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.
Thriller (genre)
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Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film and television, having numerous subgenres. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation, successful examples of thrillers are the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Thrillers generally keep the audience on the edge of their seats as the plot builds towards a climax, the cover-up of important information is a common element. Literary devices such as red herrings, plot twists, and cliffhangers are used extensively, a thriller is usually a villain-driven plot, whereby he or she presents obstacles that the protagonist must overcome. Homers Odyssey is one of the oldest stories in the Western world and is regarded as a prototype of the thriller. Thrillers may be defined by the mood that they elicit. In short, if it thrills, it is a thriller, as the introduction to a major anthology explains, Suspense is a crucial characteristic of the thriller genre. It gives the viewer a feeling of pleasurable fascination and excitement mixed with apprehension, anticipation and tension and these develop from unpredictable, mysterious and rousing events during the narrative, which make the viewer or reader think about the outcome of certain actions. Suspense builds in order to make those final moments, no matter how short, the suspense in a story keeps the person hooked to reading or watching more until the climax is reached. In terms of expectations, it may be contrasted with curiosity. The objective is to deliver a story with sustained tension, surprise, the second type of suspense is the. anticipation wherein we either know or else are fairly certain about what is going to happen but are still aroused in anticipation of its actual occurrence. According to Greek philosopher Aristotle in his book Poetics, suspense is an important building block of literature, common methods and themes in crime and action thrillers are mainly ransoms, captivities, heists, revenge, kidnappings. Common in mystery thrillers are investigations and the whodunit technique, common elements in dramatic and psychological thrillers include plot twists, psychology, obsession and mind games. Common in horror thrillers are serial killers, stalking, deathtraps, elements such as fringe theories, false accusations and paranoia are common in paranoid thrillers. Threats to entire countries, spies, espionage, conspiracies, assassins, the themes frequently include terrorism, political conspiracy, pursuit, or romantic triangles leading to murder. Plots of thrillers involve characters which come into conflict with other or with outside forces. The protagonist of these films is set against a problem, no matter what subgenre a thriller film falls into, it will emphasize the danger that the protagonist faces. While protagonists of thrillers have traditionally been men, women characters are increasingly common
3.
War novel
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Many war novels are historical novels. The war novels origins are in the poetry of the classical and medieval periods, especially Homers The Iliad, Virgils The Aeneid, sagas like the Old English Beowulf. Other important influences on the war included the tragedies of dramatists such as Euripides, Seneca the Younger, Christopher Marlowe. Euripedes The Trojan Women is a disturbing play on the theme of wars horrors. A Notable non-western example of war novel is Luo Guanzhongs Romance of the Three Kingdoms, an example of one such work is Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausens Simplicius Simplicissimus, a semi-autobiographical account of the Thirty Years War. World War I produced a number of war novels, by writers from countries on all sides of the conflict. One of the first and most influential of these was the 1916 novel Le Feu by the French novelist, barbusses novel, with its open criticism of nationalist dogma and military incompetence, initiated the anti-war movement in literature that flourished after the war. Of equal significance is the work of Ernst Jünger, In Stahlgewittern. The work not only provides for a perspective of the War. One example of type of novel is Virginia Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway, in which a key subplot concerns the tortuous descent of a young veteran, Septimus Warren Smith, toward insanity. In 1924, Laurence Stallings published his war novel, Plumes. The 1920s saw the so-called war book boom, during which men who had fought during the war were finally ready to write openly and critically about their war experiences. Novels about World War I appeared less in the 1930s, though during this decade historical novels about earlier wars became popular, margaret Mitchells Gone with the Wind, which recalls the American Civil War, is an example of works of this trend. World War II gave rise to a new boom in contemporary war novels, among more recent European novels is Ukraine - In the Time of War, by Sonia Campbell-Gillies which has seen a sudden upsurge in demand since the annexation of Crimea by Russia. Ukraines war-torn history is mirrored in the struggle for survival, freedom, Ukrainian literature is scarce since the Ukrainian language was banned during occupation by various forces. The previous volume Le sursis (1945, The Reprieve, explores the ramifications of the appeasement pact that Great Britain, another significant French war novel was Pierre Boulles Le Pont de la rivière Kwaï. He served as an agent under the name Peter John Rule and helped the resistance movement in China, Burma. He served in the cavalry in 1940 and even took part in an attack on horseback against tanks, Greenes later The End of the Affair is set mainly during the flying bomb raids on London of 1944
4.
Hard science fiction
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Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific accuracy. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell, the complementary term soft science fiction, formed by analogy to hard science fiction, first appeared in the late 1970s. The term is formed by analogy to the distinction between the hard and soft sciences. The heart of the hard SF designation is the relationship of the content and attitude to the rest of the narrative. Later discoveries do not necessarily invalidate the label of hard SF, as evidenced by P. Schuyler Miller, there is a degree of flexibility in how far from real science a story can stray before it leaves the realm of hard SF. Readers of hard SF often try to find inaccuracies in stories, the same book famously featured a devastating inaccuracy, the eponymous Ringworld is not a stable orbit and would crash into the sun without active stabilization. Niven fixed these errors in his sequel The Ringworld Engineers, films set in outer space which aspire to the hard SF label try to minimize the artistic liberties taken for the sake of practicality of effect. Factors include, How the film accounts for weightlessness in space, how the film depicts sound despite the vacuum of space. Whether telecommunications are instant or are limited by the speed of light, cosmic Engineers, A Study of Hard Science Fiction. Hard Science Fiction Exclusive Interviews Kheper Realism scale Science Fiction Stories with Good Astronomy & Physics, the Ten Best Hard Science Fiction Books of all Time, selected by the editors of MITs Technology Review,2011 Low-Level Science fiction, Sci-fi with hard science and a literary slant
5.
Espionage
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Espionage is the obtaining of information considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage can be committed by an individual or a spy ring, in the service of a government or a company, the practice is inherently clandestine, as it is by definition unwelcome and in many cases illegal and punishable by law. Espionage is a subset of intelligence gathering, which includes espionage as well as information gathering from public sources, Espionage is often part of an institutional effort by a government or commercial concern. However, the term is associated with state spying on potential or actual enemies primarily for military purposes. Spying involving corporations is known as industrial espionage, one of the most effective ways to gather data and information about the enemy is by infiltrating the enemys ranks. This is the job of the spy, Spies can bring back all sorts of information concerning the size and strength of enemy forces. They can also find dissidents within the forces and influence them to defect. In times of crisis, spies can also be used to steal technology, counterintelligence operatives can feed false information to enemy spies, protecting important domestic secrets, and preventing attempts at subversion. Nearly every country has strict laws concerning espionage, and the penalty for being caught is often severe. However, the benefits that can be gained through espionage are generally great enough that most governments, events involving espionage are well documented throughout history. The Old Testament of the Christian Bible, which is based primarily on the Hebrew Bible, speaks about Joshua and Caleb, the ancient writings of Chinese and Indian military strategists such as Sun-Tzu and Chanakya contain information on deception and subversion. Chanakyas student Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the Maurya Empire in India, made use of assassinations, spies and secret agents, the ancient Egyptians had a thoroughly developed system for the acquisition of intelligence, and the Hebrews used spies as well, as in the story of Rahab. Spies were also prevalent in the Greek and Roman empires, during the 13th and 14th centuries, the Mongols relied heavily on espionage in their conquests in Asia and Europe. Feudal Japan often used ninjas to gather intelligence, aztecs used Pochtecas, people in charge of commerce, as spies and diplomats, and had diplomatic immunity. Many modern espionage methods were established by Francis Walsingham in Elizabethan England, in 1585, Mary, Queen of Scots was placed in the custody of Sir Amias Paulet, who was instructed to open and read all of Marys clandestine correspondence. In a successful attempt to expose her, Walsingham arranged a single exception, Mary was misled into thinking these secret letters were secure, while in reality they were deciphered and read by Walsinghams agents. He succeeded in intercepting letters that indicated a conspiracy to displace Elizabeth I with Mary, in foreign intelligence, Walsinghams extensive network of intelligencers, who passed on general news as well as secrets, spanned Europe and the Mediterranean. While foreign intelligence was a part of the principal secretarys activities, Walsingham brought to it flair and ambition
6.
Martial arts
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Although the term martial art has become associated with the fighting arts of eastern Asia, it originally referred to the combat systems of Europe as early as the 1550s. The term is derived from Latin, and means arts of Mars, Martial arts may be categorized along a variety of criteria, including, Traditional or historical arts vs. contemporary styles of folk wrestling and modern hybrid martial arts. Such traditions include eskrima, silat, kalaripayat, kobudo, and historical European martial arts, Many Chinese martial arts also feature weapons as part of their curriculum. Similarly, modern Western martial arts and sports include fencing, stick-fighting systems like canne de combat or singlestick. Combat-oriented Health-oriented Many martial arts, especially those from Asia, also teach side disciplines which pertain to medicinal practices and this is particularly prevalent in traditional Asian martial arts which may teach bone-setting, herbalism, and other aspects of traditional medicine. Spirituality-oriented Martial arts can also be linked with religion and spirituality, numerous systems are reputed to have been founded, disseminated, or practiced by monks or nuns. Throughout Asia, meditation may be incorporated as part of training, in those countries influenced by Hindu-Buddhist philosophy, the art itself may be used as an aid to attaining enlightenment. Japanese styles, when concerning non-physical qualities of the combat, are strongly influenced by Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. Concepts like empty mind and beginners mind are recurrent, aikido, for instance, can have a strong philosophical belief of the flow of energy and peace fostering, as idealised by its founder Morihei Ueshiba. Traditional Korean martial arts place emphasis on the development of the spiritual and philosophical development. A common theme in most Korean styles, such as taekkyeon and taekwondo, is the value of peace in a practitioner. The Koreans believe that the use of force is only justified through defense. Many such martial arts incorporate music, especially strong percussive rhythms, the oldest works of art depicting scenes of battle are cave paintings from Spain dated between 10,000 and 6,000 BCE that show organized groups fighting with bows and arrows. Chinese martial arts originated during the Xia Dynasty more than 4000 years ago and it is said the Yellow Emperor Huangdi introduced the earliest fighting systems to China. The Yellow Emperor is described as a general who, before becoming Chinas leader, wrote lengthy treatises on medicine, astrology. One of his opponents was Chi You who was credited as the creator of jiao di. The foundation of modern Asian martial arts is likely a blend of early Chinese, during the Warring States period of Chinese history extensive development in martial philosophy and strategy emerged, as described by Sun Tzu in The Art of War. Legendary accounts link the origin of Shaolinquan to the spread of Buddhism from India during the early 5th century AD, with the figure of Bodhidharma, to China
7.
Politics
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Politics is the process of making decisions applying to all members of each group. More narrowly, it refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance — organized control over a human community, furthermore, politics is the study or practice of the distribution of power and resources within a given community as well as the interrelationship between communities. It is very often said that politics is about power, a political system is a framework which defines acceptable political methods within a given society. History of political thought can be traced back to antiquity, with seminal works such as Platos Republic, Aristotles Politics. Formal Politics refers to the operation of a system of government and publicly defined institutions. Political parties, public policy or discussions about war and foreign affairs would fall under the category of Formal Politics, many people view formal politics as something outside of themselves, but that can still affect their daily lives. Semi-formal Politics is Politics in government associations such as neighborhood associations, informal Politics is understood as forming alliances, exercising power and protecting and advancing particular ideas or goals. Generally, this includes anything affecting ones daily life, such as the way an office or household is managed, informal Politics is typically understood as everyday politics, hence the idea that politics is everywhere. The word comes from the same Greek word from which the title of Aristotles book Politics also derives, the book title was rendered in Early Modern English in the mid-15th century as Polettiques, it became politics in Modern English. The history of politics is reflected in the origin, development, the origin of the state is to be found in the development of the art of warfare. Historically speaking, all communities of the modern type owe their existence to successful warfare. Kings, emperors and other types of monarchs in many countries including China, of the institutions that ruled states, that of kingship stood at the forefront until the French Revolution put an end to the divine right of kings. Nevertheless, the monarchy is among the political institutions, dating as early as 2100 BC in Sumeria to the 21st century AD British Monarchy. Kingship becomes an institution through the institution of Hereditary monarchy, the king often, even in absolute monarchies, ruled his kingdom with the aid of an elite group of advisors, a council without which he could not maintain power. As these advisors and others outside the monarchy negotiated for power, constitutional monarchies emerged, long before the council became a bulwark of democracy, it rendered invaluable aid to the institution of kingship by, Preserving the institution of kingship through heredity. Preserving the traditions of the social order, being able to withstand criticism as an impersonal authority. Being able to manage a greater deal of knowledge and action than an individual such as the king. The greatest of the subordinates, the earls and dukes in England and Scotland
8.
The Satan Bug (novel)
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The Satan Bug is a first-person narrative thriller novel written by Scottish author Alistair MacLean. It was originally published in 1962 under the pseudonym Ian Stuart, the story revolves around the theft of two germ warfare agents, botulinum toxin and the indestructible Satan Bug, from the Mordon Microbiological Research Establishment. There is no vaccine for the Satan Bug and it is so infectious that any release will rapidly destroy all life on Earth. With these phials of unstoppable power, a mad environmentalist threatens the population unless Mordon is razed to the ground. Like other of MacLeans works, the plot involves layers of deception, Cavell is called in by former colleagues at Special Branch after being tested with a bribe to ensure that he is still honest. During the theft the current head of security is killed with a cyanide-laced sweet presumably given to him by an insider he trusted. The villain releases botulinum toxin over an area of East Anglia, killing hundreds of livestock. He takes Cavells wife Mary hostage and sets off to London to blackmail the British government by threatening to release the Satan Bug in the City of Londons financial district, the villain uses his hostage to capture Cavell and several police officers and attempts to kill them with botulinum toxin. Cavell escapes, though one constable is poisoned and dies rapidly, after losing a fight on board the aircraft the villain explains his motives and jumps to his death, leaving the remaining phials of agent unbreached. 1962, UK1962, US, Scribners, hardback The novel was adapted as a 1965 film directed by John Sturges. The film starred George Maharis, Richard Basehart and Anne Francis, book review at AlistairMacLean. com Internet Movie Database
9.
Alistair MacLean
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Alistair Stuart MacLean was a Scottish novelist who wrote popular thrillers and adventure stories. His works include The Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra and he also wrote two novels under the pseudonym Ian Stuart. MacLean was the son of a Church of Scotland minister and learned English as a language after his mother tongue. He was born in Glasgow but spent much of his childhood and youth in Daviot and he was the third of four sons. He joined the Royal Navy in 1941, serving in World War II with the ranks of Ordinary Seaman, Able Seaman and he was first assigned to PS Bournemouth Queen, a converted excursion ship fitted for anti-aircraft guns, on duty off the coasts of England and Scotland. Beginning in 1943, he served on HMS Royalist, a Dido-class light cruiser, there he saw action in 1943 in the Atlantic theatre, on two Arctic convoys and escorting carrier groups in operations against Tirpitz and other targets off the Norwegian coast. In 1944 he and HMS Royalist served in the Mediterranean theatre, as part of the invasion of southern France, during this time MacLean may have been injured in a gunnery practice accident. In 1945, in the Far East theatre, MacLean and Royalist saw action escorting carrier groups in operations against Japanese targets in Burma, Malaya, after the Japanese surrender, Royalist helped evacuate liberated POWs from Changi Prison in Singapore. MacLean was released from the Royal Navy in 1946 and he then studied English at the University of Glasgow, graduating in 1953, and then worked as a school teacher in Rutherglen. While a university student, MacLean began writing stories for extra income. The publishing company Collins asked him for a novel and he responded with HMS Ulysses, based on his own war experiences, as well as credited insight from his brother Ian, a Master Mariner. The novel was a success and MacLean was soon able to devote himself entirely to writing war stories, spy stories. In the early 1960s, MacLean published two novels under the pseudonym Ian Stuart in order to prove that the popularity of his books was due to their content rather than his name on the cover. They sold well, but MacLean made no attempt to change his writing style, MacLeans books eventually sold so well that he moved to Switzerland as a tax exile. From 1963–1966, he took a hiatus from writing to run a business in England. MacLeans later books were not as well received as the publications and, in an attempt to keep his stories in keeping with the time. He also struggled constantly with alcoholism, which brought about his death in Munich on 2 February 1987. As reported in the newspaper he died of a stroke and he is buried a few yards from Richard Burton in Céligny, Switzerland
10.
Michael Crichton
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John Michael Crichton was an American best-selling author, screenwriter, film director and producer best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction and thriller genres. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and many have been adapted into films, in 1994, Crichton became the only creative artist ever to have works simultaneously charting at No.1 in US television, film, and book sales. His literary works are usually within the genre and heavily feature technology. His novels epitomize the techno-thriller genre of literature, often exploring technology and failures of human interaction with it, many of his future history novels have medical or scientific underpinnings, reflecting his medical training and science background. John Michael Crichton was born on October 23,1942, in Chicago, Illinois, to John Henderson Crichton, a journalist, and Zula Miller Crichton. He was raised on Long Island, in Roslyn, New York, Crichton had always planned on becoming a writer and began his studies at Harvard College in 1960. During his undergraduate study in literature, he conducted an experiment to expose a professor who he believed was giving him abnormally low marks, informing another professor of his suspicions, Crichton submitted an essay by George Orwell under his own name. The paper was returned by his unwitting professor with a mark of B− and he received a Henry Russell Shaw Traveling Fellowship from 1964 to 1965 and was a visiting lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom in 1965. Crichton later enrolled at Harvard Medical School, when he began publishing work, by this time he had become exceptionally tall, by his own account he was approximately 6 feet 9 inches tall in 1997. In reference to his height, while in school, he began writing novels under the pen names John Lange. He later described his Lange books in the way, My feeling about the Lange books is that my competition is in-flight movies. One can read the books in an hour and a half, I write them fast and the reader reads them fast and I get things off my back. In Travels he recalls overhearing doctors, who were unaware that he was the author, a Case of Need, written under the Hudson pseudonym, won him his first Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1969. He also co-wrote Dealing, or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues with his younger brother Douglas, the back cover of that book carried a picture, taken by their mother, of Michael and Douglas when very young. He graduated from Harvard, obtaining an MD in 1969, and undertook a fellowship study at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. He never obtained a license to practice medicine, devoting himself to his career instead. Reflecting on his career in medicine years later, Crichton concluded that too often shunned responsibility for their own health. He experimented with astral projection, aura viewing, and clairvoyance, in 1988, Crichton was a visiting writer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
11.
Tom Clancy
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Thomas Leo Tom Clancy Jr. was an American novelist and video game designer best known for his technically detailed espionage and military-science story lines set during and after the Cold War. Seventeen of his novels were bestsellers, and more than 100 million copies of his books are in print and his name was also used on movie scripts written by ghost writers, nonfiction books on military subjects, and video games. He was a part-owner of the Baltimore Orioles and vice-chairman of their community activities, Clancys literary career began in 1984 when he sold The Hunt for Red October for $5,000. His works, The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, Clancy died on October 1,2013, of an undisclosed illness. Clancy was born on April 12,1947, at Franklin Square Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland and he was the second of three children to Thomas Clancy, who worked for the United States Postal Service, and Catherine Clancy, who worked in a stores credit department. His mother worked to him to the private Catholic Loyola Blakefield in Towson, Maryland. He then attended Loyola College in Baltimore, graduating in 1969 with a degree in English literature, while at university, he was president of the chess club. He joined the Army Reserve Officers Training Corps, however, he was ineligible to serve due to his nearsightedness, after graduating, he worked for an insurance company in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1973, he joined the O. F. Bowen Agency, in 1980, he purchased the insurance agency from his wifes grandmother and wrote novels in his spare time. While working at the agency, he wrote his debut novel. Clancys literary career began in 1982 when he started writing The Hunt for Red October and she believed Clancy had an innate storytelling ability, and his characters had this very witty dialogue. The publisher requested Clancy to cut numerous technical details, amounting to about 100 pages, Clancy, who had wanted to sell 5,000 copies, ended up selling over 45,000. The book was praised for its technical accuracy, which led to Clancys meeting several high-ranking officers in the U. S. military. All but two of Clancys solely written novels feature Jack Ryan or John Clark, the Cold War epic Red Storm Rising was co-written with fellow military-oriented author Larry Bond. The first NetForce novel, titled Net Force, was adapted as a 1999 TV movie starring Scott Bakula, the first Op-Center novel was released to coincide with a 1995 NBC television miniseries of the same name starring Harry Hamlin and a cast of stars. Though the miniseries did not continue, the series did, but later had little in common with the first TV miniseries other than the title. Clancy wrote several books about various branches of the U. S. He also branded several lines of books and video games with his name that are written by other authors, by 1988, Clancy had earned $1.3 million for The Hunt for Red October and had signed a $3 million contract for his next three books
12.
The Andromeda Strain
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The Andromeda Strain appeared in the New York Times Best Seller list, establishing Michael Crichton as a genre writer. A military satellite returns to Earth, aerial surveillance reveals that everyone in Piedmont, Arizona, the town closest to where the satellite landed, is apparently dead. Upon investigating the town, the Wildfire team discovers that the residents died in mid-stride or went quietly nuts. Two Piedmont inhabitants—the sick, Sterno-addicted, geriatric Peter Jackson and the constantly bawling infant Jamie Ritter—are biological opposites who somehow survived the organism. Wildfire is hidden in an area near the fictional town of Flatrock, Nevada, sixty miles from Las Vegas. Dr. Hall is the only scientist authorized to disarm the automatic mechanism, he is an unmarried male. Further investigation determines that the deaths were caused by a crystal-structured, extraterrestrial microbe transported by a meteor that crashed into the satellite. The microbe, code named Andromeda, mutates with each growth cycle, the scientists learn that Andromeda grows only within a narrow pH range, in a too-acidic or too-alkaline growth medium, it will not multiply. Andromedas ideal pH range is 7. 39–7.43, within the found in normal human blood. That is why Jackson and Ritter survived, both had abnormal blood pH, however, by the time the scientists realize this, Andromeda has mutated into a form that degrades the labs plastic shields and escapes its containment. Trapped in the laboratory, Dr. Burton demands that Stone inject him with Kalocin, Stone refuses. Burton survives because the mutated Andromeda is no longer lethal to humans, the mutated Andromeda attacks the synthetic rubber door and hatch seals within the Wildfire complex, racing toward the upper levels and the surface. The self-destruct atomic bomb is armed when it detects a containment breach. To halt the detonation, Dr. Hall must insert a key he carries into an emergency substation anywhere in Wildfire. Unfortunately, he is trapped in a section with no substation and he must navigate Wildfires obstacle course of automatic defenses to reach a working substation on an upper level. He barely disarms the bomb in time all the air is evacuated from the deepest level of the Wildfire complex. Andromeda is suspected to have mutated into a benign form and migrated to the upper atmosphere. The novels epilogue reveals that a spacecraft, Andros V, was incinerated during atmospheric re-entry, presumably because Andromeda had eaten its plastic heat shield
13.
The Hunt for Red October
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The Hunt for Red October was Tom Clancys 1984 debut novel. It was loosely inspired by the mutiny on the Soviet frigate Storozhevoy in 1975, the novel was originally published by the U. S. Naval Institute Press—one of the first fictional works it ever published, and still its most successful. The result is a weapon platform that is capable of sneaking its way into American waters. The strategic value of Red October was not lost upon Ramius and his wife, Natalia, died at the hands of a doctor who was incompetent and intoxicated, however, the doctor escaped punishment because he was the son of a Politburo member. As the ship leaves the shipyard at Polyarny, Ramius kills Ivan Putin, his political officer, before sailing, Ramius had sent a letter to Admiral Yuri Padorin, Natalias uncle, brazenly stating his intention to defect. The Soviet Northern Fleet therefore sails out to sink Red October under the pretext of a search and rescue mission. Meanwhile, Jack Ryan, a high-level CIA analyst and a former Marine, flies from London to Langley, Virginia, to deliver MI6s photographs of Red October to the Deputy Director of Intelligence. Ryan consults a friend at the U. S. Naval Academy, ex-submariner Skip Tyler, Red October passes near USS Dallas, a Los Angeles class submarine under the command of Cdr. Bart Mancuso, which is patrolling the entrance of a used by Soviet submarines in the Reykjanes Ridge off Iceland. Dallas hears the sound of the drive but does not identify it as a submarine. Putting information about Ramiuss letter together with the subsequent launch of the entire Northern Fleet, the U. S. military reluctantly agrees, while planning for contingencies in case the Soviet fleet has intentions other than those inferred. As tensions rise between the U. S. and Soviet fleets, the crew of Dallas analyzes sonar tapes of Red October, Ryan must contact Ramius to prevent the loss of the submarine and her revolutionary technology. In order to convince the Soviets that Red October has been destroyed, Ramius and his officers stay behind, claiming they are about to scuttle the submarine to prevent it getting into the hands of the Americans. A decommissioned U. S. ballistic missile submarine, the USS Ethan Allen, is blown up underwater as a deception, a depth gauge taken from the main instrument panel of Red October is made to appear as if it had been salvaged from the wreckage. Meanwhile, Ryan, Captain Mancuso, some of his crew, the deception efforts succeed in convincing Soviet observers that Red October has been lost. Loginov opens fire with his weapon, killing Captain Lieutenant Kamarov and seriously wounding Ramius, Ryan attempts to persuade the fiercely patriotic Loginov to surrender rather than die in the explosion, but Loginov refuses. Ryan manages to kill Loginov in the missile compartment. Captain Viktor Tupolov, a student of Ramius and commander of the Soviet Alfa-class attack submarine V. K. Konovalov, has been trailing what he initially believes is an Ohio-class vessel
14.
BBC News
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BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the worlds largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, the service maintains 50 foreign news bureaux with more than 250 correspondents around the world. James Harding has been Director of News and Current Affairs since April 2013, the departments annual budget is in excess of £350 million, it has 3,500 staff,2,000 of whom are journalists. BBC News domestic, global and online news divisions are housed within the largest live newsroom in Europe, parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in Millbank in London. Through the BBC English Regions, the BBC also has regional centres across England, as well as national news centres in Northern Ireland, Scotland, all nations and English regions produce their own local news programmes and other current affairs and sport programmes. As with all media outlets, though, it has been accused of political bias from across the political spectrum. The British Broadcasting Company broadcast its first radio bulletin from radio station 2LO on 14 November 1922, on Easter weekend in 1930, this reliance on newspaper wire services left the radio news service with no information to report. The BBC gradually gained the right to edit the copy and, in 1934, however, it could not broadcast news before 6 PM until World War II. Gaumont British and Movietone cinema newsreels had been broadcast on the TV service since 1936, a weekly Childrens Newsreel was inaugurated on 23 April 1950, to around 350,000 receivers. The network began simulcasting its radio news on television in 1946, televised bulletins began on 5 July 1954, broadcast from leased studios within Alexandra Palace in London. The publics interest in television and live events was stimulated by Elizabeth IIs coronation in 1953 and it is estimated that up to 27 million people viewed the programme in the UK, overtaking radios audience of 12 million for the first time. Those live pictures were fed from 21 cameras in central London to Alexandra Palace for transmission and that year, there were around two million TV Licences held in the UK, rising to over three million the following year, and four and a half million by 1955. This was then followed by the customary Television Newsreel with a commentary by John Snagge. It was revealed that this had been due to producers fearing a newsreader with visible facial movements would distract the viewer from the story. On-screen newsreaders were finally introduced a year later in 1955 – Kenneth Kendall, Robert Dougall, mainstream television production had started to move out of Alexandra Palace in 1950 to larger premises – mainly at Lime Grove Studios in Shepherds Bush, west London – taking Current Affairs with it. It was from here that the first Panorama, a new programme, was transmitted on 11 November 1953. On 28 October 1957, the Today programme, a radio programme, was launched in central London on the Home Service. In 1958, Hugh Carleton Greene became head of News and Current Affairs and he set up a BBC study group whose findings, published in 1959, were critical of what the television news operation had become under his predecessor, Tahu Hole
15.
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
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Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of science fiction, science fantasy or horror fiction literature in which the Earths technological civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The story may involve attempts to prevent an event, deal with the impact and consequences of the event itself, or it may be post-apocalyptic. Post-apocalyptic stories often place in a non-technological future world, or a world where only scattered elements of society. And recognizable modern apocalyptic novels had existed since at least the first quarter of the 19th century, however, this form of literature gained widespread popularity after World War II, when the possibility of global annihilation by nuclear weapons entered the public consciousness. As shown above, the apocalypse is also depicted in visual art, the story may involve attempts to prevent an apocalypse event, deal with the impact and consequences of the event itself, or may be post-apocalyptic, and be set after the event. Post-apocalyptic stories often place in a non-technological future world, or a world where only scattered elements of society. The scriptural story of Noah and his Ark describes the end of the original civilization. Noah is assigned the task to build the Ark and save the lifeforms so as to reestablish a new post-flood world, numerous other societies, including the Babylonian, had produced apocalyptic literature and mythology which dealt with the end of the world and of human society. Many of which included stories that refer back to the Biblical Noah or describe a similar flood. The Epic of Gilgamesh, written ca, 2000–1500 BC, details a myth where the angry gods send floods to punish humanity, but the ancient hero Utnapishtim and his family are saved through the intervention of the god Ea. A similar story about the Genesis flood narrative is found in Sura 71 of the Quran, even in the Hindu Dharmasastra, the apocalyptic deluge plays a prominent part. According to the Matsya Purana, the Matsya avatar of Lord Vishnu, at the time of deluge, Vishnu appeared as a horned fish and Shesha appeared as a rope, with which Vaivasvata Manu fastened the boat to the horn of the fish. Variants of this story appear in Buddhist and Jain scriptures. The first centuries AD saw the recording of the Book of Revelation, which is filled with prophecies of destruction, as well as luminous visions. In the first chapter of Revelation, the writer St. John the Divine explains his errand, Write the things which thou hast seen, the things which are. He takes it as his mission to convey—to reveal—to God’s kingdom His promise that justice will prevail, the apocalyptist provides a beautific vision of Judgement Day, revealing God’s promise for redemption from suffering and strife. Revelation describes a New Heaven and a New Earth, and its intended Christian audience is often enchanted and inspired and these Christians believed themselves chosen for God’s salvation, and so such apocalyptic sensibilities inspired optimism and nostalgia for the end times. The fear of the end is about as old as civilization itself
16.
Military science fiction
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It exists in literature, comics, film, and video games. In some stories, however, technology is fairly static, and weapons that would be familiar to present-day soldiers are used, for example, women may be accepted as equal partners for combat roles. In many military sci-fi stories, technological advances are basic to plot development, several subsets of military science fiction overlap with space opera, concentrating on large-scale space battles with futuristic weapons. The term military space opera is occasionally used to denote this subgenre, another example of military space opera would be the Battlestar Galactica franchise. The key distinction of military science fiction space opera is that the principal characters in a space opera are not military personnel. Military science fiction also does not necessarily include an outer space or multi-planetary setting like space opera. Precursors for military science fiction can be found in war stories dating back at least to George Chesneys story The Battle of Dorking. Other works of fiction followed, including H. G. Wellss The Land Ironclads, eventually, as science fiction became an established and separate genre, military science fiction established itself as a subgenre. The Vietnam War resulted in veterans with combat experience deciding to write fiction, including Joe Haldeman. Throughout the 1970s, works such as Haldemans The Forever War, short stories also were popular, collected in books like Combat SF, edited by Gordon R. Dickson. This anthology includes one of the first Hammers Slammers stories as well as one of the BOLO stories by Keith Laumer and this anthology seems to have been the first time SF-stories specifically dealing with war as a subject were collected and marketed as such. The series of anthologies with the group title There Will be War edited by Pournelle and John F. Carr helped keep the category active, a number of authors have presented stories with political messages of varying types as major or minor themes of their works. David Drake has often written of the horrors and futility of war and it is science-fiction which attempts to realistically portray the military within a science-fiction context. It is about human beings, and members of species, caught up in warfare. It isnt an excuse for simplistic solutions to problems, Military science fiction occurs in an array of media, including books, movies, TV and anime, and games. Space warfare in fiction Weapons in science fiction War novel Goodreads Military Science Fiction Book Group MilitarySciFi. com Military science fiction on gizmodo. com
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The Baltimore Sun
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The Baltimore Sun is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the American state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is owned by tronc, abell was born in Rhode Island, where he began journalism with the Providence Patriot. He later worked with newspapers in New York City and Boston, from 1947 to 1986, The Sun was the owner of Marylands first television station, WMAR-TV. In the postwar years, The Sun significantly expanded its overseas presence, the newspaper opened its first foreign bureau in London in 1924. Between 1955 and 1961, it added four new foreign offices, as Cold War tensions grew, it set up shop in Bonn, West Germany, in February 1955. Eleven months later, The Sun opened a Moscow bureau, becoming one of the first U. S. newspapers to do so, a Rome office followed in July 1957, and in 1961, The Sun expanded to New Dehli. At its height, The Sun ran eight foreign bureaus, giving rise to its boast in a 1983 ad that The Sun never sets on the world, the paper was sold in 1986 to the Times-Mirror Company of the Los Angeles Times. The same week, the rival News American, with publishing antecedents since 1773, the oldest paper in the city, it had been owned by the Hearst Corporation since the 1920s. In 1997, The Sun acquired the Patuxent Publishing Company, a suburban newspaper publisher that had a stable of weekly papers. In the 1990s and 2000s, The Sun began cutting back its foreign coverage, in 1995 and 1996, closed its Tokyo, Mexico City and Berlin bureaus. Two more — Beijing and London — fell victim to cost-cutting in 2005, the final three bureaus — Moscow, Jerusalem, and Johannesburg, South Africa — fell a couple years later. All were closed by 2008, as the Tribune Co. streamlined and downsized the newspaper chains foreign reporting, some material from The Suns foreign correspondents is archived at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. In 2000, the Times-Mirror company was purchased by the Tribune Company of Chicago, I,2014 it transferred its newspapers, including The Sun, to Tribune Publishing. On September 19,2005, and again on August 24,2008 and its circulation as of 2010 was 195,561 for the daily edition and 343,552 on Sundays. On April 29,2009, the Tribune Company announced that it would lay off 61 of the 205 staff members in the Sun newsroom. On September 23,2011, it was reported that the Baltimore Sun would be moving its web edition behind a paywall starting October 10,2011, BSMG content reaches more than one million Baltimore-area readers each week and is the regions most widely read source of news. On February 20,2014, The Baltimore Sun Media Group announced they are going to buy the alternative weekly City Paper, in April, the Sun acquired the Maryland publications of Landmark Media Enterprises. The Evening Sun was first published in 1910 under the leadership of Charles H. Grasty, former owner of the Evening News, for most of its existence, The Evening Sun led its morning sibling in circulation
18.
USA Today
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USA Today is an internationally distributed American daily middle-market newspaper that serves as the flagship publication of its owner, the Gannett Company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15,1982, it operates from Gannetts corporate headquarters on Jones Branch Drive in McLean, Virginia and it is printed at 37 sites across the United States and at five additional sites internationally. USA Today is distributed in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, with an international edition distributed in Canada, Asia and the Pacific Islands, Gannett formally announced the launch of the paper on April 20,1982. USA Today began publishing on September 15,1982, initially launching in the Baltimore and Washington, on July 2,1984, the newspaper switched from a largely black-and-white to a color publication, featuring full color photography and graphics in all four sections. On April 8,1985, the paper published its first special bonus section, a 12-page section called Baseball 85, on May 6,1986, USA Today began printing production of its international edition in Switzerland. On April 15, USA Today launched an international printing site. On August 28,1995, an international publishing site was launched in Frankfurt, Germany, to print. On October 4,1999, USA Today began running advertisements on its front page for the first time. The paper launched a sixth printing site for its international edition on May 15,2000, in Milan, Italy, followed on July 10 by the launch of a printing facility in Charleroi. That November, USA Today migrated its operations from Gannetts previous corporate headquarters in Arlington, in 2010, USA Today launched the USA Today API for sharing data with partners of all types. On August 27,2010, USA Today announced that it would undergo a reorganization of its newsroom and it also announced that the paper would shift its focus away from print and place more emphasis on its digital platforms and launch of a new publication called USA Today Sports. On September 14,2012, USA Today underwent the first major redesign in its history, to accomplish this goal, Gannett migrated its newspaper and television station websites to the Presto platform and the USA Today site design throughout 2013 and 2014. On January 4,2014, USA Today acquired the book and film review website, on September 3,2014, USA Today announced that it would lay off roughly 70 employees in a restructuring of its newsroom and business operations. In October 2014, USA Today and OpenWager Inc. entered into a partnership to release a Bingo app called USA TODAY Bingo Cruise, USA Today is known for synthesizing news down to easy-to-read-and-comprehend stories. In the main edition circulated in the United States and some Canadian cities, each consists of four sections, News, Money, Sports. The international edition of the paper features two sections, News and Money in one, with Sports and Life in the other, atypical of most daily newspapers, the paper does not print on Saturdays and Sundays, the Friday edition serves as the weekend edition. USA Today prints each complete story on the front page of the section with the exception of the cover story. The cover story is a story that requires a jump
19.
Writer's Digest
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Writers Digest is an American magazine aimed at beginning and established writers. It contains interviews, market listings, calls for manuscripts, the magazine is published eight times per year. Writers Digest also sponsors several in-house contests annually, including the Writers Digest International Self-Published Book Awards, Blue Ash Publishing takes its name from the home office of the Writer’s Digest editorial team located in Blue Ash, Ohio. Writers Digest was established in 1920 under the name Successful Writing, first issue and it changed name to Writers Digest with the March 1921 issue. By the late 1920s, it shifted emphasis more from literary-quality writing to the rapidly growing pulp magazine field, an important feature from 1933 forward was the New York Market Letter, edited by Harriet Bradfield, which gave timely updates on editor needs in the magazine field. As the pulp field collapsed in the 1950s, Writers Digest shifted emphasis to famous writers,2003 Michele Bardsley A Mother Scorned 2004 J. K. Moran Lunch With Debbie 2013 Dan J
20.
Soft science fiction
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Soft science fiction, or soft SF, is a category of science fiction with two different definitions. It either explores the soft sciences, and especially the sciences, rather than engineering or the hard sciences, or is not scientifically accurate. Soft science fiction of either type is more concerned with character and speculative societies. It is the complement of science fiction. The term first appeared in the late 1970s and is attributed to Australian literary scholar Peter Nicholls, in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Peter Nicholls writes that soft SF is a not very precise item of SF terminology and that the contrast between hard and soft is sometimes illogical. In fact, the boundaries between hard and soft are neither definite nor universally agreed-upon, so there is no standard of scientific hardness or softness. Some readers might consider any deviation from the possible or probable to be a mark of softness, in Brave New Words, subtitled The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, soft science fiction is given two definitions. The first definition is science fiction that is focused on advancements in, or extrapolations of, the soft sciences. The second definition is science fiction in which science is not important to the story, the term soft science fiction was formed as the complement of the earlier term hard science fiction. The earliest known citation for the term is in 1975, The Year in Science Fiction by Peter Nicholls and he wrote The same list reveals that an already established shift from hard sf to soft sf is continuing more strongly than ever. Poul Anderson, in Ideas for SF Writers, described H. G. Jeffrey Wallmann suggests that science fiction grew out of the gothic fiction of Edgar Allan Poe. In calling out specific examples from this period, McGuirk describes Ursula K, le Guins 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness as a soft SF classic. The New Wave movement in science fiction developed out of science fiction in the 1960s and 70s. The conte cruel was the narrative form of soft science fiction by the 1980s. During the 1980s cyberpunk developed from soft science fiction, McGuirk identifies two subgenres of soft science fiction, Humanist science fiction and Science fiction noir. And yet, its style is realistic, and despite its then-future setting, very much more like a spy novel or political thriller in terms of its themes. The film The Invention of Lying, written by Ricky Gervais, however, the setting appears to be relatively similar to our own world in terms of aesthetics and industrial progression. Frank Herberts Dune series is a landmark of science fiction
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History of science fiction
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The literary genre of science fiction is diverse, and its exact definition remains a contested question among both scholars and devotees. This lack of consensus is reflected in debates about the genres history, there are two broad camps of thought, one that identifies the genres roots in early fantastical works such as the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. Scholar Robert Scholes calls the history of fiction the history of humanitys changing attitudes toward space. The history of our understanding of the universe and the position of our species in that universe. In recent decades, the genre has diversified and become established as a major influence on global culture. These texts often include elements such as a voyage to the moon or the use of imagined advanced technology. American science fiction author Lester del Rey was one supporter of using Gilgamesh as an origin point. That is the Epic of Gilgamesh, French science fiction writer Pierre Versins also argued that Gilgamesh was the first science fiction work due to its treatment of human reason and the quest for immortality. In addition, Gilgamesh features a scene that in some ways resembles work of apocalyptic science fiction. However, the lack of science or technology in the work has led some to argue that it is better categorized as fantastic literature. Ancient Indian poetry such as the Hindu epic Ramayana includes Vimana flying machines able to travel into space or under water, and destroy entire cities using advanced weapons. In the first book of the Rigveda collection of Sanskrit hymns, there is a description of birds that are seen jumping into space speedily with a craft using fire. Containing twelve stamghas, one wheel, three machines,300 pivots, and 60 instruments, ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes has several works that include elements often associated with the fantastic voyage, including air travel to another world. Examples include his The Clouds, The Birds and The Peace, the Bible has also been cited as a science-fiction work. L. Sprague de Camp and a number of other authors argue this to be one of the earliest if not the earliest example of fiction or proto-science fiction. However, since the text was intended to be satirical and hyperbolic. Lucian translator Bryan Reardon is more explicit, describing the work as an account of a fantastic journey - to the moon, the underworld, the belly of a whale, and so forth. It is not really science fiction, although it has sometimes called that
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Climate fiction
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Climate fiction, or climate change fiction, popularly abbreviated as cli-fi is literature that deals with climate change and global warming. Not necessarily speculative in nature, works of cli-fi may take place in the world as we know it or in the near future, university courses on literature and environmental issues may include climate change fiction in their syllabi. This body of literature has been discussed by a variety of publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian, one example is Jules Vernes 1889 novel The Purchase of the North Pole, which imagines a climate change due to tilting of Earths axis. In his posthumous Paris in the Twentieth Century, written in 1883 and set during the 1960s, the city experiences a sudden drop in temperature. Several well-known dystopian works by British author J. G, in The Burning World his climate catastrophe is human-made, a drought due to disruption of the precipitation cycle by industrial pollution. Susan M. Margaret Atwood explored the subject in her dystopian trilogy Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, in Oryx and Crake Attwood presents a world where social inequality, genetic technology and catastrophic climate change, has finally culminated in some apocalyptic event. Robert K. J. Robinsons latest climate-themed novel, titled New York 2140, was published in March 2017, ian McEwans Solar follows the story of a physicist who discovers a way to fight climate change after managing to derive power from artificial photosynthesis. The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson is set on the fictional planet Orbus, inhabitants of Orbus hope to take advantage of possibilities offered by a newly discovered planet, Planet Blue, which appears perfect for human life. Barbara Kingsolvers novel, Flight Behavior, employs environmental themes and highlights the effects of global warming on the monarch butterfly. Other authors who have used this subject matter include Liz Jensen, Tony White, cli-fi recommendations page on Goodreads The Cli-Fi Report A portal for news related to cli-fi
23.
Cyberpunk
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The settings are usually post-industrial dystopias but tend to feature extraordinary cultural ferment and the use of technology in ways never anticipated by its original inventors. Much of the genres atmosphere echoes film noir, and written works in the often use techniques from detective fiction. Primary exponents of the field include William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, Bruce Bethke, Pat Cadigan, Rudy Rucker, John Shirley. Blade Runner can be seen as a example of the cyberpunk style. Video games, board games, and tabletop role-playing games, such as Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun, often feature storylines that are influenced by cyberpunk writing. Beginning in the early 1990s, some trends in fashion and music were also labeled as cyberpunk, Cyberpunk writers tend to use elements from hardboiled detective fiction, film noir, and postmodernist prose to describe an often nihilistic underground side of an electronic society. The genres vision of a future is often called the antithesis of the generally utopian visions of the future popular in the 1940s and 1950s. Gibson defined cyberpunks antipathy towards utopian SF in his 1981 short story The Gernsback Continuum, in some cyberpunk writing, much of the action takes place online, in cyberspace, blurring the line between actual and virtual reality. A typical trope in such work is a connection between the human brain and computer systems. Cyberpunk settings are dystopias with corruption, computers and internet connectivity, giant, multinational corporations have for the most part replaced governments as centers of political, economic, and even military power. The economic and technological state of Japan, in the 80s influenced Cyberpunk literature at the time, of Japans influence on the genre, William Gibson said, Modern Japan simply was cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is often set in urbanized, artificial landscapes, and city lights, receding was used by Gibson as one of the genres first metaphors for cyberspace and virtual reality. The cityscapes of Hong Kong and Shanghai have had influences in the urban backgrounds, ambiance and settings in many cyberpunk works such as Blade Runner. Ridley Scott envisioned the landscape of cyberpunk Los Angeles in Blade Runner to be Hong Kong on a bad day. The streetscapes of Ghost in the Shell were based on Hong Kong, mamoru Oshii felt that Hong Kongs strange and chaotic streets where old and new exist in confusing relationships, fit the theme of the film well. Hong Kongs Kowloon Walled City is particularly notable for its disorganized hyper-urbanization, one of the cyberpunk genres prototype characters is Case, from Gibsons Neuromancer. Case is a cowboy, a brilliant hacker who has betrayed his organized criminal partners. These anti-heroes—criminals, outcasts, visionaries, dissenters and misfits—call to mind the private eye of detective fiction and this emphasis on the misfits and the malcontents is the punk component of cyberpunk
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Cyberpunk derivatives
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A number of cyberpunk derivatives have become recognized as distinct subgenres in speculative fiction. Scholars have written of these subgenres stylistic place in postmodern literature, cyberpunk is nonetheless regarded as a successful genre, as it ensnared many new readers and provided the sort of movement that postmodern literary critics found alluring. Furthermore, author David Brin argues, cyberpunk made science fiction more attractive and profitable for mainstream media, biopunk emerged during the 1990s and focuses on the near-future unintended consequences of the biotechnology revolution following the discovery of recombinant DNA. Unlike cyberpunk, it not on information technology but on biorobotics. As in postcyberpunk however, individuals are usually modified and enhanced not with cyberware, nanopunk refers to an emerging subgenre of speculative science fiction still very much in its infancy in comparison to other genres like that of cyberpunk. The genre is similar to biopunk, but describes a world in which the use of biotechnology is limited or prohibited, currently the genre is more concerned with the artistic and physiological impact of nanotechnology, than of aspects of the technology itself. Still, one of the most prominent examples of nanopunk is Crysis video game series, and much lesser famous examples is Generator Rex and Transcendence. As new writers and artists began to experiment with ideas, new varieties of fiction emerged. Lawrence Person wrote in an essay he posted to the Internet forum Slashdot in 1998, Many writers who grew up reading in the 1980s are just now starting to have their stories and novels published. To them cyberpunk was not a revolution or alien philosophy invading science fiction, persons essay advocates using the term postcyberpunk to label the new works such writers produce. It is rather characteristic for postcyberpunk to portray a utopia or to blend elements of both extremes into a more mature societal vision. Rafael Miranda Huereca states, In this fictional world, the unison in the hive becomes a power mechanism which is executed in its form, not from above the social body. The body responds back to power, communicates with it, supplies the information that power requires, more importantly, power does not only control the body, but also designs, produces, creates it according to its own objectives. Thus, human body is re-formed as a result of the transformations of the relations between communication and power, the Daemon novels by Daniel Suarez could be considered postcyberpunk in that sense. In addition to themes of its ancestral genre postcyberpunk might also combine elements of nanopunk and biopunk, good examples of postcyberpunk novels are Neal Stephensons The Diamond Age and Bruce Sterlings Holy Fire. In television, Ghost in the Shell, Stand Alone Complex has been called the most interesting, in 2007, SF writers James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel published Rewired, The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology. Like all categories discerned within science fiction, the boundaries of postcyberpunk are likely to be fluid or ill defined. The word steampunk was invented in 1987 as a reference to some of the novels of Tim Powers, James P. Blaylock
25.
Dieselpunk
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The -punk suffix attached to the name is representative of the counterculture nature of the genre with regards to its opposition to contemporary aesthetics. I like the word if you are doing something like Weird World War II. I think that makes perfect sense, but to me, World War I is the dividing point where modernity goes from being optimistic to being pessimistic. Because when you put the machine and gun together, they both change. At that point, war is no longer about a sense of adventure and chivalry and a way of testing your nations level of manhood, its become industrial, jennifer McStotts, another author, considers the two genres to be close cousins. She defines steampunk as concerned with the Victorian era, and the shift in technology and energy generation that came with industrialisation, academic Gary K. Wolfe defines the genres by their era of setting. He defines steampunk as the genre primarily set in the Victorian era, Dieselpunk draws its inspiration from two related sources, the diesel era and a characteristic referred to as decodence. The term diesel era is a period of time begins with the start of the interbellum era. The interbellum era is central to one school of dieselpunk often labeled Ottensian, in addition to the interbellum period, World War II also plays a major role in dieselpunk, especially in the school of the genre referred to as Piecraftian. The exact ending of the era is in some dispute in the dieselpunk community. Although the term “dieselpunk” was not coined until 2001, a body of art significant to the development of the genre was produced before that. An alternative term was low-brow pop surrealism, writers of this trend blended traditional tropes and genres, such as Pulp Adventure, Film noir, and Weird Horror, with a contemporary aesthetic. In his words, They were creating a future fueled by the spirit of the Jazz Age, in their works, the reader could see Sam Spade in the era of smartphones and John Dillinger use a hovercar as his getaway vehicle. They were writing stories about the era of The Great Gatsby. In discussing punk genres, Ted Stoltz defines dieselpunk as the quasifuture from the Art Deco era and he argues that cyberpunk, steampunk, clockpunk, atompunk, and ribopunk are all defined by their connection to their respective technological element. He found this does not apply to other related genres such as elfpunk, mythpunk, alternative history and World War II feature prominently in dieselpunk literature. A feature that was first identified by the online magazine The Flying Fortress is that dieselpunk can be divided into two themes or styles, Ottensian and Piecraftian. The dividing line between the two themes is commonly acknowledged as the start of World War II, according to Ottens and Piecraft this theme continues the aesthetics of the diesel era into later periods of history by describing a world where survival is placed above aesthetical evolution
26.
Dying Earth (subgenre)
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Dying Earth is a subgenre of science fantasy which takes place in the far future at either the end of life on Earth or the End of Time, when the laws of the universe themselves fail. Themes of world-weariness, innocence, idealism, entropy, exhaustion/depletion of many or all resources, the Dying Earth genre differs from the apocalyptic subgenre in that it deals not with catastrophic destruction, but with entropic exhaustion of the Earth. The genre was prefigured by the works of the Romantic movement, jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainvilles Le Dernier Homme narrates the tale of Omegarus, the Last Man on Earth. It is a vision of the future when the Earth has become totally sterile. Lord Byrons poem Darkness shows Earth after the Sun has died, another early example is La Fin du Monde, written by Camille Flammarion and published in France in 1893. The first half of the deals with a comet on a collision course with earth in the 25th century. The last half focuses on Earths future history, where civilizations rise and fall, humans evolve, and finally Earth ends as an old, dying, and barren planet. Another early and more science fiction work to utilize the familiar Dying Earth imagery was H. G. Wellss famous novella The Time Machine. At the end of work, the unnamed time traveller travels into the far future. He then returns to his own time to relate his tale to a circle of contemporaries, two brooding works by William Hope Hodgson would elaborate on Wellss vision. The House on the Borderland takes place in a house besieged by unearthly forces, the narrator then travels into a distant future in which humanity has died and then even further, past the death of Earth. Hodgsons The Night Land describes a time, millions of years in the future, the last few millions of the human race are gathered together in a gigantic metal pyramid, the Last Redoubt, under siege from unknown forces and Powers outside in the dark. A work by the early French science fiction author J. -H, rosny aîné, La Mort de la Terre, deals with the last, scattered generation of an evolved humankind on an exhausted, desert earth and their encounter with a new type of mineral-metallic life. In some ways it reads like the inversion of his earlier Les Xipéhuz, in early humans encounter and battle an utterly alien. From the 1930s onwards, Clark Ashton Smith wrote a series of stories situated in Zothique, the last continent of Earth. Smith said in a letter to L. Sprague de Camp, dated November 3,1953, Zothique, vaguely suggested by Theosophic theories about past, the continents of our present cycle have sunken, perhaps several times. Some have remained submerged, others have re-risen, partially, the science and machinery of our present civilization have long been forgotten, together with our present religions. But many gods are worshipped, and sorcery and demonism prevail again as in ancient days, oars and sails alone are used by mariners
27.
Gothic science fiction
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Gothic science fiction, also known as space goth, is a subgenre of science fiction that involves gothic conventions. By definition, the attempts to capture the dark atmosphere of gothic fiction while also incorporating elements of science fiction. Some feature entire planets of vampires, or vampire-like creatures, other works in the subgenre apply gothic conventions to the setting of outer space and the concept of extraterrestrials. Some works blend gothic science fiction with science fiction subgenres. For example, the film Blade Runner is primarily a cyberpunk neo-noir, the blend can also be detected quite explicitly in Jules Vernes novel Le Château des Carpathes. Other examples of the subgenre feature other traditionally gothic tropes in new settings, such as, Damsels in distress in faraway future Gothic planetary romance Gothic futuristic romance
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Planetary romance
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In either case, it is the planetside adventures which are the focus of the story, not the mode of travel. As the name of the genre suggests, the romance is an extension of late 19th and early 20th century adventure novels. Other planets replace Asia and Africa as exotic locales, while hostile tribes of aliens and their decadent monarchies substitute for Western stereotypes of savage races and oriental despotisms. The first author to achieve a market for this type of story was Edgar Rice Burroughs. Burroughs writing popularized the concept of adventures on other planets. Frank Herberts Dune and George Lucas Star Wars are direct inheritors of this tradition of welding the futuristic to the medieval, the content of the Barsoom stories is pure swashbuckler, being a series of imprisonments, forced gladiatorial combat, daring escapes, monster-killings, and duels with villains. Fantasy elements are minimal, other than telepathy, most instances of magic are dismissed or exposed as humbuggery, Burroughs stories spawned a large number of imitators. Some, like Otis Adelbert Kline, were exploiting the new market that Burroughs had created, even Burroughs imitated himself in his Venus series, starting in 1934. Perhaps for this reason, many Sword and Planet authors have written staggeringly long series sequences, the publication of pulp science fiction magazines starting in 1926 created a new market for planetary romances, and had a strong effect on later incarnations of the genre. Bracketts stories are primarily adventure fiction, but also contain reflections on the themes of cultural, there is an instructive comparison between The Enchantress of Venus, one of Bracketts Stark stories, and A. E. van Vogts Empire of the Atom. Both take as their point the plot and situation of I. Van Vogt follows the plot more closely, concentrating his invention on the background of his empire while emphasizing the heros vulnerability. Brackett introduces an Earthman who is struck by the allure of the women involved in these intrigues. While both stories are space operas, only Bracketts is a planetary romance, one exception is the Gor series, published from 1967 to the present. Gor is a Counter-Earth planet in an orbit to Earth on the other side of the Sun. Gravitational effects and detection by terrestrial probes are explained away by “superior alien science”, the planetary romance has become a significant component of current science fiction, though few writers use the term self-descriptively. Given the cross-pollination between planetary romance and space opera, many stories are difficult to classify as being one or the other. Similarly, L. Sprague de Camps Krishna series of rationalized planetary romances are a subseries of his space opera Viagens Interplanetarias series
29.
Scientific romance
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Scientific romance is an archaic term for the genre of fiction now commonly known as science fiction. G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle, in recent years, the term has come to be applied to science fiction written in a deliberately anachronistic style, as a homage to or pastiche of the original scientific romances. In 1859 the Southern Literary Messenger referred to Balzacs Ursule Mirouët as a romance of mesmerism. Then, in 1884, Charles Howard Hinton published a series of scientific, F. Bleiler views Burroughs as part of the new development of pulp science fiction that arose in the early 20th century. The same year as A Princess of Mars, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published The Lost World, in recent years, the term scientific romance has seen a revival, being self-applied by modern works of science fiction which deliberately ape previous styles. Though it uses the term, Dennis Overbyes novel Einstein in Love, regarding heroes, several novels by H. G. Wells have the protagonist as nameless, and often powerless, in the face of natural forces. The evolutionary perspective can be seen in tales involving long time periods—two examples being The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine by Wells, D. Beresford and several works by S. Fowler Wright. Regarding space, C. S. Stableford also notes, that some of the British scientific romances were saved from being entirely gloomy, by their philosophical speculation. He cites E. V. Odles The Clockwork Man, John Gloags Tomorrows Yesterday and Murray Constantines Proud Man as examples of type of scientific romance. Nonetheless, not all British science fiction from that period comports with Stablefords thesis, some, for example, reveled in adventures in space and held an optimistic view of the future. By the 1930s, there were British authors who were intentionally writing science fiction for American publication, at that point, British writers who used the term scientific romance did so either because they were unaware of science fiction or because they chose not to be associated with it. Even so, the influence of the scientific romance era persisted in British science fiction, John Wyndhams work is cited as providing a bridge between traditional British scientific romance and the more varied science fiction which has replaced it. Some commentators believe scientific romance had some impact on the American variety
30.
Space opera
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Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes space warfare, melodramatic adventure, interplanetary battles, as well as chivalric romance, and often risk-taking. Set mainly or entirely in space, it usually involves conflict between opponents possessing advanced abilities, futuristic weapons, and other sophisticated technology. The term has no relation to music, but is instead a play on the soap opera and horse opera. Space operas emerged in the 1930s and they continue to be produced in literature, film, comics, notable space opera novels include the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, the Lensman series by E. E. Smith and the Enders Game series by Orson Scott Card. An early notable space opera film was Flash Gordon created by Alex Raymond, in the late 1970s, the Star Wars franchise created by George Lucas brought a great deal of attention to the subgenre. Space opera is defined as an adventure science-fiction story, the term space opera was coined in 1941 by fan writer and author Wilson Tucker as a pejorative term in an article in issue 36 of science fiction fanzine Le Zombie. At the time, serial dramas in the United States had become popularly known as soap operas because many were sponsored by soap manufacturers. Tucker defined space opera as the science fiction equivalent, a hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn, even earlier, the term horse opera had come into use as a term for Western films. Still, during the late 1920s and early 1930s, when the stories were printed in science-fiction magazines, beginning in the 1960s, and widely accepted by the 1970s, the space opera was redefined, following Brian Aldiss definition in Space Opera as the good old stuff. Yet soon after his redefinition, it began to be challenged, for example, by the practice and marketing of Judy-Lynn del Rey and in the reviews of her husband. In particular, they disputed the claims that space operas were obsolete, by the early 1980s, space operas were again redefined, and the label was attached to major popular culture works such as Star Wars. The term space opera began to be recognized only in the early 1990s as a genre of science fiction. It often deals with war, piracy, military virtues, and very large-scale action, early works related to but preceding the subgenre contained many elements of what would become space opera. They are today referred to as proto-space opera, defontenay and Lumen by Camille Flammarion. Not widely popular, proto-space operas were nevertheless occasionally written during the late Victorian and Edwardian science fiction era, examples may be found in the works of Percy Greg, Garrett P. Serviss, George Griffith and Robert Cromie. One critic cites Robert William Coles The Struggle for Empire, A Story of the Year 2236 as the first space opera, the novel does depict an interstellar conflict between solar men of Earth and a fierce humanoid race headquartered on Sirius. Despite this seemingly early beginning, it was not until the late 1920s that the opera proper began to appear regularly in pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories. In film, the genre began with the 1918 Danish film
31.
Space Western
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Space Western is a subgenre of science fiction which uses the themes and tropes of Westerns within science fiction stories. Subtle influences may include exploration of new, lawless frontiers, while more overt influences may feature literal cowboys in outer space who use ray guns and ride robotic horses. Although initially popular, a backlash against perceived hack writing caused the genre to become a more subtle influence until the 1980s. A further critical reappraisal occurred in the 2000s with Firefly, a space Western may emphasize space exploration as the final frontier. These Western themes may be explicit, such as cowboys in outer space, gene Roddenberry described Star Trek, The Original Series as a space Western. Firefly and its cinematic follow-up Serenity literalized the Western aspects of the genre popularized by Star Trek, it used frontier towns, horses, worlds that have been terraformed may be depicted as presenting similar challenges as that of a frontier settlement in a classic Western. Six-shooters and horses may be replaced by ray guns and rockets, Westerns influenced early science fiction pulp magazines. Writers would submit stories in genres, and science fiction magazines sometimes mimicked Western cover art to showcase parallels. In the 1930s, C. L. Moore created one of the first space Western heroes, buck Rogers and Flash Gordon were also early influences. After superhero comics declined in popularity in 1940s America, Western comics, when horror comics became untenable with the Comics Code Authority in the mid-1950s, science fiction themes and space Westerns grew more popular. By the mid-1960s, classic Western films fell out of favor, Science fiction, such as Lost in Space, Star Trek, presented a new frontier to be explored, and films like Westworld rejuvenated Westerns by updating them with science fiction themes. Peter Hyams, director of Outland, said that studio heads in the 1980s were unwilling to finance a Western, so he made a space Western instead. Space operas such as the Star Wars film series also took cues from Westerns, Boba Fett, Han Solo. These science fiction films and television series offered the themes and morals that Westerns previously did and this frontier view of the future is only one of many ways to look at space exploration, and not one embraced by all science fiction writers. Such scathing attacks on the subgenre, along with attacks on space operas, caused a perception that all space Westerns were by definition hack writing. In the 1990s, anime series, such as Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, in the 2000s, Firefly won critical acclaim, further causing a critical reassessment of space Westerns. Games such as StarCraft and the Borderlands series have also popularized the space Western theme, pastiche Cross-genre Mecha anime Weird West Abbott, Carl, Frontiers Past and Future, Science Fiction and the American West, University Press of Kansas,2006. Future West, Utopia and Apocalypse in Frontier Science Fiction, University Press of Kansas,2008, mogen, David, Wilderness Visions, The Western Theme in Science Fiction Literature, Borgo Press,1993
32.
Steampunk
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Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Therefore, steampunk may be described as neo-Victorian, Steampunk may also incorporate additional elements from the genres of fantasy, horror, historical fiction, alternate history, or other branches of speculative fiction, making it often a hybrid genre. The first known appearance of the term steampunk was in 1987, Steampunk is influenced by and often adopts the style of the 19th-century scientific romances of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and Mary Shelley. Several more modern works of art and fiction significant to the development of the genre were produced before the genre had a name, the film Brazil was an important early cinematic influence that helped codify the aesthetics of the genre. The Adventures of Luther Arkwright was a comic version of the Moorcock-style mover between timestreams. In fine art, Remedios Varos paintings combine elements of Victorian dress, fantasy, in television, one of the earliest manifestations of the steampunk ethos in the mainstream media was the CBS television series The Wild Wild West, which inspired the subsequent film. Although many works now considered seminal to the genre were published in the 1960s and 1970s and it was coined by science fiction author K. W. G. Wells The Time Machine. Though of course, I did find her review in the March Locus to be quite flattering, personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for Powers, Blaylock and myself. Something based on the technology of the era, like steam-punks. They were far from the first modern science fiction writers to speculate on the development of steam-based technology or alternative histories, keith Laumers Worlds of the Imperium and Ronald W. Clarks Queen Victorias Bomb apply modern speculation to past-age technology and society. Michael Moorcocks Warlord of the Air is another early example, harry Harrisons novel A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah. Portrays a British Empire of an alternative year 1973, full of atomic locomotives, coal-powered flying boats, ornate submarines, the Adventures of Luther Arkwright was the first steampunk comic. In February 1980, Richard A. Lupoff and Steve Stiles published the first chapter of their 10-part comic strip The Adventures of Professor Thintwhistle and His Incredible Aether Flyer. Indeed, both sensibilities recall the older but still modern eras in which technological change seemed to anticipate a better world, one of steampunk’s most significant contributions is the way in which it mixes digital media with traditional handmade art forms. As scholars Rachel Bowser and Brian Croxall put it, the tinkering and tinker-able technologies within steampunk invite us to roll up our sleeves, in this respect, steampunk bears more in common with DIY craft and making. This theme is carried over to Disneys theme parks, in the designs of The Mysterious Island section of Tokyo DisneySea theme park. Aspects of steampunk design emphasise a balance between form and function, in this it is like the Arts and Crafts Movement. But John Ruskin, William Morris, and the reformers in the late nineteenth century rejected machines
33.
Science-fiction convention
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Science fiction conventions are gatherings of fans of the speculative fiction genre, science fiction. Historically, science fiction conventions had focused primarily on literature, but the purview of many extends to such other avenues of expression as movies, television, comics, animation, the precise time and place of the first science fiction convention is a matter of some dispute. Sometime in 1936, a group of British fans made plans to have an organized gathering and they subsequently declared that event to be the first science fiction convention. This small get-together set the stage for an event held in New York, in February,1937. Attendees at this event included James Blish, Charles D. Hornig, Julius Schwartz and it was at this event that a committee was named to arrange the first World Science Fiction Convention in New York in 1939, formalizing planning that had begun at the Third Eastern. On January 3,1937, the British fans held their long-planned event at the Theosophical Hall in Leeds, around twenty fans, including Eric Frank Russell and Arthur C. Nevertheless, by 1939, American fans had organized sufficiently to hold, in conjunction with the 1939 Worlds Fair, subsequent conventions were held in Chicago in 1940 and Denver in 1941. Like many cultural events, it was suspended during World War II, Conventions resumed in 1946 with the hosting of the World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles, California. At these conventions, fans of science fiction together with the professional writers, artists. Some cities have a number of science fiction conventions, as well as a number of special interest conventions for anime, media, some conventions move from city to city, serving a particular country, region, or special interest. Nearly every weekend of the now has at least one convention somewhere. Worldcon, or more formally The World Science Fiction Convention, is a science fiction convention that has held each year since 1939. These members of WSFS vote both to select the site of the Worldcon two years in advance and to select the winners of the Hugo Awards, which are presented at the convention. The rules for selection are deliberately drafted to ensure the convention occurs in a different city each year. Fantasy is usually considered alongside science fiction at conventions, Conventions that are nominally science fiction conventions such as Worldcon, are also fantasy conventions in all but name. World Fantasy Convention was begun in 1975, and has since held on an annual basis. The World Fantasy Convention, however, is oriented toward the fan community. Many of those who attend World Fantasy also attend Worldcon, the World Horror Convention is an annual gathering of professionals of the World Horror Society and other interested parties
34.
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
