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.
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
3.
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
4.
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
5.
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
6.
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
