mask their ethnic backgrounds. A collective name or collective pseudonym is one shared by two or more persons, for example the co-authors of a work, such as Ellery Queen, the term is derived from the Greek ψευδώνυμον, literally false name, from ψεῦδος, lie, falsehood and ὄνομα, name. A pseudonym is distinct from an allonym, which is the name of another person and this may occur when someone is ghostwriting a book or play, or in parody, or when using a front name, such as by screenwriters blacklisted in Hollywood in the 1950s and 1960s. See also pseudepigraph, for falsely attributed authorship, sometimes people change their name in such a manner that the new name becomes permanent and is used by all who know the person. This is not an alias or pseudonym, but in fact a new name, in many countries, including common law countries, a name change can be ratified by a court and become a persons new legal name. He then changed his name again to Malik El-Shabazz when he converted to Islam, likewise some Jews adopted Hebrew family names upon immigrating to Israel, dropping surnames that had been in their families for generations. The politician David Ben-Gurion, for example, was born David Grün in Poland and he adopted his Hebrew name in 1910, when he published his first article in a Zionist journal in Jerusalem. Criminals may use aliases, fictitious business names, and dummy corporations to hide their identity, a pen name, or nom de plume, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. Some female authors used male pen names, in particular in the 19th century, the Brontë family used pen names for their early work, so as not to reveal their gender and so that local residents would not know that the books related to people of the neighbourhood. The Brontës used their neighbours as inspiration for characters in many of their books, anne Brontë published The Tenant of Wildfell Hall under the name Acton Bell. Charlotte Brontë published Shirley and Jane Eyre under the name Currer Bell, emily Brontë published Wuthering Heights as Ellis Bell. A well-known example of the former is Mary Ann Evans, who wrote as George Eliot, Another example is Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin, a 19th-century French writer who used the pen name George Sand. In contrast, some twentieth and twenty first century male romance novelists have used pen names. A few examples of male authors using female pseudonyms include Brindle Chase, Peter ODonnell and Christopher Wood. A pen name may be used if a real name is likely to be confused with the name of another writer or notable individual. Authors who write both fiction and non-fiction, or in different genres, may use different pen names to avoid confusing their readers, in some cases, an author may become better known by his pen name than his real name
11.
Great Depression in the United States
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The Great Depression was the worst economic times in American history. Though, it was not just in the United States it was a world wide conundrum, Great Depression began in August 1929, when the United States economy first went into an economic recession. Although the country spent two months with declining Gross Domestic Product, the Gross Domestic Rate is a very important part of the United States economy. It is so important because it represents each total dollar value of all goods and it was not until the Wall Street Crash in October 1929 that the effects of a declining economy were felt, and a major worldwide economic downturn ensued. The market crash marked the beginning of a decade of unemployment, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging farm incomes. Although its causes are uncertain and controversial, the net effect was a sudden. The economy reached bottom in the winter of 1932–33, then four years of very rapid growth until 1937. The Depression caused major changes in America. Three years into the depression, President Herbert Hoover, widely blamed for not doing enough to combat the crisis, Roosevelts economic recovery plan, the New Deal, instituted unprecedented programs for relief, recovery and reform, and brought about a major realignment of American politics. The Depression also resulted in an increase of emigration of people to countries for the first time in American history. For example, some went back to their native countries, and some native US citizens went to Canada, Australia. It also resulted in the migration of people from badly hit areas in the Great Plains and the South to places such as California. Racial tensions also increased during this time, by the 1940s immigration had returned to normal, and emigration declined. A well-known example of an emigrant was Frank McCourt, who went to Ireland and it also shaped modern American literature, resulting in famous novels such as John Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men. Banks began to fail in October 1930 when farmers defaulted on loans, there was no federal deposit insurance during that time as bank failures were considered quite common. This worried depositors that they might have a chance of losing all their savings, therefore, people started to withdraw money, the decreased money supply further aggravated price deflation, putting further pressure on already struggling businesses. The U. S. paper value lost an astonishing 40% value loss, the US governments commitment to the gold standard prevented it from engaging in expansionary monetary policy. High interest rates needed to be maintained, in order to attract investors who bought foreign assets with gold
12.
Pulp magazine
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Pulp magazines were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the 1950s. The term pulp derives from the wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed, in contrast. The typical pulp magazine had 128 pages, it was 7 inches wide by 10 inches high, the pulps gave rise to the term pulp fiction in reference to run-of-the-mill, low-quality literature. Pulps were the successors to the penny dreadfuls, dime novels, although many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines were best known for their lurid, exploitative, and sensational subject matter. The first pulp was Frank Munseys revamped Argosy Magazine of 1896, with about 135,000 words per issue, on paper with untrimmed edges. In six years Argosy went from a few thousand copies per month to over half a million, Street & Smith, a dime novel and boys weekly publisher, was next on the market. Seeing Argosys success, they launched The Popular Magazine in 1903, due to differences in page layout however, the magazine had substantially less text than Argosy. Haggards Lost World genre influenced several key pulp writers, including Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Talbot Mundy and Abraham Merritt. Street and Smiths next innovation was the introduction of specialized genre pulps, with each focusing on a particular genre, such as detective stories, romance. At their peak of popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, the most successful pulps could sell up to one million copies per issue, in 1934, Frank Gruber says there were some 150 pulp titles. The most successful pulp magazines were Argosy, Adventure, Blue Book and Short Stories, although pulp magazines were primarily an American phenomenon, there were also a number of British pulp magazines published between the Edwardian era and World War II. Notable UK pulps included Pall Mall Magazine, The Novel Magazine, Cassells Magazine, The Story-Teller, The Sovereign Magazine, Hutchinsons Adventure-Story and Hutchinsons Mystery-Story. The German fantasy magazine Der Orchideengarten had a format to American pulp magazines, in that it was printed on rough pulp paper. During the Second World War paper shortages had a impact on pulp production, starting a steady rise in costs. Beginning with Ellery Queens Mystery Magazine in 1941, pulp magazines began to switch to digest size, in 1949, Street & Smith closed most of their pulp magazines in order to move upmarket and produce slicks. The pulp format declined from rising expenses, but even more due to the competition from comic books, television. In a more affluent post-war America, the price gap compared to slick magazines was far less significant, in the 1950s, mens adventure magazines began to replace the pulp. The format is still in use for some lengthy serials, like the German science fiction weekly Perry Rhodan, many titles of course survived only briefly
13.
Weird Tales
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Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in March 1923, Henneberger sold his interest in the publisher, Rural Publishing Corporation, to Lansinger and refinanced Weird Tales, with Farnsworth Wright as the new editor. The first issue under Wrights control was dated November 1924, the magazine was more successful under Wright, and despite occasional financial setbacks it prospered over the next fifteen years. Under Wrights control the magazine lived up to its subtitle, The Unique Magazine, Lovecrafts Cthulhu mythos stories first appeared in Weird Tales, starting with The Call of Cthulhu in 1928. These were well-received, and a group of associated with Lovecraft wrote other stories set in the same milieu. Other well-liked authors included Nictzin Dyalhis, E. Hoffman Price, Robert Bloch, Edmond Hamilton wrote a good deal of science fiction for Weird Tales, though after a few years he used the magazine for his more fantastic stories, and submitted his space operas elsewhere. In 1938 the magazine was sold to William Delaney, the publisher of Short Stories, Weird Tales ceased publication in 1954, but since then numerous attempts have been made to relaunch the magazine, starting in 1973. The longest-lasting version began in 1988 and ran with a hiatus for over 20 years under an assortment of publishers. In the mid-1990s the title was changed to Worlds of Fantasy & Horror because of licensing issues, as of 2016, the most recent published issue was dated Spring 2014. In the late 19th century popular magazines typically did not print fiction to the exclusion of content, they would include non-fiction articles. In October 1896, the Frank A. Munsey companys Argosy magazine was the first to switch to printing only fiction and this is now regarded by magazine historians as having been the start of the pulp magazine era. Other titles that specialized in particular fiction genres followed, starting in 1915 with Detective Story Magazine, with Western Story Magazine following in 1919. C Henneberger, a journalist and magazine editor who had been publishing College Humor and Magazine of Fun, formed Rural Publishing Corporation of Chicago and their first venture was Detective Tales, a pulp magazine that appeared twice a month, starting with the October 1,1922 issue. It was initially unsuccessful, and as part of a refinancing plan Henneberger decided to publish another magazine that would allow him to some of his costs between the two titles. Henneberger had long been an admirer of Edgar Allan Poe, so he created a magazine that would focus on horror. Henneberger chose Edwin Baird, the editor of Detective Tales, to edit Weird Tales, Farnsworth Wright was first reader, and Otis Adelbert Kline also worked on the magazine, assisting Baird. Payment rates were low, usually between a quarter and a cent per word, the budget went up to one cent per word for the most popular writers. Sales were initially poor, and Henneberger soon decided to change the format from the standard size to large pulp
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Northwest Smith
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Northwest Smith is a fictional character, and the hero of a series of stories by science fiction writer C. L. Moore. Smith is a pilot and smuggler who lives in an undisclosed future time when humanity has colonized the solar system. The stories are set in a common to science fiction stories of the pulp era. All of the planets of the system are able to support life and have their own civilizations, many of the intelligent races living on the planets have comparatively primitive cultures. The relationship of the planetary primitives to the colonists is analogous to the situation of Native Americans, Africans. Exceptions to this rule are the planets Mars and Venus which Moore depicts as having ancient and decadent cultures and this general milieu was shared by a number of other writers, including Moores friends Edmond Hamilton and Leigh Brackett. By profession, Smith is an outlaw who lives by a variety of criminal means, by nature, he is an anti-hero, ruthless, self-serving, and cynical. Despite this, he has a core of goodness and often does the thing in spite of himself. Smith is described as a dark haired man with space bronzed skin and pale eyes and his ship, the Maid, is small and unspectacular but surprisingly fast and agile. His closest ally is the equally amoral Venusian, Yarol and his stories often involve ancient alien beings who have been worshipped as gods. This theme is similar to the tales of H. P. Lovecraft though, unlike Lovecrafts tales, the classic Northwest Smith story is Shambleau in which Moore plays with themes of sexuality and addiction in Smiths encounter with a strange female alien. The story Quest of the Starstone is also worth noting because it connects Smith with Moores other most famous character, Moore originally created Smith as a western character and kept the name when she switched to science fiction. She reportedly liked the absurdity of a character named Northwest in space, Moore traced the origin of the characters name to the typing work which she was doing for a living while writing Shambleau and which included a letter addressed to a Mr. N. W. The Northwest Smith stories include the following, Shambleau, on Mars, Northwest rescues a strange, beautiful girl from the Lakkdarol mob. A Minga woman invites Northwest into the forbidden Venusian fortress where she lives and it turns out to be even larger than expected. An oddly-patterned shawl that Northwest picks up in Lakkdarol gives him unpleasant dreams, Northwest and Yarol take a job searching for the physical remnants of a dead god in northern Mars. Northwest takes a turn in the ruins of Vonng, Venus. In the polar city of Righa on Mars, Northwest meets a Venusian lady who isnt quite herself, Northwest and Yarol go looking to capture slave-women on one of Jupiters moons and find out more about themselves
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Solar System
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The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system comprising the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of those objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest eight are the planets, with the remainder being significantly smaller objects, such as dwarf planets, of the objects that orbit the Sun indirectly, the moons, two are larger than the smallest planet, Mercury. The Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago from the collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The vast majority of the mass is in the Sun. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, are terrestrial planets, being composed of rock. The four outer planets are giant planets, being more massive than the terrestrials. All planets have almost circular orbits that lie within a flat disc called the ecliptic. The Solar System also contains smaller objects, the asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, mostly contains objects composed, like the terrestrial planets, of rock and metal. Beyond Neptunes orbit lie the Kuiper belt and scattered disc, which are populations of trans-Neptunian objects composed mostly of ices, within these populations are several dozen to possibly tens of thousands of objects large enough that they have been rounded by their own gravity. Such objects are categorized as dwarf planets, identified dwarf planets include the asteroid Ceres and the trans-Neptunian objects Pluto and Eris. In addition to two regions, various other small-body populations, including comets, centaurs and interplanetary dust clouds. Six of the planets, at least four of the dwarf planets, each of the outer planets is encircled by planetary rings of dust and other small objects. The solar wind, a stream of charged particles flowing outwards from the Sun, the heliopause is the point at which pressure from the solar wind is equal to the opposing pressure of the interstellar medium, it extends out to the edge of the scattered disc. The Oort cloud, which is thought to be the source for long-period comets, the Solar System is located in the Orion Arm,26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way. For most of history, humanity did not recognize or understand the concept of the Solar System, the invention of the telescope led to the discovery of further planets and moons. The principal component of the Solar System is the Sun, a G2 main-sequence star that contains 99. 86% of the known mass. The Suns four largest orbiting bodies, the giant planets, account for 99% of the mass, with Jupiter. The remaining objects of the Solar System together comprise less than 0. 002% of the Solar Systems total mass, most large objects in orbit around the Sun lie near the plane of Earths orbit, known as the ecliptic
16.
Jirel of Joiry
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Jirel of Joiry is a fictional character created by American writer C. L. Moore, who appeared in a series of sword and sorcery stories published first in the pulp horror/fantasy magazine Weird Tales. Jirel is the proud, tough, arrogant and beautiful ruler of her own domain — apparently somewhere in medieval France and her adventures continually involve her in dangerous brushes with the supernatural. These stories are the first to show the influence of Robert E. Howard on sword and sorcery, all six appear in a collected edition under Paizo Publishings Planet Stories imprint, compiled under the title Black Gods Kiss. Moore, C. L. Jirel of Joiry, Moore, C. L. Jirel of Joiry. Moore, C. L. Black Gods and Scarlet Dreams, collects all of the Jirel and Northwest Smith stories except Quest of the Starstone Moore, C. L. Black Gods Kiss
17.
Sword and sorcery
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Sword and sorcery is a subgenre of fantasy generally characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent conflicts. An element of romance is often present, as is an element of magic, unlike works of high fantasy, the tales, though dramatic, focus mainly on personal battles rather than world-endangering matters. Sword and sorcery commonly overlaps with heroic fantasy, a film genre tangentially related to sword and sorcery, at least in name, is sword-and-sandal, though its subjects are generally oriented to biblical times and early history, instead of fantasy. Not to be confused with cloak and dagger or cloak and sword and he had initially proposed the term epic fantasy. However, the celebrated American sword-and-sorcery author Fritz Leiber replied in the journal Ancalagon suggesting and he expanded on this in the July 1961 issue of Amra, commenting, I feel more certain than ever that this field should be called the sword-and-sorcery story. This accurately describes the points of culture-level and supernatural element and also distinguishes it from the cloak-and-sword story—and from the cloak-and-dagger story too. Since its inception, many attempts have been made to redefine precisely what sword, although many have debated the finer points, the consensus characterizes it by a strong bias toward fast-paced, action-rich tales set within a quasi-mythical or fantastical framework. Unlike high fantasy, the stakes in sword and sorcery tend to be personal, settings are typically exotic, and protagonists often morally compromised. Many sword and sorcery tales have been turned into a series of adventures. Their lower stakes and less-than world-threatening dangers make this more plausible than a repetition of the perils of epic fantasy, so too does the nature of the heroes, most sword-and-sorcery protagonists, travellers by nature, find peace after adventure deathly dull. At one extreme, the heroes of E. R. Sword and sorcery ultimately draws from mythology and classical epics such as Homers Odyssey and it is also influenced by historical fiction. Sir Walter Scott, under the influence of romantic collection of folklore and ballads, however, very few of his writings contain fantastic elements, in most, the appearance of such is explained away. However, its themes of adventure in a strange society influenced the adventures set in foreign lands by H. Rider Haggard, haggards works included many fantastic elements. However, these historical swashbucklers lack the supernatural element that defines the genre. Another influence was early fantasy fiction such as Lord Dunsanys The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth, all of these authors influenced sword and sorcery for the plots, characters, and landscapes used. In addition, many sword and sorcery writers, such as Robert E. Sword and sorcery proper only truly began in the pulp fantasy magazines. Particularly important was the magazine Weird Tales, which published Howards Conan stories and C. L. Moores Jirel of Joiry tales, as well as key S&S influences like Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. The genre has been defined, strongly, by the work of Robert E. Howard, particularly his tales of Conan the Barbarian and Kull of Atlantis, mostly in Weird Tales from 1932 and 1929 respectively
18.
Forrest J Ackerman
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He was based in Los Angeles, California. During his career as an agent, Ackerman represented such science fiction authors as Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, A. E. Van Vogt, Curt Siodmak. He was, for seven decades, one of science fictions staunchest spokesmen. Ackerman was the editor and principal writer of the American magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland, as well as an actor, and Charles Beaumont, The Short Life of Twilight Zones Magic Man, about the late author Charles Beaumont, a former client of The Ackerman Agency. Famous for his play and neologisms, he coined the genre nickname sci-fi. In 1953, he was voted #1 Fan Personality by the members of the World Science Fiction Society and he was also among the first and most outspoken advocates of Esperanto in the science fiction community. Ackerman was born Forrest James Ackerman, on November 24,1916, in Los Angeles, to Carroll Cridland and his father was from New York and his mother was from Ohio, she was nine years older than William. His name was used for the character of the reporter in the original Superman story The Reign of the Superman in issue 3 of Science Fiction magazine and he was one of the early members of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, and remained active in it for many decades. He attended the 1st World Science Fiction Convention in 1939, where he wore the first futuristicostume and sparked fan costuming and he attended every Worldcon but two thereafter during his lifetime. Ackerman invited Ray Bradbury to attend the Los Angeles Chapter of the Science Fiction League, the club changed its name to the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society during the period it was meeting at the restaurant. Among the writers frequenting the club were Robert A. Heinlein, Emil Petaja, Fredric Brown, Henry Kuttner, Leigh Brackett, Bradbury often attended meetings with his friend Ray Harryhausen, the two Rays had been introduced to each other by Ackerman. With $90 from Ackerman, Bradbury launched a fanzine, Futuria Fantasia and this second house, in the Los Feliz district of Los Angeles, contained some 300,000 books and pieces of movie and science-fiction memorabilia. From 1951 to 2002, Ackerman entertained some 50,000 fans at open houses - including, on one such evening, Ackerman was a board member of the Seattle Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, where many items of his collection are now displayed. He knew most of the writers of fiction in the first half of the twentieth-century. As a literary agent, he represented some 200 writers, and he served as agent of record for many long lost authors and he was Ed Woods illiterary agent. Ackerman was credited with nurturing and even inspiring the careers of several early contemporaries like Ray Bradbury, Ray Harryhausen, Charles Beaumont, Marion Zimmer Bradley and his stories have been translated into six languages. Ackerman named the sexy comic-book character Vampirella and wrote the story for the comic. He also authored several lesbian stories under the name Laurajean Ermayne for Vice Versa and he was dubbed an honorary lesbian at a DOB party
19.
Margaret Brundage
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Margaret Brundage, born Margaret Hedda Johnson was an American illustrator and painter who is remembered chiefly for having illustrated the pulp magazine Weird Tales. Working in pastels on illustration board, she created most of the covers for Weird Tales between 1933 and 1938, Brundage was born in Chicago, Illinois, of Swedish and Irish ancestry. Her father, Jonathan E. Loutitt died when she was eight years old, she was raised by her mother and grandmother Margaret Loutit, for whom she was named, both her parents had come to Chicago from the Orkney islands off the coast of Scotland. Brundages mother remained both a widow and a devout Christian Scientist for the rest of her life, and supplemented their income by instructing beginning Christian Science disciples. Margaret Hedda Johnson graduated from Girard Grammar School and attended McKinley High School in Chicago and she graduated from McKinley in 1919. As editor of the school newspaper, Margaret Johnson was able to tell Walt Disney whether or not she would include any of his drawings in the McKinley newspaper. This was Myron Reed Brundage, a notorious womaniser, in 1927, she married Myron Slim Brundage in Chicago. Brundage was a hobo, a man with tendencies toward radical politics and alcohol, they had one child. The marriage was not a success, and ended in divorce in 1939, in 1932 Brundage was looking for more work, and found herself at the office of Farnsworth Wright, then editor of Weird Tales. Brundage began working for Wright by doing a few covers for his side publication Oriental Stories, Wright was so impressed with these that he hired Brundage to draw for Weird Tales. Over the period from 1933 to 1938, Brundage executed cover art, first for then, famously and she was the most frequently-appearing cover artist on Weird Tales during her stint with the magazine. Her first cover appeared on the September 1932 issue, she created covers for 39 straight issues from June 1933 to August 1936 and her last original cover was for the Jan.1945 issue, for a total of 66 original-artwork covers. She was paid $90 per cover—enough to support herself, her son, from 1936 through 1938, Brundage often alternated with others as cover artist, Virgil Finlay was her chief competitor. Brundages art frequently featured damsels in distress in various states of full or partial nudity, her scenes were especially noteworthy. Pulp covers were notorious for their content, and Brundage’s were no exception. Since she signed her work M. Brundage, many of the readers were unaware that the artist was female. Practical problems with shipping Brundages fragile pastel art from Chicago to New York also diminished her appeal to the regime that followed Wrights 1940 departure. She continued to draw after her relationship with the magazine ended, and appeared at a number of science fiction conventions and art fairs, yet she never fully recovered financially from the loss of regular work at WT, her later years were spent in relative poverty
20.
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
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Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science-fiction magazine published under various titles since 1930. The first issue, titled Astounding Stories of Super-Science, was dated January 1930, published by William Clayton, Clayton went bankrupt in 1933 and the magazine was sold to Street & Smith. At the end of 1937, Campbell took over editorial duties under Tremaines supervision, the period beginning with Campbells editorship is often referred to as the Golden Age of Science Fiction. By 1950, new competition had appeared from Galaxy Science Fiction, in 1960, Campbell changed the title of the magazine to Analog Science Fiction & Fact, he had long wanted to get rid of the word Astounding in the title, which he felt was too sensational. At about the same time Street & Smith sold the magazine to Condé Nast, Campbell remained as editor until his death in 1971. Ben Bova took over from 1972 to 1978, and the character of the magazine changed noticeably, Bova won five consecutive Hugo Awards for his editing of Analog. The title was sold to Davis Publications in 1980, then to Dell Magazines in 1992, Crosstown Publications acquired Dell in 1996 and remains the publisher. Schmidt continued to edit the magazine until 2012, when he was replaced by Trevor Quachri, in 1926, Hugo Gernsback launched Amazing Stories, the first science-fiction magazine. Amazing was very successful, quickly reaching a circulation over 100,000, Clayton was unconvinced, but the following year decided to launch a new magazine, mainly because the sheet on which the color covers of his magazines were printed had a space for one more cover. He suggested to Harry Bates, a newly hired editor, that start a magazine of historical adventure stories. Bates proposed instead a science-fiction pulp, to be titled Astounding Stories of Super Science, Astounding was initially published by Publishers Fiscal Corporation, a subsidiary of Clayton Magazines. The first issue appeared in January 1930, with Bates as editor, Bates aimed for straightforward action-adventure stories, with scientific elements only present to provide minimal plausibility. In February 1931, the original name Astounding Stories of Super-Science was shortened to Astounding Stories, the magazine was profitable, but the Depression caused Clayton problems. Normally a publisher would pay a printer three months in arrears, but when a credit squeeze began in May 1931, it led to pressure to reduce this delay. The financial difficulties led Clayton to start alternating the publication of his magazines, some printers bought the magazines which were indebted to them, Clayton decided to buy his printer to prevent this from happening. As it turned out, enough stories were in inventory, and enough paper was available, to one further issue. In April, Clayton went bankrupt, and sold his titles to T. R. Foley for $100, Foley resold them in August to Street & Smith. Science fiction was not entirely a departure for Street & Smith, the first Street & Smith issue was dated October 1933, until the third issue, in December 1933, the editorial team was not named on the masthead
21.
Judgment Night (collection)
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Judgment Night is a 1952 collection of science fiction short stories by C. L. Moore. It was first published by Gnome Press in 1952 in an edition of 4,000 copies, the collection contains the stories that Moore selected as the best of her longer work. The stories all appeared in the magazine Astounding. Boucher and McComas praised the novel as an opulent and exciting romance. Written with the warmth which one expects of Miss Moore. In 1970, Algis Budrys characterized the novel as a masterpiece, the Science-Fantasy Publishers, A Bibliographic History, 1923-1998. Westminster, MD and Baltimore, Mirage Press, Ltd. pp. 300–301, index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections
22.
Faust
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Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend. He is a scholar who is successful yet dissatisfied with his life. The Faust legend has been the basis for literary, artistic, cinematic. Faust and the adjective Faustian imply a situation in which an ambitious person surrenders moral integrity in order to achieve power, plays and comic puppet theatre loosely based on this legend were popular throughout Germany in the 16th century, often reducing Faust and Mephistopheles to figures of vulgar fun. The story was popularised in England by Christopher Marlowe, who gave it a classic treatment in his play, in Goethes reworking of the story two hundred years later, Faust becomes a dissatisfied intellectual who yearns for more than earthly meat and drink in his life. Faust is bored and depressed with his life as a scholar, after an attempt to take his own life, he calls on the Devil for further knowledge and magic powers with which to indulge all the pleasure and knowledge of the world. In response, the Devils representative, Mephistopheles, appears, the term usually stipulated in the early tales is 24 years, one year for each of the hours in a day. During the term of the bargain, Faust makes use of Mephistopheles in various ways, realizing this unholy act, she drowns the child, and is held for murder. However, Gretchens innocence saves her in the end, and she enters Heaven after execution, in Goethes rendition, Faust is saved by God via his constant striving—in combination with Gretchens pleadings with God in the form of the Eternal Feminine. However, in the tales, Faust is irrevocably corrupted and believes his sins cannot be forgiven, when the term ends. Many aspects of the life of Simon Magus are echoed in the Faust legend of Christopher Aubin, the tale of Faust bears many similarities to the Theophilus legend recorded in the 13th century, writer Gautier de Coincys Les Miracles de la Sainte Vierge. Here, a saintly figure makes a bargain with the keeper of the world but is rescued from paying his debt to society through the mercy of the Blessed Virgin. A depiction of the scene in which he himself to the Devil appears on the north tympanum of the Cathedrale de Notre Dame de Paris. Others believe he is based on the figure of Johann Georg Faust, a magician and alchemist probably from Knittlingen, Württemberg, scholars such as Frank Baron and Leo Ruickbie contest many of these previous assumptions. The character in Polish folklore named Pan Twardowski presents similarities with Faust, the Polish story seems to have originated at roughly the same time as its German counterpart, yet It is unclear whether the two tales have a common origin or influenced each other. The historical Johann Georg Faust had studied in Kraków for a time, the first known printed source of the legend of Faust is a small chapbook bearing the title Historia von D. Johann Fausten, published in 1587. The book was re-edited and borrowed from throughout the 16th century, related tales about a pact between man and the Devil include the plays Mariken van Nieumeghen, Cenodoxus and The Countess Cathleen. Staufen, a town in the extreme southwest of Germany, claims to be where Faust died, depictions appear on buildings, etc
23.
H. P. Lovecraft
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Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an American author who achieved posthumous fame through his influential works of horror fiction. He was virtually unknown and published only in magazines before he died in poverty. Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode Island, where he spent most of his life, among his most celebrated tales are The Call of Cthulhu and The Shadow over Innsmouth, both canonical to the Cthulhu Mythos. Lovecraft was never able to support himself from earnings as author and editor and he saw commercial success increasingly elude him in this latter period, partly because he lacked the confidence and drive to promote himself. He subsisted in straitened circumstances in his last years, an inheritance was completely spent by the time that he died at age 46. Lovecraft was born on August 20,1890 in his home at 194 Angell Street in Providence. Both of his parents were of entirely English ancestry, and most of his ancestors had been in New England since the colonial period and his great-grandfather Joseph Lovecraft Jr. emigrated to Rochester, New York from Devon, England in 1831. Lovecraft maintained throughout his life that his father died in a condition of paralysis brought on by nervous exhaustion. It has been suggested that his fathers mental illness may have been caused by syphilis, all five resided together in the family home. Lovecraft was a prodigy, reciting poetry at the age of three and writing complete poems by six. His grandfather encouraged his reading, providing him with such as One Thousand and One Nights, Thomas Bulfinchs Age of Fable, and childrens versions of the Iliad. His grandfather also stirred the boys interest in the weird by telling him his own tales of gothic horror. Lovecraft was frequently ill as a child, and he attended school until he was eight years old because of his sickly condition. He read voraciously during this period and became enamored of chemistry. He produced several hectographed publications with a circulation, beginning in 1899 with The Scientific Gazette. Four years later, he returned to school at Hope High School. Beginning in his life, Lovecraft is believed to have suffered from sleep paralysis. Much of his work is thought to have been directly inspired by these terrors
24.
American Old West
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Frontier refers to a contrasting region at the edge of a European-American line of settlement. American historians cover multiple frontiers but the folklore is focused primarily on the 19th century west of the Mississippi River. As defined by Hine and Faragher, frontier history tells the story of the creation and defense of communities, the use of the land, the development of markets, and the formation of states. They explain, It is a tale of conquest, but also one of survival, persistence, thus, Turners Frontier Thesis proclaimed the westward frontier as the defining process of American history. As the American frontier passed into history, the myths of the West in fiction and film took firm hold in the imagination of Americans, America is exceptional in choosing its iconic self-image. David Murdoch has said, No other nation has taken a time and place from its past, the frontier line was the outer line of European-American settlement. It moved steadily westward from the 1630s to the 1880s, Turner favored the Census Bureau definition of the frontier line as a settlement density of two people per square mile. The West was the settled area near that boundary. Thus, parts of the Midwest and American South, though no longer considered western, have a frontier heritage along with the western states. In the 21st century, however, the term American West is most often used for the area west of the Mississippi River, in the colonial era, before 1776, the west was of high priority for settlers and politicians. The American frontier began when Jamestown, Virginia was settled by the English in 1607, English, French, Spanish and Dutch patterns of expansion and settlement were quite different. Although French fur traders ranged widely through the Great Lakes and mid-west region they settled down. French settlement was limited to a few small villages such as Kaskaskia. They created a rural settlement in upstate New York. Areas in the north that were in the stage by 1700 generally had poor transportation facilities. The wealthy speculator, if one was involved, usually remained at home, the class of landless poor was small. Few artisans settled on the frontier except for those who practiced a trade to supplement their primary occupation of farming, there might be a storekeeper, a minister, and perhaps a doctor, and there were a number of landless laborers. However frontier areas of 1700 that had good river connections were transformed into plantation agriculture
25.
The Last Mimzy
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High tech devices disguised as toys are sent back in time and are found by Noah and Emma Wilder, children living in early 21st century Seattle. The toys are incomprehensible to Emma and Noah, except for what appears to be a stuffed rabbit, sensing the paranormal strangeness of the devices, the children initially keep their discovery secret from their parents. Emma becomes telepathically connected to the rabbit, named Mimzy. Interaction with the causes the children to develop advanced knowledge, genius-level intelligence. Due to her connection with Mimzy, Emmas development of her abilities is much stronger than her older brothers, she is the only one to display empathy, telepathy, levitation. Emma is also the one who can use the Spinners, strange spinning. Noahs strong psionic/physic abilities are developed through a card and a seashell and he gains increased intelligence, knowledge, telepathy, empathic communication and control over arthropods. He can also use the card to telekinetically teleport objects through a dimensional rift after staring at it. The childrens unusual psionic and mental abilities and Emmas attachment to Mimzy alert their parents, especially their mother, and Larry White, Noahs science schoolteacher, to the devices. Later, Noah accidentally fuses the card with a blob, turning it into a Generator that causes a power black-out over half the state of Washington. The family is held for questioning by Special Agent Nathaniel Broadman, Emma tells everyone that Mimzy has a message from humanitys distant future. Mimzy is the last one remaining, but is now dying, the reason for the other Mimzys deaths is that the Chosen Ones before Emma had no Engineers to help build the bridge across time. Despite attempts by the unbelieving FBI to prevent them, Noah, before leaving, Mimzy absorbs a tear from Emma, thus providing the DNA required to restore humanitys corrupted DNA. Emma is almost sucked into the future with Mimzy, but Noah grabs Emma, the teacher ends the story time and the children levitate and fly home. The world in their time has become a place, where humanity has integrated into the constructed ecosystems. The story ends in the current time, with Emmas teacher asking if anyone did anything exciting over the weekend break, no one volunteers, so she calls on Emma at random. Rhiannon Leigh Wryn as Emma Wilder, who discovers the toys, chris ONeil as Noah Wilder, Emmas older brother. Chris Sipe as Noah Wilder Timothy Hutton as David Wilder, father of Noah and Emma Joely Richardson as Jo Wilder, Davids wife, rainn Wilson as Larry White, Noahs science teacher
26.
Timescape (1992 film)
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Timescape, released on video as Grand Tour, Disaster in Time, is a 1992 American science fiction film by Director David Twohy. This time-travel-themed film is based on the novella Vintage Season by Henry Kuttner and it stars Jeff Daniels, with Ariana Richards and features a cameo appearance by Robert Colbert, one of the co-stars of Irwin Allens 1960s TV series The Time Tunnel. Haunted by the death of his wife, Ben Wilson, has returned to his hometown and purchased an old guest house on the outskirts of town. Ben soon begins to note their peculiar behaviour, manner and dress, Oscar points out the fact that, while they purport to be tourists, they do not carry cameras or take photographs. Shortly after they settle into their rooms, another stranger, Quish, arrives to join them, bens suspicions are heightened by events of the following day, when Quish has a minor accident while walking through the town. Ben helps him, in the process recovering Quishs dropped American passport, the local doctor then shows Ben an X-ray of Quishs head, which reveals that there is a mysterious object embedded in his skull. Unnerved, Quish will only respond by warning Wilson to leave town immediately, when Ben returns home, he finds Hilary gone and confronts the judge but is threatened with arrest, defeated, he goes to stay at the local hotel. She then gives Ben a euphoric substance and seduces him, leaving him unconscious, late that night, Ben is found and revived by Oscar. They return to the guest house to find out why the Tourists have come, Ben and Hilary work through the night helping the survivors, who are taken to Hilarys local school, which has become the local disaster relief centre. When Ben and Oscar return to the guest house the day, Ben is alarmed to discover that, although the Tourists have left the house. He and Oscar track them to a factory outside the town. The tourists try to detain him, but he evades them and races to the scene and he explains that his people have discovered that time is more resilient than they had first believed. However, because of the changes enacted by Ben and the Tourists, just before they depart, Ben attacks Reeve for her lack of humanity, but as she leaves she embraces him, secretly slipping Quishs passport into his hand. On examining the passport Ben discovers that it one of the Tourists time travel devices. He eventually makes it work and returns to the evening to try and save his daughter. Realising that Hilary is then at her grandfathers house, he tries to sneak her away, but he is caught and thrown into jail, which is itself soon to be destroyed. However he convinces the deputy to allow him his one phone call and manages to contact his pre-existing self at the hotel, just as that self is meeting with Reeve. This alternate self helps the original Ben to escape from the jail and together manage to alert
27.
University of Southern California
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The University of Southern California is a private research university founded in 1880 with its main campus in Los Angeles, California. As Californias oldest private university, USC has historically educated a large number of the regions business leaders. In recent decades, the university has also leveraged its location in Los Angeles to establish relationships with research and cultural institutions throughout Asia, an engine for economic activity, USC contributes $8 billion annually to the economy of the Los Angeles metropolitan area and California. For the 2014–15 academic year, there were 18,740 students enrolled in undergraduate programs. USC also has 23,729 graduate and professional students in a number of different programs, including business, law, engineering, social work, and medicine. The university is one of the top fundraising institutions in the world, consistently ranking among the top 3 in external contributions, multiple academic rankings list the University of Southern California as being among the top 25 universities in the United States. With an acceptance rate of 16 percent, USC is also among the most selective academic institutions in the nation. USC maintains a tradition of innovation and entrepreneurship, with alumni having founded companies such as Lucasfilm, Myspace, Salesforce. com, Intuit, Qualcomm, Box, Tinder. As of 2014, the university has produced the fourth largest number of billionaire alumni out of all institutions in the world. USC is home to the world’s most powerful computer, which is presently housed in a super-cooled. The only other commercially available quantum computing system is operated jointly by NASA, USC was also one of the earliest nodes on ARPANET and is the birthplace of the Domain Name System. Other technologies invented at USC include DNA computing, dynamic programming, image compression, VoIP, USC sponsors a variety of intercollegiate sports and competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association as a member of the Pac-12 Conference. Members of the teams, the Trojans, have won 102 NCAA team championships, ranking them third in the nation. Trojan athletes have won 288 medals at the Olympic games, more than any university in the United States. If USC were a country, its athletes would have received the 12th-most Olympic gold medals in history. In 1969, it joined the Association of American Universities, the University of Southern California was founded following the efforts of Judge Robert M. Hellman. The three donated 308 lots of land to establish the campus and provided the seed money for the construction of the first buildings. Originally operated in affiliation with the Methodist Church, the school mandated from the start that no student would be denied admission because of race, the university is no longer affiliated with any church, having severed formal ties in 1952
28.
Warner Bros.
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Entertainment Inc. – colloquially known as Warner Bros. or Warner Bros. It is one of the Big Six major American film studios, Warner Bros. is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America. The companys name originated from the four founding Warner brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam, Jack, the youngest, was born in London, Ontario. The three elder brothers began in the theater business, having acquired a movie projector with which they showed films in the mining towns of Pennsylvania. In the beginning, Sam and Albert Warner invested $150 to present Life of an American Fireman and they opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania, in 1903. When the original building was in danger of being demolished, the modern Warner Bros. called the current building owners, the owners noted people across the country had asked them to protect it for its historical significance. In 1904, the Warners founded the Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Amusement & Supply Company, in 1912, Harry Warner hired an auditor named Paul Ashley Chase. By the time of World War I they had begun producing films, in 1918 they opened the first Warner Bros. studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Sam and Jack produced the pictures, while Harry and Albert, along with their auditor and now controller Chase, handled finance and distribution in New York City. During World War I their first nationally syndicated film, My Four Years in Germany, on April 4,1923, with help from money loaned to Harry by his banker Motley Flint, they formally incorporated as Warner Brothers Pictures, Incorporated. The first important deal was the acquisition of the rights to Avery Hopwoods 1919 Broadway play, The Gold Diggers, however, Rin Tin Tin, a dog brought from France after World War I by an American soldier, established their reputation. Rin Tin Tin debuted in the feature Where the North Begins, the movie was so successful that Jack signed the dog to star in more films for $1,000 per week. Rin Tin Tin became the top star. Jack nicknamed him The Mortgage Lifter and the success boosted Darryl F. Zanucks career, Zanuck eventually became a top producer and between 1928 and 1933 served as Jacks right-hand man and executive producer, with responsibilities including day-to-day film production. More success came after Ernst Lubitsch was hired as head director, lubitschs film The Marriage Circle was the studios most successful film of 1924, and was on The New York Times best list for that year. Despite the success of Rin Tin Tin and Lubitsch, Warners remained a lesser studio, Sam and Jack decided to offer Broadway actor John Barrymore the lead role in Beau Brummel. The film was so successful that Harry signed Barrymore to a contract, like The Marriage Circle. By the end of 1924, Warner Bros. was arguably Hollywoods most successful independent studio, as the studio prospered, it gained backing from Wall Street, and in 1924 Goldman Sachs arranged a major loan
29.
Sugarfoot
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Sugarfoot is an American western television series that aired on ABC from 1957-61 on Tuesday nights on a shared slot basis – rotating with Cheyenne, Cheyenne and Bronco, and Bronco. The Warner Bros production stars Will Hutchins as Tom Brewster, an Easterner who comes to the Oklahoma Territory to become a lawyer, Jack Elam is cast in occasional episodes as sidekick Toothy Thompson. Brewster was a student whose apparent lack of cowboy skills earned him the nickname Sugarfoot. The pilot and premiere episode, Brannigans Boots, was so similar to The Boy from Oklahoma that Sheb Wooley, as played by Rogers in the film, Brewster avoided firearms but preferred to vanquish villains with his roping skills if friendly persuasion failed. Perhaps for practical reasons, the pilot altered the character slightly and made Brewster reluctant to use firearms but able and that remained his stance throughout the series, and the title song mentions that Sugarfoot carries a rifle and a law book. Whenever he enters a saloon, Sugarfoot refuses alcohol and orders sarsaparilla with a dash of cherry, Sugarfoot was one of the earliest products of the alliance between ABC and the fledgling Warner Brothers Television Department, chaired by William T. Orr. During the same period, other similar programs would appear, including Maverick, Cheyenne, Bronco, Lawman, Hutchins appeared as Sugarfoot in crossover episodes of Cheyenne and Maverick, and in an installment of Bronco called The Yankee Tornado, with Peter Breck as a young Theodore Roosevelt. Jack Kelly appeared as Bart Maverick in the Sugarfoot episode A Price on His Head, Sugarfoot is only partly set in Oklahoma, the character seems to appear at any place in the West though geographic place names are often missing in the scripts. He often journeys south of the border into Mexico, and numerous episodes are rich in Hispanic culture, the pilot and premiere episode, Brannigans Boots, aired on September 17,1957. Brewster takes the appointment seriously and symbolically puts on a pair of left behind in the sheriffs office. Brannigans daughter, Katie, sees Brewster wearing her fathers boots and she questions whether he is capable of filling her fathers boots. Sugarfoot then successfully finds her fathers killer but not without an incident with Billy the Kid. He soon wins Katies heart too, the opening episode reveals that Sugarfoots guns, mailed to him by his mother, were those of his late father. Katie BranniganLon Chaney, Jr. Crazy CharlieAnthony Caruso, pop Pruty, Justice of the PeaceMerv Griffin. Joe Downey In Reluctant Hero, the episode of the series. He soon finds that Cade is involved in a war with Ken and Linda Brazwell, brother-and-sister ranchers played by Michael Dante. Sugarfoot clashes with Cades foreman Curly Day, who burns down Cades ranch house after Cade fires him, Cade dies in the fire, and Sugarfoot is shot in the attack. Linda takes it upon herself to nurse Sugarfoot back to health, stanford Jolley plays the mysterious The Nighthawk
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Maverick (TV series)
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Maverick is an American Western television series with comedic overtones created by Roy Huggins. The show ran from September 22,1957 to July 8,1962 on ABC and stars James Garner as Bret Maverick and they would typically find themselves weighing a financial windfall against a moral dilemma. More often than not, their consciences trumped their wallets since both Mavericks were intrinsically ethical, when Garner left the series after the third season due to a legal dispute, Roger Moore was added to the cast as their cousin Beau Maverick. Robert Colbert appeared later in the season as a third Maverick brother. No more than two of the series ever appeared together in the same episode, and usually only one. Budd Boetticher directed several of the episodes of the first season and Robert Altman wrote. The show was part of the Warner Bros. array of Westerns, which included Cheyenne, Colt.45, Lawman, Bronco, The Alaskans, Bret Maverick is the epitome of a poker-playing rounder, always seeking out high-stakes games and rarely remaining in one place for long. Staff casting their new television series, Maverick often bested The Ed Sullivan Show and The Steve Allen Show in the television ratings. Huggins inverted the usual cowboy hero characteristics familiar to television and movie viewers of the time, Bret Maverick was vocally reluctant to risk his life, though he typically ended up being courageous in spite of himself. He frequently flimflammed adversaries, but only those who deserved it, otherwise he was honest almost to a fault, in at least one case insisting on repaying a questionable large debt. None of the Mavericks were particularly fast draws with a pistol, Bart once commented to a lady friend, My brother Bret can outdraw me any day of the week, and hes known as the Second Slowest Gun in the West. However, it was almost impossible for anyone to beat them in any sort of a fistfight, critics have repeatedly referred to Bret Maverick as arguably the first TV anti-hero, and have praised the show for its photography and Garners charisma and subtly comedic facial expressions. Nonetheless, most TV anti-heroes, such as Eddie Haskell, Dr. Zachery Smith, and J. R. Ewing are at heart self-serving and egocentric, a description that does not fit any Maverick. Though Garner was originally supposed to be the only Maverick, the studio eventually hired Jack Kelly to play brother Bart, starting with the eighth episode. The producers had realized that it took over a week to shoot an episode, so Kelly was hired to rotate with Garner as the series lead. In Barts first episode, Hostage. in order to engender audience sympathy for the new character, there was however, one distinct—but accidental—difference between the two. Garners episodes tended to be more due to his obvious talent in that area. Huggins noted in the aforementioned Archive of American Television interview that Kelly, while funnier than Garner off camera, dropped a funny line while shooting a scene like a load of coal
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The Alaskans
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The Alaskans is a 1959–1960 ABC/Warner Brothers western television series set during the late 1890s in the port of Skagway, Alaska. Their plans are complicated by the presence of singer Rocky Shaw. The show was the first regular work on American television for the British actor Roger Moore, the Alaskans is closely related to the ABC/WB series Maverick through broadcast and production. Maverick was the most prominent of ABCs Sunday night of western dramas, for the 1959–60 season, Sundays began with Colt.45 and Maverick, then John Russells Lawman and Nick Adams The Rebel, and concluded with The Alaskans. This may have influenced the career path of Roger Moore, the same year that The Alaskans was canceled, James Garner left Maverick. Moore became, under protest, Garners replacement, playing Bret Mavericks cousin Beau Maverick in the season of Maverick. Maverick and The Alaskans were also related through script, if not narrative, the two shows were not part of the same fictional world, as evidenced by a lack of crossovers between the two. Moore bristled at the lack of originality in scripts, An old Bronco script would interchange with an Alaskans or Maverick, in some cases, even the dialogue stayed unchanged. In 2007, Moore noted, Quite often I realized that we were filming Maverick scripts and this made it simple for Jack L. Warner to envision Moore as Maverick since Moore had literally delivered Garners dialogue while reshooting the same scripts with different names and locales, since the show has not been available to home audiences for more than forty years, independent verification of either claim is difficult. However, The Alaskans may have drawn other series as well. One viewer has detailed which specific Maverick, Sugarfoot and Cheyenne episodes spawned clones on The Alaskans, cannibalizing scripts was standard operating procedure at Warner Bros. television. The basic characters were identical with only the parts which spoke in jargon being re-written e. g. horse racing tout to jazz slang. This pre-dated the troubles with the Writers Guild, for Roger Moore, the series is memorable for being my most appalling television series ever. In particular, he found that attempting to recreate Alaskan exteriors on a backlot in California made for disagreeably hot work days. The show also caused some marital strife for the actor when he had to admit to wife Dorothy Squires that he had fallen in love with co-star Dorothy Provine. com
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77 Sunset Strip
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77 Sunset Strip is an American television private detective series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. Roger Smith, and Edd Byrnes. Each episode was one hour long, the show was the subject of an ownership battle between Roy Huggins and Warner Bros. which was the proximate cause of Huggins departure from the studio. The show ran from 1958 to 1964, Roger Smith played Jeff Spencer, also a former government agent, and a nonpracticing attorney. The duo worked out of an office at 77 Sunset Boulevard, between La Cienega Boulevard and Alta Loma Road on the south side of the strip next door to Dean Martins real-life lounge. Suzanne, the beautiful French switchboard operator played by Jacqueline Beer, Byrnes had originally been cast as a contract killer in the series pilot, but proved so popular that he was brought back in a new role for the series. Despite Huggins hopes for a drama, the tone of the series was much lighter. Many of the episodes were named capers, the catchy theme song, written by the accomplished team of Mack David and Jerry Livingston, typified the shows breezy, jazzed atmosphere. The song became the centerpiece of an album of the music in Warren Barker-led orchestrations, which was released in 1959. The Kookie character became a phenomenon, with his slang expressions such as ginchy. Kookie was also used to provide product placement for Harley-Davidson, appearing on their Topper motor scooter in the show and in Harley-Davidson advertisements. When Byrnes demands for money and an expanded role were not met, he left the show. In 1961, Robert Logan became the new parking lot attendant, J. R. Hale, in 1960, Richard Long moved from the recently canceled detective series Bourbon Street Beat with his role of Rex Randolph, but he left the program in 1962. One of the more unusual episodes was the 1960 The Silent Caper, written by Smith, it presented its story completely without dialogue. Another off-beat entry was 1961s Reserved For Mr. Bailey, which finds Zimbalist alone in a ghost town and he is the only actor on-screen for the entire hour. The shows popularity was such that rising young actors clamored for guest spots, the show occasionally featured sports stars such as Sandy Koufax in guest roles. In 1963, as the popularity waned, the entire cast except for Zimbalist was let go. Jack Webb was brought in as producer and William Conrad as director. The character of Stuart Bailey became a private investigator
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Kansas City, Missouri
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Kansas City is the largest city in Missouri and the sixth largest city in the Midwest. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the city had an population of 475,378 in 2015. It is the city of the Kansas City metropolitan area. Kansas City was founded in the 1830s as a Missouri River port at its confluence with the Kansas River coming in from the west, on June 1,1850 the town of Kansas was incorporated, shortly after came the establishment of the Kansas Territory. Confusion between the two ensued and the name Kansas City was assigned to them soon thereafter. Most of the city lies within Jackson County, but portions spill into Clay, Cass, along with Independence, it serves as one of the two county seats for Jackson County. Major suburbs include the Missouri cities of Independence and Lees Summit and the Kansas cities of Overland Park, Olathe, and Kansas City. The city is composed of neighborhoods, including the River Market District in the north, the 18th and Vine District in the east. Kansas City is also known for its cuisine, its craft breweries, Kansas City, Missouri was officially incorporated as a town on June 1,1850, and as a city on March 28,1853. The territory straddling the border between Missouri and Kansas at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers was considered a place to build settlements. The Antioch Christian Church, Dr. James Compton House, the first documented European visitor to Kansas City was Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont, who was also the first European to explore the lower Missouri River. Criticized for his response to the Native American attack on Fort Détroit, Bourgmont lived with a Native American wife in a village about 90 miles east near Brunswick, Missouri, where he illegally traded furs. In the documents, he describes the junction of the Grande Riv des Cansez and Missouri River, French cartographer Guillaume Delisle used the descriptions to make the areas first reasonably accurate map. The Spanish took over the region in the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the French continued their fur trade under Spanish license. After the 1804 Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark visited the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers, in 1831, a group of Mormons from New York settled in what would become the city. They built the first school within Kansas Citys current boundaries, but were forced out by mob violence in 1833, in 1833 John McCoy established West Port along the Santa Fe Trail,3 miles away from the river. In 1834 McCoy established Westport Landing on a bend in the Missouri to serve as a point for West Port. Soon after, the Kansas Town Company, a group of investors, began to settle the area, in 1850, the landing area was incorporated as the Town of Kansas
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Memorial Day
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Memorial Day is a federal holiday in the United States for remembering the people who died while serving in the countrys armed forces. It marks the start of the summer vacation season, while Labor Day marks its end. Many people visit cemeteries and memorials, particularly to honor those who have died in military service, many volunteers place an American flag on each grave in national cemeteries. Annual Decoration Days for particular cemeteries are held on a Sunday in late spring or early summer in rural areas of the American South. People gather on the day and put flowers on graves and renew contacts with relatives. There often is a service and a picnic-like dinner on the grounds. It is believed that this practice began before the American Civil War, the practice of decorating soldiers graves with flowers is an ancient custom. Soldiers graves were decorated in the U. S. before, following President Abraham Lincolns assassination in April 1865, there were a variety of events of commemoration. The sheer number of soldiers of both sides who died in the Civil War meant that burial and memorialization took on new cultural significance, under the leadership of women during the war, an increasingly formal practice of decorating graves had taken shape. In 1865, the government began creating national military cemeteries for the Union war dead. The Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper claimed in 1906 that Warrenton, Virginia, was the location of the first Civil War soldiers grave ever to be decorated, there is also documentation that women in Savannah, Georgia, decorated Confederate soldiers graves in 1862. The 1863 cemetery dedication at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was, of course, in addition, local historians in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, claim that ladies there decorated soldiers graves on July 4,1864, and Boalsburg promotes itself as the birthplace of Memorial Day. But more recent researches have also pointed to the birthplace of Confederacy as the location of the first post-war Memorial Day type observance, but in 2012 Blight stated that he has no evidence that the event in Charleston inspired the establishment of Memorial Day across the country. Accordingly, Snopes labels Blights claims mostly false, despite this ongoing lively debate, there is an official birthplace. On May 26,1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the presidential proclamation naming Waterloo, New York, Snopes also regards the Waterloo legend as apocryphal. Logan issued a proclamation calling for Decoration Day to be observed annually and it was observed for the first time that year on Saturday May 30, the date was chosen because it was not the anniversary of any particular battle. According to the White House, the May 30 date was chosen as the date for flowers to be in bloom. Memorial events were held in 183 cemeteries in 27 states in 1868, the northern states quickly adopted the holiday
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Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America
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When it developed a serious purpose that was to promote the popularity and respectability of Sword and Sorcery fiction. Originally it was more than an in-group, with members gathering for drinks at science fiction conventions and bestowing pompous. Membership was soon extended to other authors sharing their taste for fantasy, such as Michael Moorcock, the group remained fairly informal, with few expectations of its members, Moorcock has noted he wasnt really an active member. Several sword and sorcery anthologies edited by L. Sprague de Camp for Pyramid Books and Putnam from 1963 to 1970 featured stories by SAGA members along with other, most noteworthy may be The Spell of Seven, in which four of the seven pieces were by members. Another early anthology including works by members of the group was Swords Against Tomorrow and it comprised one novella and three novelettes by SAGA members and a novelette by Leigh Brackett. SAGA later showcased the work of its members in the Flashing Swords, anthology series edited by Carter and published by Dell Books from 1973 to 1981. Carter and SAGA created and sponsored the Gandalf Awards administered by the annual World Science Fiction Convention according to the Hugo Award procedures, from 1974 to 1981 the Gandalf Grand Master Award was annually presented to one person for life achievement in high fantasy writing. The Gandalf Award for Book-Length Fantasy was conferred in 1978 and 1979 upon one published during the previous calendar year. It was dropped by Worldcon because it duplicated the Hugo Award for Best Novel. With the collapse of Carter’s health in the 1980s the anthology series, the Gandalf award, membership was extended by invitation to selected living heroic fantasy authors. Most early members were celebrated more for their science fiction writings than for fantasy, Sprague de Camp – the Pusadian series and the revival and promotion of Robert E. J. L. Sprague de Camp Swords Against Tomorrow, ed. Robert Hoskins Flashing Swords. #3, Warriors and Wizards Flashing Swords, #4, Barbarians and Black Magicians Flashing Swords. #5, Demons and Daggers Gandalf Award
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Science Fiction Writers of America
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Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, or SFWA is a nonprofit 5013 organization of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. While SFWA is based in the United States, its membership is open to writers worldwide, the organization was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. The president of SFWA as of 2015 is Cat Rambo, SFWA has about 1,900 professionally published writer members worldwide. SFWA members vote for the Nebula Awards, one of the principal English-language science fiction awards, SFWA informs, supports, promotes, defends and advocates for its members. Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. was founded in 1965 by a group of associated with the Milford Conference. According to Todd McCaffrey, the organization immediately acquired great status in its efforts to help J. R. R, tolkien get fair recompense in America for pirated sales of The Lord of the Rings. Later, the name of the organization was changed to Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and her withdrawal was sent after voting had been completed. When informed she had won, she contacted SFWA and told them she refused to accept it and she was told that her reasons for doing so would be announced. Her publisher accepted the award in her place, apparently with no knowledge of her withdrawal, in September 2009, SFWA joined the Open Book Alliance to oppose the Google Book Settlement. As a party to the class action suit, SFWA had recently explained its reservations about the settlement, in 2013, the SFWA Bulletin was the subject of a controversy about sexism. This led to a hiatus, followed by a reboot of the magazine in a modern. In 2014, the original Massachusetts corporation was dissolved and SFWA reincorporated as a California nonprofit 5013 organization with new bylaws, SFWA holds a semi-annual business meeting at the World Science Fiction Convention when its held in North America, and at the North American Science Fiction Convention otherwise. Other Nebula Awards Weekend events include a semi-annual SFWA business meeting and a mass autographing session for member authors, Nebula Awards Weekend is held in a different location every two years. Over the years, the reception has gone by names, including Authors and Editors, Mill and Swill. The SFWA Reading Series, A series of free events during which SFWA authors read or discuss their fiction with members of local communities. Currently held in Seattle, WA and Portland, OR, SFWA sponsors Writer Beware, whose mission is to track, expose, and raise awareness of the prevalence of fraud and other questionable activities in and around the publishing industry. Writer Beware receives additional support from the Mystery Writers of America, Writer Beware staff assist law enforcement agencies with investigations of literary fraud, and have been instrumental in the convictions of several literary scammers. Greifcom, or the Grievance Committee, is formed of volunteers who undertake to mediate writer disputes and grievances between member writers and their publishers
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Robert Bloch
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Robert Albert Bloch was an American fiction writer, primarily of crime, horror, fantasy and science fiction, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the name by Alfred Hitchcock. His fondness for a pun is evident in the titles of his story such as Tales in a Jugular Vein, Such Stuff as Screams Are Made Of. Bloch wrote hundreds of stories and over 30 novels. He was one of the youngest members of the Lovecraft Circle, H. P. Lovecraft was Blochs mentor and one of the first to seriously encourage his talent. However, while Bloch started his career by emulating Lovecraft and his brand of cosmic horror, he specialized in crime. Bloch was a contributor to magazines such as Weird Tales in his early career, and was also a prolific screenwriter. He won the Hugo Award, the Bram Stoker Award, in 2008, The Library of America selected Blochs essay The Shambles of Ed Gein for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American true crime. His favorites among his own novels were The Kidnapper, The Star Stalker, Psycho, Night-World and his work has been extensively adapted for the movies and television, comics and audio books. Bloch was born in Chicago, the son of Raphael Ray Bloch, a cashier, and his wife Stella Loeb. Blochs family moved to Maywood, a Chicago suburb, when he was five and he attended the Methodist Church there, despite his parents Jewish heritage. At ten years of age, living in Maywood, he attended a screening of Lon Chaney, the scene of Chaney removing his mask terrified the young Bloch and sparked his interest in horror. In 1929 Ray Bloch lost his job, and the family moved to Milwaukee. Robert attended Washington, then Lincoln High School, where he met lifelong friend Harold Gauer, Gauer was editor of The Quill, Lincolns literary magazine, and accepted Blochs first published short story, a horror story titled The Thing. Both Bloch and Gauer graduated from Lincoln in 1934 during the height of the Great Depression, Bloch was involved in the drama department at Lincoln and wrote and performed in school vaudeville skits. H. P. Lovecraft, a frequent contributor to Weird Tales became one of his favorite writers, as a teenager, Bloch wrote a fan letter to Lovecraft, who gave him advice on his own fiction-writing efforts. Blochs first publication was with the short story Lilies in the semi-professional magazine Marvel Tales, Bloch began correspondence with August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith and others of the Lovecraft Circle. Blochs first publication in Weird Tales was in its letter-column, with a letter criticising the Conan stories of Robert E. Howard
