1.
Bristol, Pennsylvania
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Bristol is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania,23 miles northeast of Center City Philadelphia, opposite Burlington, New Jersey on the Delaware River. All these factors spurred development of Bristol and nearby towns, explaining in part the industries which developed in the region, although its charter was revised in 1905, the original charter remains in effect, making Bristol one of the older boroughs in Pennsylvania. 7,104 people lived in Bristol in 1900,9,256 in 1910,10,273 in 1920, the population was 9,726 at the 2010 census. The current Mayor is Patrick Sabatini Sr. Samuel Clift founded Bristol, the grant became effective on March 14,1681 or March 4,1681 at the same time as William Penns Charter from Charles II became effective. Clift was required by the grant to maintain ferry service across the Delaware River to Burlington, New Jersey, the inn later became known as the George II. Bristol was platted in 1697, and named after Bristol, England and it was originally used as a port and dock. Bristol is rich in history, boasting many historic and restored houses that line the streets of Radcliffe, until 1725 Bristol served as county seat of Bucks County. From its earliest days Bristol was a center of mills, foundries, milling. Its docks also had regular services to New Jersey and other points east from as early as 1681 until 1931. Since Bristols long established docks were accessible to the Delaware, the town became the Delaware Canals southern terminal end. By the 1880s Bristol was home to factories, including companies manufacturing wall paper. In World War I, the Bristol docks had sufficient space for a shipyard to construct twelve building slips for the construction of merchant vessels. The residential area developed around the shipyards was soon named Harriman, Pennsylvania. In 1922 Harriman was annexed by Bristol, most of the shipping was finished too late to enter World War I, but some of the shipyards output was used post-war in relief and troop support missions. The majority of the contracts were canceled in 1919, and the ship yards rapidly became excess real estate, during World War II the old shipyards were used to build those and other airplanes, but most of the manufacturing in WW-II was not directly war related. In 1961, Bristol gained national attention when the song Bristol Stomp, the song remains a local favorite, and it is often played at ceremonies, parades, and sporting events. The Merchant Shipbuilding site returned to the news in the 1990s when the Bucks County Redevelopment Authority using state, the project also established a park with four monuments celebrating the towns past in the redevelopment. Various annual festivals, in particular keep a multi-ethnic cultural identity alive, Delaware Division of the Pennsylvania Canal is also designated a National Historic Landmark District
2.
Orinda, California
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Orinda is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States. The population was 17,643 at the 2010 census, and was estimated in 2012 to have increased to 18,342, Orinda was ranked the second most friendly town in America by Forbes. The town is located just east of the city of Berkeley and is home to affluent suburban professionals who commute to downtown Oakland, San Francisco. Its location provides for a more rustic landscape, and Orindas many parks and trails make it a destination for many Bay Area hikers and naturalists. Present-day Orinda was located within four Mexican land grants, Rancho Laguna de los Palos Colorados, Rancho Acalanes, Rancho El Sobrante, the area was originally rural, mainly known for ranching and summer cabins. In the late 19th century, the land was named by Alice Marsh Cameron, probably in honor of the poet Katherine Philips, in the 1880s, the United States Surveyor General for California, Theodore Wagner, built an estate which he named Orinda Park. The Orinda Park post office opened in 1888, the post offices name was changed to Orinda in 1895. Orinda was also the site of Bryant Station, a stop on the failed California, in later times, the area around Bryant Station was known as Orinda Crossroads. Orindas popularity as a year-round residence grew after the 1937 completion of the Caldecott Tunnel, bisected by California State Route 24 and framed by its rolling oak-covered hills, the city of Orinda was incorporated on July 1,1985. Its first mayor was Richard G. Heggie, the city has a station on the Pittsburg/Bay Point Line of the Bay Area Rapid Transit. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 12.7 square miles. The area is characterized by a warm-summer Mediterranean climate with cool, rainy winters and warm and it is located in the Chaparral biome. Because Orinda is located in an area, microclimates often dominate temperature differences in short distances. The Oakland hills often block the cool conditions that can be seen in Oakland. In the summer, fog can spill over the Oakland hills cooling off the area, heatwaves from the inland areas can be felt much more in Orinda than in Oakland and the innerbay during the summer. In the winter, Orinda often sees more precipitation than surrounding areas because of its higher elevation, snowfall is rare but not unheard of. A dusting of snow may occur any given year because of the elevation, during stable conditions in the winter, mornings can be rather cold and frosty in downtown and lower lying areas while the higher hills surrounding the area may be several degrees warmer. The population density was 1,398.2 people per square mile, there were 6,744 housing units at an average density of 535. 8/sq mi
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
5.
Time travel
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Some ancient myths depict skipping forward in time. The Buddhist Pāli Canon mentions the relativity of time, in the period of our century, one hundred years, only a single day, twenty four hours would have passed for them. The Japanese tale of Urashima Tarō, first described in the Nihongi tells of a fisherman named Urashima Taro who visits an undersea palace. After three days, he returns home to his village and finds himself 300 years in the future, where he has forgotten, his house is in ruins. Early science-fiction stories feature characters who sleep for years and awaken in a changed society. Among them LAn 2440, rêve sil en fût jamais by Louis-Sébastien Mercier, Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving, Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy, prolonged sleep, like the more familiar time machine, is used as a means of time travel in these stories. Decades-long and centuries-long sleep is featured in ancient myths. Like forward time travel, backward time travel has an uncertain origin, the narrator rides to ancient Greece on a hippogriff, meets Aristotle, and goes on a voyage with Alexander the Great before returning to the 19th century. While the narrator waits under a tree for a coach to take him out of Newcastle and he encounters the Venerable Bede in a monastery and explains to him the developments of the coming centuries. However, the story never makes it clear whether these events are real or a dream, charles Dickenss A Christmas Carol has early depictions of time travel in both directions, as the protagonist, Ebenezer Scrooge, is transported to Christmases past and future. However, these might be interpreted as visions rather than as time travel because Scrooge experiences the time periods as a rather than as a participant. A clearer example of time travel is found in the popular 1861 book Paris avant les hommes by the French botanist and geologist Pierre Boitard. This may have been the first story to feature an alternate history created as a result of time travel. Early time machines One of the first stories to feature time travel by means of a machine is The Clock that Went Backward by Edward Page Mitchell, however, the mechanism borders on fantasy. An unusual clock, when wound, runs backwards and transports people nearby back in time, the author does not explain the origin or properties of the clock. Enrique Gaspar y Rimbaus El Anacronópete may have been the first story to feature a vessel engineered to travel through time, H. G. Wellss The Time Machine popularized the concept of time travel by mechanical means. In technical papers, physicists generally avoid the language of moving or traveling through time. Movement normally refers only to a change in position as the time coordinate is varied
6.
The Broken Sword
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The Broken Sword is a fantasy novel by American writer Poul Anderson, originally published in 1954. It was issued in an edition by Ballantine Books as the twenty-fourth volume of their Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in January 1971. The original text was returned to print by Gollancz in 2002, the book tells the story of Skafloc, elven-fosterling and originally son of Orm the Strong. The story begins with the marriage of Orm the Strong and Aelfrida of the English, Orm kills a witchs family on the land and later half-converts to Christianity, but quarrels with the local priest and sends him off the land. Meanwhile, an elf named Imric, with the help of the witch, in his place, Imric leaves a changeling called Valgard. The real son of Orm is taken away to elven lands, as the story continues, both Skafloc and Valgard have significant roles in the war between the trolls and the elves. Anthony Boucher praised the original edition as a magnificent saga of the interplay of gods, demigods, faerie, heroes, groff Conklin described the novel as a rip-snorting, bloody, imitation-Norse epic containing all the elements of faerie. But the story ends in a mad scramble and unconvincing slaughter, the novel is set during the Viking Age and the story contains many references to the Norse mythology. It is often described as a successor to the 1891 novel The Saga of Eric Brighteyes, a partial adaptation of the novel, done as a serialized black-and-white graphic novel, was adapted by fantasy writer Tom Reamy and illustrated by professional fantasy artist George Barr. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy, the Broken Sword title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
7.
Tau Zero
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Tau Zero is a hard science fiction novel by Poul Anderson. The novel was based upon the short story To Outlive Eternity appearing in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1967 and it was first published in book form in 1970. The book is regarded as a example of hard sci-fi. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1971, Tau Zero follows the crew of the starship Leonora Christine, a colonization vessel crewed by 25 men and 25 women aiming to reach a distant star system. The ship is powered by a Bussard ramjet, which was proposed 10 years before Anderson wrote the book, however, the Leonora Christine passes through a nebula before the half-way point, damaging the Bussard ram scoops which were to have been the deceleration module. The text consists of narrative prose interspersed with paragraphs in which Anderson explains the basis of relativity, time dilation. The ships ever-increasing velocity brings the time dilation to extreme levels, the initial plan is to locate and land on a suitable planet in another galaxy. Millions of years would have passed since their departure, and in any case they would be millions of years from Earth. However, they find the vacuum of intergalactic space insufficient for safety and they do, but the extremely thinly spread matter is then too dispersed to use for deceleration. They must wait, flying free but essentially without the ability to change course and he explains his system to his partner Chi-Yuen Ai-Ling, The human animal wants a father-mother image but, at the same time, resents being disciplined. You can get stability like this, The ultimate authority source is kept remote, god-like and your immediate superior is a mean son-of-a-bitch who makes you toe the mark and whom you therefore detest. But his own superior is as kind and sympathetic as rank allows, the end result is that Captain Telanders been isolated. His infallibility doesnt have to cope with essentially unfixable human messes, hard, harsh, demanding, overbearing, inconsiderate, brutal. Not so bad as to start a petition for my removal, but enough to irritate, be disliked, although respected. Its healthier to be mad at me than to dwell on personal woes, as first officer, she sustains my power. But she overrules me from time to time and she exercises her rank to bend regulations in favor of mercy. Therefore she adds benignity to the attributes of Ultimate Authority, the storyline is similar to that of the long poem and later opera Aniara, in which the ship was unable to stop and doomed to travel endlessly, but Tau Zero has a more upbeat ending. By the time the ship is repaired, tau has decreased to less than a billionth, but by the time that they are ready to attempt to find a future home, they realize that the universe is approaching a big crunch
8.
Planet Stories
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Planet Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Fiction House between 1939 and 1955. It featured interplanetary adventures, both in space and on planets, and was initially focused on a young readership. Malcolm Reiss was editor or editor-in-chief for all of its 71 issues, Planet Stories was launched at the same time as Planet Comics, the success of which probably helped to fund the early issues of Planet Stories. In 1952 Planet published Philip K. Dicks first sale, bradburys work for Planet included an early story in his Martian Chronicles sequence. Bracketts best-known work for the magazine was a series of adventures featuring Eric John Stark, the artwork also emphasized attractive women, with scantily clad damsels in distress or alien princesses on almost every cover. By the end of the 1930s the field was undergoing its first boom, Fiction House, a major pulp publisher, had run into difficulties during the Depression, but after a relaunch in 1934 found success with detective and romance pulp titles. The first issue was dated Winter 1939, with the Summer 1950 issue the editorship passed to Jerome Bixby, who was already editing Jungle Stories. Soon thereafter Planet Stories switched from a quarterly to bimonthly schedule, Bixby lasted a little over a year, Malcolm Reiss took over again in September 1951, and three issues later, in March 1952, Jack OSullivan became editor. A contemporary market survey records that in 1953, payment rates were only one to two cents per word, this was substantially behind the magazines of the day. Planet returned to a quarterly schedule beginning with the Summer 1954 issue, but the market was collapsing. Planet relied on a few authors to provide the bulk of its fiction in the years, with Nelson Bond providing eight lead stories. Fourteen more were written by Ray Cummings and Ross Rocklynne, and Leigh Brackett was also a regular contributor, the letter column in Planet was titled The Vizigraph, it was very active, with long letters from an engaged readership. Despite the focus on melodramatic space adventure, the fiction in Planet Stories improved over the few years, largely due to the work of Brackett. Both writers set many of their stories on a version of Mars that owed much to the Barsoom of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Bracketts writing improved during the 1940s from formulaic pulp adventure to a mature style. She wrote a series of stories featuring adventurer Eric John Stark. Also arguing in support of Planet Stories, science fiction critic John Clute has commented that the content was far more sophisticated than the covers. He also collaborated on a story with Leigh Brackett, Lorelei of the Red Mist, based on an idea of hers and his stories for Planet demonstrate his reservations about the advance of technology, in particular The Golden Apples of the Sun, and A Sound of Thunder
9.
Galaxy Science Fiction
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Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break into the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L. Gold, who rapidly made Galaxy the leading science fiction magazine of its time, in 1952, the magazine was acquired by Robert Guinn, its printer. By the late 1950s, Frederik Pohl was helping Gold with most aspects of the magazines production, when Golds health worsened, Pohl took over as editor, starting officially at the end of 1961, though he had been doing the majority of the production work for some time. Under Pohl Galaxy had continued success, regularly publishing fiction by such as Cordwainer Smith, Jack Vance, Harlan Ellison. However, Pohl never won the annual Hugo Award for his stewardship of Galaxy, in 1969 Guinn sold Galaxy to Universal Publishing and Distribution Corporation and Pohl resigned, to be replaced by Ejler Jakobsson. Under Jakobsson the magazine declined in quality, by the end of the 1970s the gaps between issues were lengthening, and the title was finally sold to Galileo publisher Vincent McCaffrey, who brought out only a single issue in 1980. A brief revival as a magazine followed in 1994, edited by H. L. Golds son, E. J. Gold. At its peak, Galaxy greatly influenced the science fiction field and it was regarded as one of the leading sf magazines almost from the start, and its influence did not wane until Pohls departure in 1969. Gold brought a sophisticated intellectual subtlety to magazine science fiction according to Pohl, SF historian David Kyle agrees, commenting that of all the editors in and out of the post-war scene, the most influential beyond any doubt was H. L. Gold. Kyle suggests that the new direction Gold set inevitably led to the experimental New Wave, the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, appeared in 1926. By the end of the 1930s, the genre was flourishing in the United States, in the late 1940s, the market began to recover. From a low of eight active US magazines in 1946, the field expanded to 20 just four years later, Galaxys appearance in 1950 was part of this boom. With the advent of the war, Gold left publishing and went into the army, but in late 1949 he was approached by Vera Cerutti, Cerutti was now working for an Italian publisher, Edizione Mondiale, that had opened an office in New York as World Editions. She initially asked Gold for guidance on how to produce a magazine, World Editions took a heavy loss on Fascination, its first attempt to launch a US magazine, and Cerutti returned to Gold asking for recommendations for new titles. Gold knew about The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, a digest launched in the fall of 1949, World Editions agreed, hired Gold as the editor, and the first issue appeared in October 1950. The novel series subsequently appeared as Galaxy Science Fiction Novels, Gold initially suggested two titles for the magazine, If and Galaxy. For the first issue, Gold obtained stories by several authors, including Isaac Asimov, Fritz Leiber
10.
Fantastic (magazine)
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Fantastic was an American digest size fantasy and science fiction magazine, published from 1952 to 1980. It was founded by Ziff Davis as a companion to Amazing Stories. Early sales were good, and Ziff Davis quickly decided to switch Amazing from pulp format to digest, within a few years sales fell, and Howard Browne, the editor, was forced to switch the focus to science fiction rather than fantasy. Browne lost interest in the magazine as a result and the magazine generally ran poor quality fiction in the mid-1950s, under Browne and his successor and she helped to nurture the early careers of writers such as Roger Zelazny and Ursula K. Le Guin, but was unable to increase circulation, and in 1965 the magazines were sold to Sol Cohen and this was financially successful, but brought Cohen into conflict with the newly formed Science Fiction Writers of America. After a turbulent period at the end of the 1960s, Ted White became editor, White worked hard to make the magazine successful, introducing artwork from artists who had made their names in comics, and working with new authors such as Gordon Eklund. His budget for fiction was low, but he was able to find good stories from well-known writers which had been rejected by the other markets. Circulation continued to decline and in 1978 Cohen sold out his half of the business to his partner, in 1938, Ziff-Davis, a Chicago-based publisher looking to expand into the pulp magazine market, acquired Amazing Stories. Ziff-Davis agreed to back the new magazine, and Browne put together a copy, but when the Korean War broke out Ziff-Davis cut their budgets. Browne did not give up, and in 1952 received the go-ahead to try a new magazine instead, focused on high-quality fantasy, the first issue of Fantastic, dated Summer 1952, appeared on March 21 of that year. The experiment with quality fiction did not last, circulation dropped, which led to budget cuts, and in turn the quality of the fiction fell. Browne had wanted to separate Fantastic from Amazings pulp roots, but now found he had to print more science fiction, Fantastics poor results were probably a consequence of the overloaded sf magazine market, far more magazines appeared in the early 1950s than the market was able to support. In May 1956 Browne left Ziff-Davis to become a screenwriter, Paul W. Fairman took over as editor of both Fantastic and Amazing. In 1957 Bernard Davis left Ziff-Davis, it had been Davis who had suggested the acquisition of Amazing in 1939, with his departure Amazing and Fantastic stagnated, they remained monthly but drew no attention from Ziff-Daviss management. In November 1955, Ziff-Davis hired an assistant, Cele Goldsmith and she also read the slush piles for all the magazines, and was quickly given more responsibility. Goldsmith stayed as editor for six and a half years, circulation dropped for both Amazing and Fantastic, in 1964 Fantastic had a paid circulation of only 27,000. In 1965 Sol Cohen, who at time was Galaxys publisher, set up his own publishing company, Ultimate Publishing. Cohen had decided to make the magazines as profitable as possible by filling them only with reprints, using reprints in this way saved Cohen about $8,000 a year between the two magazines
11.
Dominic Flandry
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Dominic Flandry is the central character in the second half of Poul Andersons Technic History science fiction. The space opera series is set in the 31st century, during the days of the Terran Empire. Flandry is a field agent of the Imperial Intelligence Corps who travels the stars to fight off imminent threats to the empire from both external enemies and internal treachery. His long-time archenemy is Aycharaych, a cultured but ruthless telepathic spymaster who weaves plots for the rival empire of the alien Merseians. The illegitimate son of a nobleman, Flandry rises to considerable power within the decadent Empire by his own wits. Still he is conscious of the impending fall of the Terran Empire. His career is dedicated to holding it off for as long as possible, in time, he passes the mantle to his daughter Diana, who is also illegitimate. Flandry is willing to disregard conventional morality and use his foes tactics against them, Flandry of Terra containing The Game of Glory, A Message in Secret and The Plague of Masters. Young Flandry, combining the novels Ensign Flandry, A Circus of Hells and The Rebel Worlds. Sir Dominic Flandry, The Last Knight of Terra, combining the short stories The Plague of Masters, Hunters of the Sky Cave, The Warriors from Nowhere, Flandrys Legacy, combining the novels A Stone in Heaven and The Game of Empire. He also appears – with Andersons permission – in the novel The Dark Dimensions, there, Flandry crosses over into Chandlers Rim Worlds and meets Chandlers Commodore Grimes. While still a cadet, Flandry seduced the girlfriend of a trainee named Fenross. The girl was not very attractive and Flandry was not particularly smitten with her, after Flandry dropped her, the girl became very wild and was killed in an accident on Venus. Fenross, who had cared for her much, never looked at another woman afterwards. Being promoted faster, Fenross became an admiral and Flandrys direct superior, Flandry admitted that Fenross had a legitimate grudge, but did manage to survive all the very dangerous missions on which Fenross kept sending him. Similar to the James Bond stories, every new adventure brings Flandry another beautiful damsel to woo, on departure she leaves Flandry with a curse, I guess I cant stop you from having nearly any woman who comes by. But Il wish this, that you never get the one you really want, at the time, Flandry shrugs it off – but Djanas curse comes all too true. In The Rebel Worlds Flandry falls head over heels in love with Kathryn McCormac, wife of the rebel Admiral Hugh McCormac
12.
After Doomsday
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After Doomsday is a science fiction novel by American writer Poul Anderson. It was published as a novel in 1962, having been serialized as The Day after Doomsday in the magazine Galaxy. The novel explores events after the destruction of Earth, from the point of view of two returning starship crews, one made up of men, the other consisting entirely of women. The story is set in the early 21st century, even as the Cold War dragged on Earth has been suddenly contacted by the Monwaingi space-faring culture. The technology of interstellar travel is spreading across the galaxy, disrupting one culture after another, Monwaing itself was contacted only a few centuries previously. Another culture, the Vorlak, underwent a transition from a stable society to a warlord culture similar to the Japanese Shogunate. The nomadic Kandemirian culture became a hegemonistic one similar to the Mongol Empire, Earth found itself on the fringes of a conflict between Kandemir and a coalition led by Vorlak, with Monwaing on the sidelines, actively supporting the anti-Kandemir forces. There is a lingua franca called Uru, which bonds the diverse cultures together, the original speakers of the language may have also initiated the spread of interstellar technology, but the language seems to have outlived, or at least outstripped its originators. In the 20 years since contact, several expeditions have set out, some in borrowed ships, some in ships built on Earth. The ship USS Benjamin Franklin, with a crew, set out to visit the core of the Milky Way — actually an unusual quest by the stodgy standards of the typical galactic culture. Another ship has gone as far as the Magellanic Clouds, the pan-European expedition in the ship Europa, crewed entirely by women, has roamed far outside the local group of cultures. The star-drive technology allows journeys of tens of thousands of parsecs in mere months, in spite of this, most cultures are stay-at-homes compared to humans, interacting only with the local group of cultures, known as a cluster. Now the Franklin and the Europa return to find that Earth has suffered the ultimate disaster, the USS Benjamin Franklin, a starship crewed entirely by men returns to Earth, to find the planet consumed by eruptions from within the crust. All life is gone, along with the few outposts of humanity on the Moon, missiles lurk throughout the Solar System, ready to destroy returning ships. Unable to leave a message drone because of the missiles, the Franklin flees to Tau Ceti, discipline breaks down, the captain is killed, and a nucleus of a new crew forms behind a man named Carl Donnan. Donnan is an engineer and adventurer who gave up wandering the Earth for a chance to see the galaxy, now he is leading almost 300 men on a quest for other humans, and for Earths murderers. Chief suspects are the Kandemirians, especially since the missiles swarming through the Solar System are Kandemirian, Earth is new to interstellar trade, and a handful of ships have gone out into the wider galactic society. The men realize they have hope of finding other humans
13.
If (magazine)
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If was an American science fiction magazine launched in March 1952 by Quinn Publications, owned by James L. Quinn. The magazine was successful, though it was never considered to be in the first tier of science fiction magazines. It achieved its greatest success under editor Frederik Pohl, winning the Hugo Award for best professional magazine three years running from 1966 to 1968. If published many award-winning stories over its 22 years, including Robert A. Heinleins novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, the most prominent writer to make his first sale to If was Larry Niven, whose story The Coldest Place appeared in the December 1964 issue. If was merged into Galaxy Science Fiction after the December 1974 issue, by the end of the 1930s the field was undergoing its first boom, but World War II and its attendant paper shortages led to the demise of several titles. By the late 1940s the market began to recover again, from a low of eight active magazines in 1946, the field expanded to 20 in 1950, and a further 22 had commenced publication by 1954. If was launched in the middle of this publishing boom. Ifs origins can be traced to 1948 and 1949, when Raymond Palmer founded two magazines while working at Ziff-Davis in Chicago, Fate and Other Worlds, Fate published articles about occult and supernatural events, while Other Worlds was a science fiction magazine. The two were successful to attract the notice of James L. Quinn, a New York publisher. One was a magazine entitled Strange, the other was If. By the time the issue reached the news stands, the disappointing sales figures for the first issue were in. Quinn persevered with himself as editor and his first issue was dated July 1952, and he continued as editor on the masthead for some years. Quinn brought in Ed Valigursky as the art editor, he designed striking covers, including some wraparound artwork—an unusual feature—which helped improve circulation. Quinn began searching for a replacement editor, writer Lester del Rey turned down the job but Quinn was able to engage Larry T. Shaw, Shaw joined in May 1953 as associate editor and soon began writing editorials and assisting with story selection. The magazines quality quickly improved and soon Quinn felt able to switch to a monthly schedule, Shaw left after only a year, and Quinn resumed full editorial responsibilities. In late 1953, Quinn decided to run a competition for short fiction from new writers, the competition was only open to college students who had not sold a story before. The first prize was $1,000, the second prize $500, the only other one of the seven announced winners who had a career as a science fiction writer was Leo P. Kelley. Quinn decided to move If to a schedule with the March 1954 issue
14.
Amazing Stories
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Amazing Stories is an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsbacks Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction, Science fiction stories had made regular appearances in other magazines, including some published by Gernsback, but Amazing helped define and launch a new genre of pulp fiction. Amazing was published, with interruptions, for almost eighty years, going through a half-dozen owners. Gernsback was forced into bankruptcy and lost control of the magazine in 1929, and by 1938 it was purchased by Ziff-Davis, Palmer made the magazine successful though it was not regarded as a quality magazine within the science fiction community. Amazing switched to a digest size format in 1953, shortly before the end of the pulp-magazine era. Ted White took over as editor in 1969, eliminated the reprints and made the magazine respected again, several other owners attempted to create a modern incarnation of the magazine in the following decades, but publication was suspended after the March 2005 issue. A new incarnation appeared in July 2012 as an online magazine, Gernsbacks initial editorial approach was to blend instruction with entertainment, he believed science fiction could educate readers. His audience rapidly showed a preference for implausible adventures, however, despite this, Gernsback had an enormous impact on the field, the creation of a specialist magazine for science fiction spawned an entire genre publishing industry. The letter columns in Amazing, where fans could make contact with other, led to the formation of science fiction fandom. Writers whose first story was published in the magazine include John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Howard Fast, Le Guin, Roger Zelazny, and Thomas M. Disch. Overall, though, Amazing itself was rarely an influential magazine within the genre after the 1920s, by the end of the 19th century, stories centered on scientific inventions, and stories set in the future, were appearing regularly in popular fiction magazines. The market for short stories lent itself to tales of invention in the tradition of Jules Verne, Magazines such as Munseys Magazine and The Argosy, launched in 1889 and 1896 respectively, carried a few science fiction stories each year. In 1908, Hugo Gernsback published the first issue of Modern Electrics and it was an immediate success, and Gernsback began to include articles on imaginative uses of science, such as Wireless on Saturn. In 1920 Gernsback retitled the magazine Science and Invention, and through the early 1920s he published much scientific fiction in its pages, Gernsback had started another magazine called Practical Electrics in 1921. However, in 1926 he decided to go ahead, and ceased publication of The Experimenter to make room in his schedule for a new magazine. The editor of The Experimenter, T. OConor Sloane, became the editor of Amazing Stories, the first issue appeared on 10 March 1926, with a cover date of April 1926. Initially the magazine focussed on reprints, the first original story was “The Man From the Atom ” by G. Peyton Wertenbaker in the May 1926 issue, in the August issue, new stories were noted with an asterisk in the table of contents. The editorial work was largely done by Sloane, but Gernsback retained final say over the fiction content, Two consultants, Conrad A. Brandt and Wilbur C
15.
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
16.
Author
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An author is narrowly defined as the originator of any written work and can thus also be described as a writer. More broadly defined, an author is the person who originated or gave existence to anything, in the copyright laws of various jurisdictions, there is a necessity for little flexibility regarding what constitutes authorship. The United States Copyright Office, for example, defines copyright as a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to authors of works of authorship. After a fixed amount of time, the copyright expires on intellectual work and it enters the public domain, however, copyright is merely the legal reassurance that one owns his/her work. Technically, someone owns their work from the time its created, an interesting aspect of authorship emerges with copyright in that, in many jurisdictions, it can be passed down to another upon ones death. The person who inherits the copyright is not the author, questions arise as to the application of copyright law. How does it, for example, apply to the issue of fan fiction. If the media responsible for the authorized production allows material from fans, what is the limit before legal constraints from actors, music. Additionally, how does copyright apply to fan-generated stories for books, what powers do the original authors, as well as the publishers, have in regulating or even stopping the fan fiction. In literary theory, critics find complications in the term author beyond what constitutes authorship in a legal setting, in the wake of postmodern literature, critics such as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault have examined the role and relevance of authorship to the meaning or interpretation of a text. Barthes challenges the idea that a text can be attributed to any single author and he writes, in his essay Death of the Author, that it is language which speaks, not the author. The words and language of a text itself determine and expose meaning for Barthes, with this, the perspective of the author is removed from the text, and the limits formerly imposed by the idea of one authorial voice, one ultimate and universal meaning, are destroyed. The psyche, culture, fanaticism of an author can be disregarded when interpreting a text, because the words are rich enough themselves with all of the traditions of language. To expose meanings in a work without appealing to the celebrity of an author, their tastes, passions, vices, is, to Barthes, to allow language to speak. Michel Foucault argues in his essay What is an author and that all authors are writers, but not all writers are authors. He states that a letter may have a signatory—it does not have an author. For a reader to assign the title of author upon any written work is to certain standards upon the text which. Foucaults author function is the idea that an author exists only as a function of a work, a part of its structure
17.
Hugo Award
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The Hugo Awards are a set of awards given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The awards are named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. Organized and overseen by the World Science Fiction Society, the awards are given each year at the annual World Science Fiction Convention as the focus of the event. They were first given in 1953, at the 11th World Science Fiction Convention, the Hugo Awards have been termed as among the highest honors bestowed in science fiction and fantasy writing. Works that have won have been published in collections. The 2016 awards were presented at the 74th Worldcon, MidAmeriCon II, in Kansas City, United States, the 2017 Hugos will be presented at the 75th Worldcon, Worldcon 75, in Helsinki, Finland, on August 12,2017. For lists of winners and nominees for each category, see the list of categories below. The World Science Fiction Society gives out the Hugo Awards each year for the best science fiction or fantasy works, the award is named after Hugo Gernsback, who founded the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories and who is considered one of the fathers of the science fiction genre. Works are eligible for an award if they were published in English in the calendar year. There are no rules as to which works qualify as science fiction or fantasy. Hugo Award nominees and winners are chosen by supporting or attending members of the annual World Science Fiction Convention, or Worldcon, the selection process is defined in the WSFS constitution as instant-runoff voting with five nominees per category, except in the case of a tie. The awards are split over more than a dozen categories, for each category of Hugo, the voter may rank No Award as one of their choices. Voters are instructed that they should do so if they feel that none of the nominees are worthy of the award, or if they feel the category should be abolished entirely. A vote for No Award other than as ones first choice signifies that the voter believes the nominee ranked higher than No Award are worthy of a Hugo in that category, while those ranked lower are not. The five works on the ballot for each category are the most-nominated by members that year, from 1953 to 1958 the awards did not include any recognition of runner-up novels, but since 1959 all of the candidates have been recorded. Worldcons are generally held near the start of September, and take place in a different city around the world each year, the idea of giving out awards at Worldcons was proposed by Harold Lynch for the 1953 convention. The idea was based on the Academy Awards, with the name Hugo being given by Robert A. Madle, the award trophy was created by Jack McKnight and Ben Jason in 1953, based on the design of hood ornaments of 1950s cars. It consisted of a rocket ship on a wooden base
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Nebula Award
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The Nebula Awards annually recognize the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the United States. The awards are organized and awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and they were first given in 1966 at a ceremony created for the awards, and are given in four categories for different lengths of literary works. A fifth category for film and television episode scripts was given 1974–78, the rules governing the Nebula Awards have changed several times during the awards history, most recently in 2010. SFWA numbers the awards by the prior to the year the award is given in. For lists of winners and nominees for each Nebula category, see the list of categories below, the Nebula Awards are given annually by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America for the best science fiction or fantasy fiction published during the previous year. To be eligible for consideration works must be published in English in the United States, works published in English elsewhere in the world are also eligible provided they are released on either a website or in an electronic edition. The awards are not limited to American citizens or members of SFWA, works translated into English are also eligible. There are no rules as to which works qualify as science fiction or fantasy. The winner receives a trophy but no prize, the trophy is a transparent block with an embedded glitter spiral nebula. The trophy itself was designed for the first awards by J. A. Lawrence, based on a sketch by Kate Wilhelm, Nebula Award nominees and winners are chosen by members of the SFWA. Additional nominees are possible in the case of ties, members then vote on the ballot throughout March, and the final results are presented at the Nebula Awards ceremony in May. Authors are not permitted to nominate their own works, though they can decline nominations, ties in the final vote are broken, if possible, by the number of nominations the works received. The first Nebulas were given in 1966, for works published in 1965, the idea for such an award, funded by the sales of anthologies collecting the winning works, was proposed by SFWA secretary-treasurer Lloyd Biggle, Jr. in 1965. The idea was based on the Edgar Awards, presented by the Mystery Writers of America, the initial ceremony consisted of four literary awards, for Novels, Novellas, Novelettes, and Short Stories, which have been presented every year since. Prior to 2009, the Nebula Awards employed a rolling eligibility system, each work was eligible to qualify for the ballot for one year following its date of publication. As a consequence of rolling eligibility, there was the possibility for works to be nominated in the year after their publication. Works were added to a preliminary list for the if they had ten or more nominations. Authors were also allowed to use the mass-market paperback publication of their books as the beginning of their nomination period, beginning with the 2010 awards, the rolling eligibility system and paperback publication exemption were replaced with the current rules
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Denmark
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The term Danish Realm refers to the relationship between Denmark proper, the Faroe Islands and Greenland—three countries constituting the Kingdom of Denmark. The legal nature of the Kingdom of Denmark is fundamentally one of a sovereign state. The Faroe Islands and Greenland have been part of the Crown of Denmark since 1397 when the Kalmar Union was ratified, legal matters in The Danish Realm are subject to the Danish Constitution. Beginning in 1953, state law issues within The Danish Realm has been governed by The Unity of the Realm, a less formal name for The Unity of the Realm is the Commonwealth of the Realm. In 1978, The Unity of The Realm was for the first time referred to as rigsfællesskabet. The name caught on and since the 1990s, both The Unity of The Realm and The Danish Realm itself has increasingly been referred to as simply rigsfællesskabet in daily parlance. The Danish Constitution stipulates that the foreign and security interests for all parts of the Danish Realm are the responsibility of the Danish government, the Faroes received home rule in 1948 and Greenland did so in 1979. In 2005, the Faroes received a self-government arrangement, and in 2009 Greenland received self rule, the Danish Realms unique state of internal affairs is acted out in the principle of The Unity of the Realm. This principle is derived from Article 1 of the Danish Constitution which specifies that constitutional law applies equally to all areas of the Danish Realm, the Constitutional Act specifies that sovereignty is to continue to be exclusively with the authorities of the Realm. The language of Denmark is Danish, and the Danish state authorities are based in Denmark, the Kingdom of Denmarks parliament, with its 179 members, is located in the capital, Copenhagen. Two of the members are elected in each of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The Government ministries are located in Copenhagen, as is the highest court, in principle, the Danish Realm constitutes a unified sovereign state, with equal status between its constituent parts. Devolution differs from federalism in that the powers of the subnational authority ultimately reside in central government. The Self-Government Arrangements devolves political competence and responsibility from the Danish political authorities to the Faroese, the Faroese and Greenlandic authorities administer the tasks taken over from the state, enact legislation in these specific fields and have the economic responsibility for solving these tasks. The Danish government provides a grant to the Faroese and the Greenlandic authorities to cover the costs of these devolved areas. The 1948 Home Rule Act of the Faroe Islands sets out the terms of Faroese home rule, the Act states. the Faroe Islands shall constitute a self-governing community within the State of Denmark. It establishes the government of the Faroe Islands and the Faroese parliament. The Faroe Islands were previously administered as a Danish county, the Home Rule Act abolished the post of Amtmand and these powers were expanded in a 2005 Act, which named the Faroese home government as an equal partner with the Danish government
20.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
