1.
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
2.
Future Science Fiction and Science Fiction Stories
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Future Science Fiction and Science Fiction Stories were two American science fiction magazines that were published under various names between 1939 and 1943 and again from 1950 to 1960. Both publications were edited by Charles Hornig for the first few issues, Robert W. Lowndes took over in late 1941, the initial launch of the magazines came as part of a boom in science fiction pulp magazine publishing at the end of the 1930s. In 1950, with the market improving again, Silberkleit relaunched Future Fiction, in the mid-1950s he also relaunched Science Fiction, this time under the title Science Fiction Stories. Silberkleit kept both magazines on very slim budgets throughout the 1950s, in 1960 both titles ceased publication when their distributor suddenly dropped all of Silberkleits titles. The fiction was unremarkable, with few memorable stories being published. Lowndes spent much effort to set a friendly and engaging tone in both magazines, with columns and reader departments that interested fans. He was more successful than Hornig in obtaining good stories, partly because he had relationships with several well-known. Among the better-known stories he published were The Liberation of Earth by William Tenn, by the end of the 1930s the field was booming. One of Gernsbacks employees, Louis Silberkleit, became a publisher in his own right in 1934 when he founded the Winford Publishing Company. Towards the end of the 1930s Silberkleit decided to launch an sf pulp magazine under his Blue Ribbon Magazines imprint, Gernsback recommended Charles Hornig to Silberkleit for the post of editor, Hornig had previously edited Wonder Stories for Gernsback from 1933 to 1936. Silberkleit took the recommendation and Hornig was hired in October 1938, Hornig had no office, he worked from home, coming into the office as needed to drop off manuscripts and dummy materials, and pick up typeset materials to proof. The first issue was dated March 1939, the schedule was intended to be bimonthly, but it began to slip immediately, with the second issue dated June 1939. In order to spread his costs over more magazines, Silberkleit soon decided to launch two additional titles, when he had worked for Gernsback, Silberkleit had suggested Future Fiction as a possible title for the magazine Gernsback was planning to launch. Gernsback eventually chose Amazing Stories instead, and Silberkleit now decided to use his original suggestion for one of the new magazines, in November 1939 the first issue of Future Fiction appeared, it was followed in July 1940 by Science Fiction Quarterly. Hornig was editor for all three magazines, in October 1940, Hornig received his military draft notice, he was a pacifist, and decided to move to California and register as a conscientious objector. He continued to edit the magazines from the west coast, Silberkleit allowed Hornig to retain his post as editor of Science Fiction, and offered the editorship of the other two titles to Sam Moskowitz. Moskowitz declined, saying afterwards I would never strike at a mans job, Lowndes relates that Silberkleit took the bait and hired him in November 1940, Hornig recalls the separation as being by mutual consent because of his move to California. Lowndes subsequently agreed that this was likely to be the real reason Silberkleit replaced Hornig, the first issues Lowndes was responsible for were the Spring 1941 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly and the April 1941 issue of Future Fiction
3.
Science Fiction (American magazine)
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Future Science Fiction and Science Fiction Stories were two American science fiction magazines that were published under various names between 1939 and 1943 and again from 1950 to 1960. Both publications were edited by Charles Hornig for the first few issues, Robert W. Lowndes took over in late 1941, the initial launch of the magazines came as part of a boom in science fiction pulp magazine publishing at the end of the 1930s. In 1950, with the market improving again, Silberkleit relaunched Future Fiction, in the mid-1950s he also relaunched Science Fiction, this time under the title Science Fiction Stories. Silberkleit kept both magazines on very slim budgets throughout the 1950s, in 1960 both titles ceased publication when their distributor suddenly dropped all of Silberkleits titles. The fiction was unremarkable, with few memorable stories being published. Lowndes spent much effort to set a friendly and engaging tone in both magazines, with columns and reader departments that interested fans. He was more successful than Hornig in obtaining good stories, partly because he had relationships with several well-known. Among the better-known stories he published were The Liberation of Earth by William Tenn, by the end of the 1930s the field was booming. One of Gernsbacks employees, Louis Silberkleit, became a publisher in his own right in 1934 when he founded the Winford Publishing Company. Towards the end of the 1930s Silberkleit decided to launch an sf pulp magazine under his Blue Ribbon Magazines imprint, Gernsback recommended Charles Hornig to Silberkleit for the post of editor, Hornig had previously edited Wonder Stories for Gernsback from 1933 to 1936. Silberkleit took the recommendation and Hornig was hired in October 1938, Hornig had no office, he worked from home, coming into the office as needed to drop off manuscripts and dummy materials, and pick up typeset materials to proof. The first issue was dated March 1939, the schedule was intended to be bimonthly, but it began to slip immediately, with the second issue dated June 1939. In order to spread his costs over more magazines, Silberkleit soon decided to launch two additional titles, when he had worked for Gernsback, Silberkleit had suggested Future Fiction as a possible title for the magazine Gernsback was planning to launch. Gernsback eventually chose Amazing Stories instead, and Silberkleit now decided to use his original suggestion for one of the new magazines, in November 1939 the first issue of Future Fiction appeared, it was followed in July 1940 by Science Fiction Quarterly. Hornig was editor for all three magazines, in October 1940, Hornig received his military draft notice, he was a pacifist, and decided to move to California and register as a conscientious objector. He continued to edit the magazines from the west coast, Silberkleit allowed Hornig to retain his post as editor of Science Fiction, and offered the editorship of the other two titles to Sam Moskowitz. Moskowitz declined, saying afterwards I would never strike at a mans job, Lowndes relates that Silberkleit took the bait and hired him in November 1940, Hornig recalls the separation as being by mutual consent because of his move to California. Lowndes subsequently agreed that this was likely to be the real reason Silberkleit replaced Hornig, the first issues Lowndes was responsible for were the Spring 1941 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly and the April 1941 issue of Future Fiction
4.
Science Fiction Quarterly
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Science Fiction Quarterly was an American pulp science fiction magazine that was published from 1940 to 1943 and again from 1951 to 1958. Charles Hornig served as editor for the first two issues, Robert A. W. Lowndes edited the remainder, Science Fiction Quarterly was launched by publisher Louis Silberkleit during a boom in science fiction magazines at the end of the 1930s. Silberkleit launched two other science fiction titles at about the time, all three ceased publication before the end of World War II, falling prey to slow sales. In 1950 and 1951, as the improved, Silberkleit relaunched Future Fiction. By the time Science Fiction Quarterly ceased publication in 1958, it was the last surviving science fiction pulp, both Hornig and Lowndes were given minuscule budgets, and Hornig in particular had trouble finding good material to print. Lowndes did somewhat better, as he was able to call on his friends in the Futurians, a group of aspiring writers that included Isaac Asimov, James Blish, and Donald Wollheim. The second incarnation of the also had a policy of running a lead novel. Among the better-known stories published by the magazine were Second Dawn, clarke, The Last Question, by Isaac Asimov, and Common Time, by James Blish. By the end of the 1930s, the field was booming, Louis Silberkleit, a publisher who had once worked for Gernsback, launched a pulp magazine in March 1939 titled Science Fiction, under his Blue Ribbon Magazines imprint. For an editor, Gernsback recommended Charles Hornig, who had edited Wonder Stories for Gernsback from 1933 to 1936, Silberkleit took the recommendation, and Hornig was hired in October 1938. Hornig had no office, he worked from home, coming into the office as needed to drop off manuscripts and dummy materials, and pick up typeset materials to proof. He was given freedom to select what he wanted to publish, since Silberkleits chief editor, Abner J. Sundell, knew little about sf. To spread his costs over more magazines, Silberkleit soon decided to launch two additional titles, in November 1939 the first issue of Future Fiction appeared, it was followed in July 1940 by Science Fiction Quarterly. Hornig was editor for all three of the magazines, in October 1940, Hornig, who was a pacifist, received his military call-up. He decided to move to California and register as an objector, he continued to edit the magazines from the west coast. Silberkleit allowed Hornig to retain his post as editor of Science Fiction, Moskowitz declined, saying afterwards that he would never strike at a mans job, but Donald Wollheim, a member of a group of aspiring writers called the Futurians, heard about the offer. Wollheim told Robert W. Lowndes, another member of the Futurians, about the opening, Lowndes relates that Silberkleit took the bait and hired him in November 1940, Hornig recalls the separation as being by mutual consent because of his move to California. Lowndes subsequently agreed that this was likely to be the real reason Silberkleit replaced Hornig, the first issues Lowndes was responsible for were the Spring 1941 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly and the April 1941 issue of Future Fiction
5.
Editing
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Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, and many other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate and complete work. The editing process begins with the authors idea for the work itself. As such, editing can involve creative skills, human relations, there are various editorial positions in publishing. Typically, one finds editorial assistants reporting to the editorial staff. Senior executive editors are responsible for developing a product for its final release, the smaller the publication, the more these roles overlap. The top editor at many publications may be known as the chief editor, a frequent and highly regarded contributor to a magazine may acquire the title of editor-at-large or contributing editor. Mid-level newspaper editors often manage or help to manage sections, such as business, sports, in U. S. newspapers, the level below the top editor is usually the managing editor. Obtaining manuscripts or recruiting authors is the role of an editor or a commissioning editor in a publishing house. Finding marketable ideas and presenting them to appropriate authors are the responsibilities of a sponsoring editor, copy editors correct spelling, grammar and align writings to house style. Changes to the industry since the 1980s have resulted in nearly all copy editing of book manuscripts being outsourced to freelance copy editors. At newspapers and wire services, copy editors write headlines and work on substantive issues, such as ensuring accuracy, fairness. In some positions, they design pages and select news stories for inclusion, at U. K. and Australian newspapers, the term is sub-editor. They may choose the layout of the publication and communicate with the printer and these editors may have the title of layout or design editor or makeup editor. However, another editor is sometimes involved in the creation of research articles. Called the authors editor, this works with authors to get a manuscript fit for purpose before it is submitted to a scholarly journal for publication. The primary difference between copy editing scholarly books and journals and other sorts of copy editing lies in applying the standards of the publisher to the copy. K, technical editing involves reviewing text written on a technical topic, identifying usage errors and ensuring adherence to a style guide. Large companies dedicate experienced writers to the editing function
6.
Science-fiction fandom
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Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or fandom of people actively interested in science fiction in contact with one another based upon that interest. SF fandom has a life of its own, but not much in the way of formal organization, Science fiction fandom started through the letter column of Hugo Gernsbacks fiction magazines. Not only did fans write comments about the stories—they sent their addresses, soon, fans were writing letters directly to each other, and meeting in person when they lived close together, or when one of them could manage a trip. In New York City, David Lasser, Gernsbacks managing editor, nurtured the birth of a local club called the Scienceers. Almost all the members were adolescent boys, around this time a few other small local groups began to spring up in metropolitan areas around the United States, many of them connecting with fellow enthusiasts via the Science Correspondence Club. In May 1930 the first science fiction fan magazine, The Comet, was produced by the Chicago branch of the Science Correspondence Club under the editorship of Raymond A. Palmer and Walter Dennis. In 1934, Gernsback established a club for fans called the Science Fiction League. Local groups across the nation could join by filling out an application, a number of clubs came into being around this time. LASFS was founded at this time as a branch of the SFL, while several competing local branches sprang up in New York City. Soon after the fans started to communicate directly with each other came the creation of science fiction fanzines and these amateur publications might or might not discuss science fiction and were generally traded rather than sold. They ranged from the utilitarian or inept to professional-quality printing and editing, science-fiction fans have been among the first users of computers, email, personal computers and the Internet. Many professional science fiction authors started their interest in fiction as fans. A widely regarded history of fandom in the 1930s can be found in Sam Moskowitzs The Immortal Storm, Moskowitz was himself involved in some of the incidents chronicled and has his own point of view, which has often been criticized. Organized fandom in Sweden emerged during the early-1950s, the first Swedish science fiction fanzine was started in the early 1950s. The oldest still existing club, Club Cosmos in Gothenburg, was formed in 1954, today, there are a number of science fiction clubs in the country, including Skandinavisk Förening för Science Fiction, Linköpings Science Fiction-Förening and Sigma Terra Corps. Between one and four science fiction conventions are held each year in Sweden, among them Swecon, an annual prize is awarded to someone that has contributed to the national fandom by the Alvar Appeltofft Memorial Fund. Since the late 1930s, SF fans have organized conventions, non-profit gatherings where the meet to discuss SF. The 1st World Science Fiction Convention or Worldcon was held in conjunction with the 1939 New York Worlds Fair, and has been held annually since the end of World War II
7.
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
8.
Futurians
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The Futurians were a group of science fiction fans, many of whom became editors and writers as well. The Futurians were based in New York City and were a force in the development of science fiction writing. Other sources indicate that Donald A. Wollheim was pushing for a more left-wing direction with a goal of leading fandom toward a political ideal, as a result, Wollheim broke off from the Greater New York group and founded the Futurians in September,1938. The fans following Moskowitz reorganized into the Queens Science Fiction Club, Wollheim, John Michel, and Robert A. W. Lowndes were also members of the BSFL. Along with Pohl, the four started calling themselves the Quadrumvirate, Pohl, commenting about that time, said we four marched from Brooklyn to the sea, leaving a wide scar of burned out clubs behind us. We changed clubs the way Detroit changes tailfins, every year had a new one, there were several club names during that period, before finally settling on the Futurians. In 1935 there was the East New York Science Fiction League, in 1936 came the International Cosmos Science Club, which also involved Will Sykora. Pohl then says that on reflection Cosmos seemed to take in a bit more territory than was justified, the ISA then was renamed New York Branch-International Scientific Association. In 1937, after the falling-out with Will Sykora and others, will Sykora then founded the Queens Science Fiction League with Sam Moskowitz and James V. Taurasi. Later, the QSFL changed into New Fandom, most of the groups members also had professional ambitions within science fiction and related fields, and collectively were very effective at achieving this goal, as the roster of members suggests. Most of these projects had small budgets, and relied in part, or occasionally entirely. It was to end that Wollheim formed the Futurians. Hence the group included supporters of Trotskyism, like Judith Merril, on the other hand, several members were political moderates or apolitical, and in the case of James Blish arguably right-wing. Damon Knight in The Futurians indicates that Blish at that time felt Fascism was interesting in theory, more solid evidence is that Blish admired the work of Oswald Spengler. Pohl, in his autobiography, The Way the Future Was, said Wollheim voted for Republican Presidential Candidate Alfred Landon in 1936
9.
Donald A. Wollheim
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Donald Allen Wollheim was an American science fiction editor, publisher, writer, and fan. As an author, he published under his own name as well as under pseudonyms, a founding member of the Futurians, he was a leading influence on science fiction development and fandom in the 20th century United States. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls Wollheim one of the first and most vociferous sf fans and he published numerous fanzines and co-edited the early Fanciful Tales of Space and Time. His importance to early fandom is chronicled in the 1974 book The Immortal Storm by Sam Moskowitz, Wollheim organized the first science fiction convention, when a group from New York met with a group from Philadelphia on October 22,1936 in Philadelphia. The modern Philcon convention claims descent from this event, out of this meeting, plans were formed for regional and national meetings, including the first Worldcon. Wollheim was a member of the New York Science Fiction League, when payment was not forthcoming for the first story he sold to Gernsback, Wollheim formed a group with several other authors, and successfully sued for payment. He was expelled from the Science Fiction League as an influence but was later reinstated. From the September 1935 issue of Gernsbacks Wonder Stories, THREE MEMBERS EXPELLED It grieves us to announce that we have found the first disloyalty in our organization and these members we expelled on June 12th. Their names are Donald A. Wollheim, John B, michel, and William S. Sykora - three active fans who just got themselves onto the wrong road. It is for them and for the fan who admits it is his hobby, in 1938, with several friends, he formed the Futurians—arguably the best-known of the science fiction clubs. In 1943 Wollheim married fellow Futurian Elsie Balter and it proved to be a lasting marriage and a publishing partnership. The Futurians became less fan-oriented and more professional after 1940 and its conferences and workshops focused on writing, editing, and publishing, with many of its members interested in all three. Wollheims first story, The Man from Ariel, was published in the January 1934 issue of Wonder Stories when he was nineteen. He was not paid for the story, and when he learned that other authors had not been paid either, publisher Hugo Gernsback eventually settled with Wollheim and the other authors out of court for $75. However, when Wollheim submitted another story under the pseudonym Millard Verne Gordon and his third known story was published in Fanciful Tales of Time and Space, Fall 1936, a fanzine that he edited himself. That year he published and edited another short-lived fanzine, Phantagraph. Wollheims stories were published regularly from 1940, at the time he was becoming an important editor. In the 1950s and 60s he wrote chiefly novels and he usually used pseudonyms for works aimed at grownups, and wrote childrens novels under his own name
10.
Horror fiction
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Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten, scare, disgust, or startle their readers or viewers by inducing feelings of horror and terror. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon has defined the horror story as a piece of fiction in prose of variable length, which shocks or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing. It creates an eerie and frightening atmosphere, Horror is frequently supernatural, though it can be non-supernatural. Often the central menace of a work of fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for the larger fears of a society. The genre of horror has ancient origins with roots in folklore and religious traditions, focusing on death, the afterlife, evil, the demonic and these were manifested in stories of beings such as witches, vampires, werewolves and ghosts. 18th century Gothic horror drew on these sources with the seminal and controversial The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole and this marked the first incorporated elements of the supernatural instead of pure realism. In fact, the first edition was published disguised as a medieval romance from Italy discovered and republished by a fictitious translator. Once revealed as contemporary, many found it anachronistic, reactionary, or simply in poor taste — but it proved to be immediately popular. That first novel of Gothic horror inspired such works as Vathek by William Beckford, A Sicilian Romance, The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian by Ann Radcliffe and The Monk by Matthew Lewis. A significant amount of fiction of this era was written by women and marketed at a female audience. The Gothic tradition blossomed into the modern readers call horror literature in the 19th century. Each of these novels and novellas created an icon of horror seen in modern re-imaginings on the stage. The proliferation of periodicals, as early as the turn of the century. One writer who specialized in fiction for mainstream pulps such as All-Story Magazine was Tod Robbins, whose fiction dealt with themes of madness. Later, specialist publications emerged to give horror writers an outlet, including Weird Tales, influential horror writers of the early 20th century made inroads in these mediums. Early cinema was inspired by aspects of horror literature, and early horror cinema started a strong tradition of horror films. This imagery made these comics controversial, and as a consequence they were frequently censored, many modern novels claim an early description of the living dead in a precursor to the modern zombie tale, including Dennis Wheatleys Strange Conflict, H. P. Lovecraft stories such as Cool Air, In The Vault, richard Mathesons novel I Am Legend would also influence an entire genre of apocalyptic zombie fiction emblematic of the films of George A. Romero
11.
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
12.
Dark fantasy
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Dark fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy which can refer to literary, artistic, and cinematic works that incorporate darker and frightening themes of fantasy. It also often combines fantasy elements of horror. The term can be used broadly to refer to works that have a gloomy, dark atmosphere, or a sense of horror. A strict definition for dark fantasy is difficult to pin down, gertrude Barrows Bennett has been called the woman who invented dark fantasy. Both Charles L. Grant and Karl Edward Wagner are credited with having coined the term dark fantasy—although both authors were describing different styles of fiction. Brian Stableford argues dark fantasy can be defined as subgenre of stories that attempt to incorporate elements of horror fiction into the standard formulae of fantasy stories. Additionally, other authors, critics, and publishers have adopted dark fantasy to describe various other works, however, these stories rarely share universal similarities beyond supernatural occurrences and a dark, often brooding, tone. As a result, dark fantasy cannot be connected to a defining set of tropes. The term itself may refer collectively to tales that are either horror-based or fantasy-based, some writers also use dark fantasy as an alternative description to horror, because they feel the latter term is too lurid or vivid. Charles L. Grant is often cited as having coined the term dark fantasy, Grant defined his brand of dark fantasy as a type of horror story in which humanity is threatened by forces beyond human understanding. He often used dark fantasy as an alternative to horror, as horror was increasingly associated with more visceral works. Dark fantasy is also used to describe stories told from a monsters point of view. Anne Rices The Vampire Chronicles, Chelsea Quinn Yarbros Saint-Germain, and this is in contrast to the traditional horror model, which focuses more on the victims and survivors. In a more general sense, dark fantasy is used as a synonym for supernatural horror. For example, a story about a werewolf or vampire could be described as dark fantasy, Karl Edward Wagner is often credited for creating the term dark fantasy when used in a more fantasy-based context. Wagner used it to describe his fiction about the Gothic warrior Kane, since then, dark fantasy has sometimes been applied to sword and sorcery and high fantasy fiction that features anti-heroic or morally ambiguous protagonists. Another good example under this definition of dark fantasy is Michael Moorcocks saga of the albino swordsman Elric. The fantasy work of H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and their imitators have been specified as dark fantasy, Dark fantasy is occasionally used to describe fantasy works by authors that the public primarily associates with the horror genre
13.
Fungi from Yuggoth
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Fungi from Yuggoth is a sequence of 36 sonnets by cosmic horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Most of the sonnets were written between 27 December 1929 –4 January 1930, thereafter individual sonnets appeared in Weird Tales, the sequence was published complete in Beyond the Wall of Sleep and The Ancient Track, The Complete Poetical Works of H. P. Lovecraft. Ballantine Books’ mass paperback edition, Fungi From Yuggoth & Other Poems was followed in 1982 by the printing of Lovecrafts sonnet cycle. This may have been the first time that the sequence was published in its corrected text, Fungi from Yuggoth represents a marked departure from the mannered poems Lovecraft had been writing up to this point. Sending a copy of Recapture the poet remarks that it is illustrative of my efforts to practice what I preach regarding direct, the sonnet forms used by Lovecraft veer between the Petrarchan and the Shakespearean. His multiple use there of feminine rhyme is reminiscent of A. E. Housman, in addition, his sonnet 13 has much the same theme as Housmans Into my heart an air that kills. Varying opinions have been expressed in the literature on Lovecraft as to whether the poems form a continuous cycle which tells a story. Phillip A. Ellis, in his essay Unity in Diversity, Fungi from Yuggoth as a Unified Setting, discusses this problem and suggests a solution. The first three poems in the sequence concern a person who obtains an ancient book of knowledge that seems to allow one to travel to parallel realities or strange parts of the universe. With one or two exceptions, the poems from Expectancy onward seek to explain the circumstances of the narrators sense of alienation within the present. Rather than visions themselves, these serve as a commentary on their source. The sonnets see-saw between various themes in much the way as do Lovecrafts short stories. That these themes often cross-fertilize each other is suggested by Star Winds, or, as he himself puts it in Star Winds, Yet for each dream these winds to us convey, A dozen more of ours they sweep away. In addition to The Whisperer in Darkness, the cycle references other works by Lovecraft, the town of Innsmouth is mentioned in sonnets VIII and XIX The story told in sonnet XII presages The Dreams in the Witch House. Its description of the familiar, described as a four-pawed thing with human face, echoes the description of Brown Jenkin. Sonnet XV references the ancient city in his story At the Mountains of Madness, Sonnet XX names both the Nightgaunts from The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath and the Shoggoths from At the Mountains of Madness. Sonnets XXI and XXII respectively are named for and concern the Outer Gods Nyarlathotep, Sonnet XXVI deals with events preceding those in The Dunwich Horror. Sonnet XXVII references the Plateau of Leng, mentioned in many of Lovecrafts works, harold S. Farnese set two sonnets to music, “Mirage” and “The Elder Pharos”, and performed them in 1932
14.
Western (genre)
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Cowboys and gunslingers typically wear Stetson hats, bandannas, spurs, cowboy boots and buckskins. Other characters include Native Americans, bandits, lawmen, bounty hunters, outlaws, mounted cavalry, settlers, Westerns often stress the harshness of the wilderness and frequently set the action in an arid, desolate landscape of deserts and mountains. Often, the vast landscape plays an important role, presenting a. mythic vision of the plains, specific settings include ranches, small frontier towns, saloons, railways and isolated military forts of the Wild West. Many Westerns use a plot of depicting a crime, then showing the pursuit of the wrongdoer, ending in revenge and retribution. The Western was the most popular Hollywood genre, from the early 20th century to the 1960s, Western films first became well-attended in the 1930s. John Fords landmark Western adventure Stagecoach became one of the biggest hits in 1939, Westerns were very popular throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Many of the most acclaimed Westerns were released during this time – including High Noon, Shane, The Searchers, the Western depicts a society organized around codes of honor and personal, direct or private justice–frontier justice–dispensed by gunfights. These honor codes are played out through depictions of feuds or individuals seeking personal revenge or retribution against someone who has wronged them. The popular perception of the Western is a story that centers on the life of a semi-nomadic wanderer, a showdown or duel at high noon featuring two or more gunfighters is a stereotypical scene in the popular conception of Westerns. In some ways, such protagonists may be considered the descendants of the knight errant which stood at the center of earlier extensive genres such as the Arthurian Romances. And like knights errant, the heroes of Westerns frequently rescue damsels in distress, similarly, the wandering protagonists of Westerns share many characteristics with the ronin in modern Japanese culture. The Western typically takes these elements and uses them to tell simple morality tales, Westerns often stress the harshness and isolation of the wilderness and frequently set the action in an arid, desolate landscape. Apart from the wilderness, it is usually the saloon that emphasizes that this is the Wild West, it is the place to go for music, women, gambling, drinking, brawling and shooting. The American Film Institute defines western films as those set in the American West that embodies the spirit, the struggle, the term Western, used to describe a narrative film genre, appears to have originated with a July 1912 article in Motion Picture World Magazine. Most of the characteristics of Western films were part of 19th century popular Western fiction and were firmly in place before film became an art form. Protagonists ride between dusty towns and cattle ranches on their trusty steeds, Western films were enormously popular in the silent film era. With the advent of sound in 1927-28, the major Hollywood studios rapidly abandoned Westerns, leaving the genre to smaller studios and these smaller organizations churned out countless low-budget features and serials in the 1930s. Released through United Artists, Stagecoach made John Wayne a mainstream star in the wake of a decade of headlining B westerns
15.
Stephen King
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Stephen Edwin King is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy. His books have more than 350 million copies, many of which have been adapted into feature films, miniseries, television shows. King has published 54 novels, including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman and he has written nearly 200 short stories, most of which have been collected in book collections. Many of his stories are set in his state of Maine. His novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption was the basis for the movie The Shawshank Redemption which is regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. King has received Bram Stoker Awards, World Fantasy Awards, and his novella The Way Station was a Nebula Award novelette nominee. In 2003, the National Book Foundation awarded him the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and his short story The Man in the Black Suit received the O. Henry Award. In 2015, King was awarded with a National Medal of Arts from the United States National Endowment for the Arts for his contributions to literature, King was born September 21,1947, in Portland, Maine. His father, Donald Edwin King, was born circa 1913 in Peru, Indiana, when Donald was born, his surname was Pollock, but as an adult, he used the surname King. Kings mother, Nellie Ruth, was born in Scarborough, Maine, Donald and Nellie were married July 23,1939, in Cumberland County, Maine. The family moved to De Pere, Wisconsin, Fort Wayne, Indiana, when King was 11, the family returned to Durham, Maine, where his mother cared for her parents until their deaths. She then became a caregiver in a residential facility for the mentally challenged. King was raised Methodist and remains religious as an adult, as a child, King apparently witnessed one of his friends being struck and killed by a train, though he has no memory of the event. His family told him that leaving home to play with the boy, King returned, speechless. Only later did the family learn of the friends death, some commentators have suggested that this event may have psychologically inspired some of Kings darker works, but King makes no mention of it in his memoir On Writing. King related in detail his primary inspiration for writing fiction in his non-fiction Danse Macabre. King compares his uncles successfully dowsing for water using the bough of a branch with the sudden realization of what he wanted to do for a living. King told Barnes & Noble Studios during a 2009 interview, I knew that Id found home when I read that book, King attended Durham Elementary School and graduated from Lisbon Falls High School, in Lisbon Falls, Maine
16.
F. Paul Wilson
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Francis Paul Wilson is an American author, primarily in the science fiction and horror genres. Wilson is also a practicing family physician. He made his first sales in 1970 to Analog while still in medical school, in 1981, he ventured into the horror genre with the international bestseller, The Keep, and helped define the field throughout the rest of the decade. In the 1990s, he became a true genre hopper, moving from science fiction to horror to medical thrillers and branching into interactive scripting for Disney Interactive and other multimedia companies. He, along with Matthew J. Costello, created and scripted FTL Newsfeed, among Wilsons best-known characters is the anti-hero Repairman Jack, an urban mercenary introduced in the 1984 New York Times bestseller, The Tomb. Unwilling to start a character at the time, Wilson refused to write a second Repairman Jack novel until Legacies in 1998. Since then he has one per year along with side trips into vampire fiction, science fiction. Current books sales are around six million, throughout his writing – especially in his earlier science fiction works – Wilson has included explicitly libertarian political philosophy which extends to his Repairman Jack series. He won the first Prometheus Award in 1979 for his novel Wheels Within Wheels, the Libertarian Futurist Society has also honored Wilson with their Hall of Fame Award for Healer and An Enemy of the State. In 2015 he received the third special Prometheus Award for Lifetime Achievement, Wilson is a noted fan of H. P. Lovecraft Why. Because HPL is special to me, donald A. Wollheim is to blame. I was just a kid, a thirteen years old when he slipped me my first fix. I was a kid up till then, reading Ace Doubles and clean, wholesome science fiction stories by the likes of Heinlein, E. E. Smith, Poul Anderson, Fred Pohl. But he brought me down with one anthology and he knew what he was doing. He called it THE MACABRE READER and slapped this lurid neato cool Ed Emshwiller cover on it. In answer to a claim that Tolkiens Lord of the Rings was an influence on The Keep, Wilson responded, First off, Im not a fan of LOtR – I struggled through it once as a teen and never looked back. The influences on The Keep were Ludlum, R. E. Howard, a prominent example is his novel An Enemy of the State, which was written during the 1970s, an era that saw stagflation develop in the U. S. economy. In that period, inflation in the United States reached its highest level since World War II, the protagonist La Nague was born on Tolive, where the philosophy led to a government described in detail in The Healer
17.
Methodism
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Methodism, or the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity which derive their inspiration from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and Johns brother Charles Wesley were also significant leaders in the movement and it originated as a revival within the 18th century Church of England and became a separate Church after Wesleys death. Because of vigorous missionary work, the movement spread throughout the British Empire, Wesleys theology focused on sanctification and the effect of faith on the character of a Christian. Distinguishing Methodist doctrines include an assurance of salvation, imparted righteousness, the possibility of perfection in love, the works of piety and the primacy of Scripture. Most Methodists teach that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for all of humanity and that salvation is available for all, in theology and this teaching rejects the Calvinist position that God has pre-ordained the salvation of a select group of people. However, Whitefield and several others were considered Calvinistic Methodists and held to the latter position, Methodism emphasises charity and support for the sick, the poor and the afflicted through the works of mercy. These ideals are put into practice by the establishment of hospitals, orphanages, soup kitchens and schools to follow Christs command to spread the gospel, the movement has a wide variety of forms of worship, ranging from high church to low church in liturgical usage. Denominations that descend from the British Methodist tradition are generally less ritualistic, Methodism is known for its rich musical tradition and Charles Wesley was instrumental in writing much of the hymnody of the Methodist Church. In Britain, the Methodist Church had an effect in the early decades of the making of the working class. In the United States, it became the religion of many slaves who later formed black churches in the Methodist tradition. The Methodist revival began with a group of men, including John Wesley and his younger brother Charles, the Wesley brothers founded the Holy Club at the University of Oxford, where John was a fellow and later a lecturer at Lincoln College. The club met weekly and they set about living a holy life. They were accustomed to receiving Communion every week, fasting regularly, abstaining from most forms of amusement and luxury and frequently visited the sick, the fellowship were branded as Methodist by their fellow students because of the way they used rule and method to go about their religious affairs. John, who was leader of the club, took the attempted mockery, unsuccessful in their work, the brothers returned to England conscious of their lack of genuine Christian faith. They looked for help to Peter Boehler and other members of the Moravian Church, at a Moravian service in Aldersgate on 24 May 1738, John experienced what has come to be called his evangelical conversion, when he felt his heart strangely warmed. Charles had reported an experience an few days previously. Considered a pivotal moment, Daniel L. John Wesley came under the influence of the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius, Arminius had rejected the Calvinist teaching that God had pre-ordained an elect number of people to eternal bliss while others perished eternally. Conversely, George Whitefield, Howell Harris, and Selina Hastings, George Whitefield, returning from his own mission in Georgia, joined the Wesley brothers in what was rapidly to become a national crusade
18.
Wikisource
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Wikisource is an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project, the projects aims are to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, the project officially began in November 24,2003 under the name Project Sourceberg. The name Wikisource was adopted later that year and it received its own domain name seven months later, the project has come under criticism for lack of reliability but it is also cited by organisations such as the National Archives and Records Administration. The project holds works that are either in the domain or freely licensed, professionally published works or historical source documents, not vanity products. Verification was initially made offline, or by trusting the reliability of digital libraries. Now works are supported by online scans via the ProofreadPage extension, some individual Wikisources, each representing a specific language, now only allow works backed up with scans. While the bulk of its collection are texts, Wikisource as a whole hosts other media, some Wikisources allow user-generated annotations, subject to the specific policies of the Wikisource in question. Wikisources early history included several changes of name and location, the original concept for Wikisource was as storage for useful or important historical texts. These texts were intended to support Wikipedia articles, by providing evidence and original source texts. The collection was focused on important historical and cultural material. The project was originally called Project Sourceberg during its planning stages, in 2001, there was a dispute on Wikipedia regarding the addition of primary source material, leading to edit wars over their inclusion or deletion. Project Sourceberg was suggested as a solution to this, perhaps Project Sourceberg can mainly work as an interface for easily linking from Wikipedia to a Project Gutenberg file, and as an interface for people to easily submit new work to PG. Wed want to complement Project Gutenberg--how, exactly, and Jimmy Wales adding like Larry, Im interested that we think it over to see what we can add to Project Gutenberg. It seems unlikely that primary sources should in general be editable by anyone -- I mean, Shakespeare is Shakespeare, unlike our commentary on his work, the project began its activity at ps. wikipedia. org. The contributors understood the PS subdomain to mean either primary sources or Project Sourceberg, however, this resulted in Project Sourceberg occupying the subdomain of the Pashto Wikipedia. A vote on the name changed it to Wikisource on December 6,2003. Despite the change in name, the project did not move to its permanent URL until July 23,2004, since Wikisource was initially called Project Sourceberg, its first logo was a picture of an iceberg
19.
James Blish
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James Benjamin Blish was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. Blish also wrote criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling, Jr. Blish was born at East Orange. In the late 1930s to the early 1940s, Blish was a member of the Futurians and he broke into science fiction print with two stories published by Frederik Pohl in Super Science Stories, Emergency Refueling in March and Bequest of the Angel in May 1940. ISFDB catalogs ten more stories published during 1941 and 1942, Blish trained as a biologist at Rutgers and Columbia University, and spent 1942–1944 as a medical technician in the United States Army. After the war he became the editor for the Pfizer pharmaceutical company. His writing career progressed until he gave up his job to become a professional writer and he is credited with coining the term gas giant, in the story Solar Plexus as it appeared in the anthology Beyond Human Ken, edited by Judith Merril. From 1962 to 1968, Blish worked for the Tobacco Institute, Blish adapted episodes of Star Trek for Bantam Books. They were collected into volumes, and published as a title series of the same name from 1967 to 1977. The adaptations were based on draft scripts, often containing additional plot elements or differing situations from the televised episodes. The original novel Spock Must Die. also by Blish, was released by Bantam in 1970, Blish noted his financial stability later in life was the result of his Star Trek work. Releases after Star Trek 6 were likely written in collaboration with his wife Judith Lawrence, Blish died before the series was completed, and the final volume, Star Trek 12, was co-credited to his wife. She continued the series with Mudds Angels in 1978, the archive of Blishs books and papers is deposited at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Blish is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford, perhaps Blishs most famous works were the Okies stories, known collectively as Cities in Flight, published in the science-fiction digest magazine Astounding Science Fiction. The framework for these was set in the first of four novels, They Shall Have Stars, the second is the development of an antigravity device known as the spindizzy. Since the device becomes more efficient when used to larger objects, entire cities leave an Earth in decline and rove the stars. The long life provided by ascomycin is necessary because the journeys between stars are time-consuming, the second, A Life For The Stars, is a coming of age story set amid flying cities. For his fourth and final installment, The Triumph of Time, a film version of Cities in Flight was in pre-production by Spacefilms in 1979, but never materialized. This term describes the background of a number of Blishs science fiction short stories, Three distinct technologies, their invention, and consequences are outlined
20.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
21.
Frederik Pohl
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From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited Galaxy and its sister magazine If, the latter won three successive annual Hugo Awards as the years best professional magazine. He won the Campbell Memorial Award again for the 1984 collection of novellas Years of the City, for his 1979 novel Jem, Pohl won a U. S. National Book Award in the one-year category Science Fiction. It was a finalist for three other years best novel awards and he won four Hugo and three Nebula Awards. Pohl won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 2010, for his blog, Pohl was the son of Frederik George Pohl and Anna Jane Mason. Pohl Sr. held various jobs, and the Pohls lived in such locations as Texas, California, New Mexico. The family settled in Brooklyn when Pohl was around seven and he attended Brooklyn Technical High School, and dropped out at 17. In 2009, he was awarded a diploma from Brooklyn Tech. While a teenager, he co-founded the New York–based Futurians fan group, and began lifelong friendships with Donald Wollheim, Isaac Asimov and others who would become important writers and editors. Pohl later said that other friends came and went and were gone, many of the ones I met through fandom were friends all their lives – Isaac, Damon Knight, Cyril Kornbluth, Dirk Wylie, Dick Wilson. In fact, there are one or two – Jack Robins, Dave Kyle – whom I still count as friends, seventy-odd years later and he published a science fiction fanzine called Mind of Man. During 1936, Pohl joined the Young Communist League because of its positions for unions and against racial prejudice, Adolf Hitler and he became president of the local Flatbush III Branch of the YCL in Brooklyn. Pohl has said that after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, the party changed and he could no longer support it. Pohl served in the United States Army from April 1943 until November 1945, after training in Illinois, Oklahoma, and Colorado, he was mainly stationed in Italy with the 456th Bombardment Group. His first wife, Leslie Perri, was another Futurian, they were married in August 1940 and he then married Dorothy LesTina in Paris in August 1945 while both were serving in the military in Europe, the marriage ended in 1947. During 1948, he married Judith Merril, they had a daughter, Pohl and Merril divorced in 1952. In 1953, he married Carol M. Ulf Stanton, with whom he had three children and collaborated on books, they separated in 1977 and were divorced in 1983. From 1984 until his death, Pohl was married to science fiction expert and he fathered four children – Ann, Frederik III, Frederik IV and Kathy. Grandchildren include Canadian writer Emily Pohl-Weary and chef Tobias Pohl-Weary, from 1984 on, he lived in Palatine, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago
22.
S. T. Joshi
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Sunand Tryambak Joshi, known as S. T. Joshi, is an Indian American literary critic, novelist, and a leading figure in the study of H. P. Lovecraft and other authors of weird and fantastic fiction. Joshi has compiled, edited or written over 200 books, detailed in the recent publication 200 Books by S. T. He is a significant bibliographer, having compiled bibliographies of Lovecraft, Bierce, Dunsany, Ramsey Campbell, William Hope Hodgson, Ray Bradbury and he has been general editor of the Horror Classics series for Dover Publications. Joshi is known for his style, and has been described by editor Ellen Datlow as the nastiest reviewer in the field. Most recently he has turned his attention to collecting and editing the works of H. L. Mencken and he currently resides in Seattle, Washington. Joshi discovered Lovecraft when he was 13 in the library in Muncie. He also wrote some Lovecraftian fiction such as the story The Recurring Doom, which can be found in Robert M. Joshi elected to become a freshman at Brown University, where he received a B. A. and M. A. in classics, primarily because of the holdings of Lovecraft books and manuscripts in the John Hay Library. He later did work at Princeton University from 1982 to 1984. His literary criticism is notable for its emphases upon readability and exploration of the dominant worldviews of the authors in question and his The Weird Tale looks at six acknowledged masters of horror and fantasy, and discusses their respective worldviews in depth and with authority. Aside from his biography of Lovecraft, Joshi regards this book as his most notable achievement to date, unutterable Horror, A History of Supernatural Fiction is a comprehensive history of supernatural fiction from Gilgamesh to the present day. Older claimed Lovecrafts image was unacceptable because of his racism, in response, Joshi stated “the WFA bust acknowledges Lovecraft’s literary status in the field of weird fiction and it says nothing about Lovecraft’s personality or character. I’m pretty sure this is not the message the World Fantasy Convention meant to send when they gave Okorafor the prize in the first place. In 1987, Joshi became the fifth Official Editor of the EOD amateur press association, Lovecraft particularly but which also examines weird and fantasy fiction in all its forms. He has maintained this role for more than two decades and is still Editor, Joshi edited the journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction, both published by Necronomicon Press, and Studies in the Fantastic, published by the University of Tampa Press. He is editor of Weird Fiction Review, and the Hippocampus Press journals Spectral Realms, Lovecraft Annual and he was formerly co-editor of Dead Reckonings. Joshi and Schultz are now progressively issuing volumes of H. P. Lovecrafts letters to individual correspondents through Hippocampus Press. Volumes already issued include Lovecrafts letters to Rheinhart Kleiner, Alfred Galpin, August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, James F. Morton, Elizabeth Toldridge, Joshi edited the five-volume set of Lovecrafts Collected Essays issued by Hippocampus Press from 2004-2006
23.
Project Gutenberg
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Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks. It was founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library, most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The project tries to make these as free as possible, in long-lasting, as of 3 October 2015, Project Gutenberg reached 50,000 items in its collection. The releases are available in plain text but, wherever possible, other formats are included, such as HTML, PDF, EPUB, MOBI, most releases are in the English language, but many non-English works are also available. There are multiple affiliated projects that are providing additional content, including regional, Project Gutenberg is also closely affiliated with Distributed Proofreaders, an Internet-based community for proofreading scanned texts. Project Gutenberg was started by Michael Hart in 1971 with the digitization of the United States Declaration of Independence, Hart, a student at the University of Illinois, obtained access to a Xerox Sigma V mainframe computer in the universitys Materials Research Lab. Through friendly operators, he received an account with an unlimited amount of computer time. Hart has said he wanted to back this gift by doing something that could be considered to be of great value. His initial goal was to make the 10,000 most consulted books available to the public at little or no charge and this particular computer was one of the 15 nodes on ARPANET, the computer network that would become the Internet. Hart believed that computers would one day be accessible to the general public and he used a copy of the United States Declaration of Independence in his backpack, and this became the first Project Gutenberg e-text. He named the project after Johannes Gutenberg, the fifteenth century German printer who propelled the movable type printing press revolution, by the mid-1990s, Hart was running Project Gutenberg from Illinois Benedictine College. More volunteers had joined the effort, all of the text was entered manually until 1989 when image scanners and optical character recognition software improved and became more widely available, which made book scanning more feasible. Hart later came to an arrangement with Carnegie Mellon University, which agreed to administer Project Gutenbergs finances, as the volume of e-texts increased, volunteers began to take over the projects day-to-day operations that Hart had run. Starting in 2004, an online catalog made Project Gutenberg content easier to browse, access. Project Gutenberg is now hosted by ibiblio at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Italian volunteer Pietro Di Miceli developed and administered the first Project Gutenberg website and started the development of the Project online Catalog. In his ten years in this role, the Project web pages won a number of awards, often being featured in best of the Web listings, Hart died on 6 September 2011 at his home in Urbana, Illinois at the age of 64. In 2000, a corporation, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Long-time Project Gutenberg volunteer Gregory Newby became the foundations first CEO, also in 2000, Charles Franks founded Distributed Proofreaders, which allowed the proofreading of scanned texts to be distributed among many volunteers over the Internet
24.
Internet Archive
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The Internet Archive is a San Francisco–based nonprofit digital library with the stated mission of universal access to all knowledge. As of October 2016, its collection topped 15 petabytes, in addition to its archiving function, the Archive is an activist organization, advocating for a free and open Internet. Its web archive, the Wayback Machine, contains over 150 billion web captures, the Archive also oversees one of the worlds largest book digitization projects. Founded by Brewster Kahle in May 1996, the Archive is a 501 nonprofit operating in the United States. It has a budget of $10 million, derived from a variety of sources, revenue from its Web crawling services, various partnerships, grants, donations. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California, where about 30 of its 200 employees work, Most of its staff work in its book-scanning centers. The Archive has data centers in three Californian cities, San Francisco, Redwood City, and Richmond, the Archive is a member of the International Internet Preservation Consortium and was officially designated as a library by the State of California in 2007. Brewster Kahle founded the Archive in 1996 at around the time that he began the for-profit web crawling company Alexa Internet. In October 1996, the Internet Archive had begun to archive and preserve the World Wide Web in large quantities, the archived content wasnt available to the general public until 2001, when it developed the Wayback Machine. In late 1999, the Archive expanded its collections beyond the Web archive, Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software. It hosts a number of projects, the NASA Images Archive, the contract crawling service Archive-It. According to its web site, Most societies place importance on preserving artifacts of their culture, without such artifacts, civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures. Our culture now produces more and more artifacts in digital form, the Archives mission is to help preserve those artifacts and create an Internet library for researchers, historians, and scholars. In August 2012, the Archive announced that it has added BitTorrent to its file download options for over 1.3 million existing files, on November 6,2013, the Internet Archives headquarters in San Franciscos Richmond District caught fire, destroying equipment and damaging some nearby apartments. The nonprofit Archive sought donations to cover the estimated $600,000 in damage, in November 2016, Kahle announced that the Internet Archive was building the Internet Archive of Canada, a copy of the archive to be based somewhere in the country of Canada. The announcement received widespread coverage due to the implication that the decision to build an archive in a foreign country was because of the upcoming presidency of Donald Trump. Kahle was quoted as saying that on November 9th in America and it was a firm reminder that institutions like ours, built for the long-term, need to design for change. For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and it means preparing for a Web that may face greater restrictions
25.
LibriVox
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On 6 August 2016, the project completed project number 10,000. Most releases are in the English language, but many works are also available. There are multiple affiliated projects that are providing additional content, LibriVox is closely affiliated with Project Gutenberg from where the project gets some of its texts, and the Internet Archive that hosts their offerings. LibriVox was started in August 2005 by Montreal-based writer Hugh McGuire, who set up a blog, the first recorded book was The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad. LibriVox is an invented word inspired by Latin words liber in its genitive form libri and vox, the word was also coined because of other connotations as liber also means child and free, independent, unrestricted. As the LibriVox forum says it, We like to think LibriVox might be interpreted as child of the voice, finally, the other link we like is library so you could imagine it to mean Library of Voice. There has been no decision or consensus by LibriVox founders or the community of volunteers for a single pronunciation of LibriVox and it is accepted that any audible pronunciation is accurate. LibriVox is a volunteer-run, free content, Public Domain project and it has no budget or legal personality. The development of projects is managed through an Internet forum, supported by an admin team, in early 2010, LibriVox ran a fundraising drive to raise $20,000 to cover hosting costs for the website of about $5, 000/year and improve front- and backend usability. Volunteers can choose new projects to start, either recording on their own or inviting others to join them, once a volunteer has recorded his or her contribution, it is uploaded to the site, and proof-listened by members of the LibriVox community. Finished audiobooks are available from the LibriVox website, and MP3, recordings are also available through other means, such as iTunes, and, being free of copyright, they are frequently distributed independently of LibriVox on the Internet and otherwise. LibriVox only records material that is in the domain in the United States. Because of copyright restrictions, LibriVox produces recordings of only a number of contemporary books. These have included, for example, the 9/11 Commission Report and it contains much popular classic fiction, but also includes less predictable texts, such as Immanuel Kants Critique of Pure Reason and a recording of the first 500 digits of pi. The collection also features poetry, plays, religious texts and non-fiction of various kinds, in January 2009, the catalogue contained approximately 55 percent fiction and drama,25 percent non-fiction and 20 percent poetry. By the end of 2016, the most viewed item was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in a 2006 solo recording by John Greenman, around 90 percent of the catalogue is recorded in English, but recordings exist in 31 languages altogether. Chinese, French and German are the most popular languages other than English amongst volunteers, LibriVox has garnered significant interest, in particular from those interested in the promotion of volunteer-led content and alternative approaches to copyright ownership on the Internet. It has received support from the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg, intellectual freedom and commons proponent Mike Linksvayer described it in 2008 as perhaps the most interesting collaborative culture project this side of Wikipedia
26.
Bibsys
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BIBSYS is an administrative agency set up and organized by the Ministry of Education and Research in Norway. They are a provider, focusing on the exchange, storage and retrieval of data pertaining to research. BIBSYS are collaborating with all Norwegian universities and university colleges as well as research institutions, Bibsys is formally organized as a unit at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, located in Trondheim, Norway. The board of directors is appointed by Norwegian Ministry of Education, BIBSYS offer researchers, students and others an easy access to library resources by providing the unified search service Oria. no and other library services. They also deliver integrated products for the operation for research. As a DataCite member BIBSYS act as a national DataCite representative in Norway and thereby allow all of Norways higher education, all their products and services are developed in cooperation with their member institutions. The purpose of the project was to automate internal library routines, since 1972 Bibsys has evolved from a library system supplier for two libraries in Trondheim, to developing and operating a national library system for Norwegian research and special libraries. The target group has expanded to include the customers of research and special libraries. BIBSYS is an administrative agency answerable to the Ministry of Education and Research. In addition to BIBSYS Library System, the product consists of BISBYS Ask, BIBSYS Brage, BIBSYS Galleri. All operation of applications and databases is performed centrally by BIBSYS, BIBSYS also offer a range of services, both in connection with their products and separate services independent of the products they supply
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Virtual International Authority File
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The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library, the National Library of France joined the project on October 5,2007. The project transitions to a service of the OCLC on April 4,2012, the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together, a VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary see and see also records from the original records, and refers to the original authority records. The data are available online and are available for research and data exchange. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol, the file numbers are also being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAFs clustering algorithm is run every month, as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records
