Title search results
Showing 1 - 20 of 26 items
Reflections & refractions: thoughts on science-fiction, science, and other matters
By Robert Silverberg. 2016
Acclaimed writer of science fiction provides a collection of his essays on unique scientific ideas, characters, and the social context…
for science fiction. Some pieces examine the work of other great writers. This edition, expanded from the 1973 original, includes a section on writing science fiction. 2016Hedy & her amazing invention (Amazing Women)
By Jan Wahl, Morgana Wallace. 2019
Covers the pioneering scientific work and inspiring courage of Hedy Lamarr, the famous Hollywood actress who fought against old-fashioned parents,…
a domineering husband, prejudice, and stereotypes to become an accomplished inventor whose work helped pave the way for many of the communications technologies we enjoy today. For grades 2-4. 2019Dragonwriter: A Tribute to Anne McCaffrey and Pern
By David Brin, Lois Mcmaster Bujold, Elizabeth Moon, Mercedes Lackey, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Todd Mccaffrey, Michael Whelan. 2013
When Anne McCaffrey passed in November 2011, it was not only those closest to her who mourned her death; legions…
of readers also felt the loss deeply. The pioneering science fiction author behind the Dragonriders of Pern® series crafted intricate stories, enthralling worlds, and strong heroines that profoundly impacted the science fiction community and genre.In Dragonwriter, Anne's son and Pern writer Todd McCaffrey collects memories and stories about the beloved author, along with insights into her writing and legacy, from those who knew her best. Nebula Award-winner Elizabeth Moon relates the lessons she learned from Pern's Lessa (and from Lessa's creator); Hugo Award-winner David Brin recalls Anne's steadfast belief that the world to come will be better than the one before; legendary SFF artist Michael Whelan shares (and tells stories about) never-before-published Pern sketches from his archives; and more.Join Anne's co-writers, fellow science fiction authors, family, and friends in remembering her life, and exploring how her mind and pen shaped not only the Weyrs of Pern, but also the literary landscape as we know it.Contributors include: Angelina Adams David Brin David Gerrold John Goodwin Janis Ian Alec Johnson Georgeanne Kennedy Mercedes Lackey Sharon Lee and Steve Miller Lois McMaster Bujold Elizabeth Moon Charlotte Moore Robert Neilson Jody Lynn Nye and Bill Fawcett Robin Roberts Elizabeth Ann Scarborough Wen Spencer Michael Whelan Richard J. Woods Chelsea Quinn YarbroI. Asimov: A Memoir ("robots En El Tiempo" De I. Asimov Ser.)
By Isaac Asimov. 1994
Arguably the greatest science fiction writer who ever lived, Isaac Asimov also possessed one of the most brilliant and original…
minds of our time. His accessible style and far-reaching interests in subjects ranging from science to humor to history earned him the nickname "the Great Explainer. "I. Asimovis his personal story--vivid, open, and honest--as only Asimov himself could tell it. Here is the story of the paradoxical genius who wrote of travel to the stars yet refused to fly in airplanes; who imagined alien universes and vast galactic civilizations while staying home to write; who compulsively authored more than 470 books yet still found the time to share his ideas with some of the great minds of our century. Here are his wide-ranging thoughts and sharp-eyed observations on everything from religion to politics, love and divorce, friendship and Hollywood, fame and mortality. Here, too, is a riveting behind-the-scenes look at the varied personalities--Campbell, Ellison, Heinlein, Clarke, del Rey, Silverberg, and others--who along with Asimov helped shape science fiction. As unique and irrepressible as the man himself,I. Asimov is the candid memoir of an incomparable talent who entertained readers for nearly half a century and whose work will surely endure into the future he so vividly envisioned.John Brunner
By Jad Smith. 2012
Under his own name and numerous pseudonyms, John Brunner (1934-1995) was one of the most prolific and influential science fiction…
authors of the late twentieth century. During his exemplary career, the British author wrote with a stamina matched by only a few other great science fiction writers and with a literary quality of even fewer, importing modernist techniques into his novels and stories and probing every major theme of his generation: robotics, racism, drugs, space exploration, technological warfare, and ecology. In this first intensive review of Brunner's life and works, Jad Smith carefully demonstrates how Brunner's much-neglected early fiction laid the foundation for his classic Stand on Zanzibar and other major works such as The Jagged Orbit, The Sheep Look Up, and The Shockwave Rider. Making extensive use of Brunner's letters, columns, speeches, and interviews published in fanzines, Smith approaches Brunner in the context of markets and trends that affected many writers of the time, including Brunner's uneasy association with the "New Wave" of science fiction in the 1960s and '70s. This landmark study shows how Brunner's attempts to cross-fertilize the American pulp tradition with British scientific romance complicated the distinctions between genre and mainstream fiction and between hard and soft science fiction and helped carve out space for emerging modes such as cyberpunk, slipstream, and biopunk.Ursula K. Le Guin: and Other Conversations (The Last Interview Series)
By Ursula K. Le Guin, David Streitfeld. 2019
“Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.” —Ursula K. Le Guin…
When she began writing in the 1960s, Ursula K. Le Guin was as much of a literary outsider as one can be: a woman writing in a landscape dominated by men, a science fiction and fantasy author in an era that dismissed “genre” literature as unserious, and a westerner living far from fashionable East Coast publishing circles. The interviews collected here—spanning a remarkable forty years of productivity, and covering everything from her Berkeley childhood to Le Guin envisioning the end of capitalism—highlight that unique perspective, which conjured some of the most prescient and lasting books in modern literature.Entertainment Weekly The Ultimate Guide to Fantastic Beasts
By The Editors of Entertainment Weekly. 2018
Turning Points: Essays on the Art of Science Fiction
By Damon Knight. 1977
Culled from the most imaginative and provocative minds of the pas thirty years, these pieces demonstrate the vitality and diversity,…
the excitement and commitment of the writers who helped make science fiction what it is today.Musings and Meditations: Essays And Thoughts
By Robert Silverberg. 2010
Presenting acclaimed essays from one of contemporary science fiction's most imaginative wordsmiths, this collection shows that Robert Silverberg's nonfiction is…
as witty and original as his fiction and full of acute observations and matter-of-fact insights. Whether he is discussing science fiction, history, cultural effects, science, or writing, Silverberg is always exploring new territories. As in his fiction, no cultural icon escapes his scrutiny, including fellow writers such as Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, H. P. Lovecraft, and Isaac Asimov. Delightfully wicked commentaries on the concepts of thoughtcrimes, space exploration, the ancient Antikythera Computer, and the universal translator in science fiction fill these essays, many of which were originally published as columns in Asimov Science Fiction magazine.Genus Homo
By L. Sprague DeCamp, P. Schuyler Miller. 1950
Twenty-five men and women against a world of evolution gone mad!Here is the vivid story of their adventures and terrors…
- the monster in the forest - the city of giant beavers - and the secret of the incredible race that had supplanted mankind.This is Me, Jack Vance
By Jack Vance. 2009
Jack Vance has long been one of the most influential, admired and imitated writers in science fiction and fantasy literature,…
the award-winning author of such widely acclaimed works as The Dying Earth, the Lyonesse trilogy, the adventures of Cugel the Clever, the Demon Princes series, and many other masterful tales set among the stars, in exotic fantasy realms or on our own Earth.For much of his career, Vance has also been one of the field's most private writers, an author who preferred to let his work speak for him. Now, at last, to coincide with the release of the tribute anthology Songs of the Dying Earth, Jack gives us this intimate and fascinating glimpse into his rich and eventful life, and a valuable insight into how he went about practicing his craft.For fans of the Grand Master's work, these memoirs are something to be treasured.Time and Chance: An Autobiography
By L. Sprague DeCamp. 1992
Time and Chance is the autobiography of Hugo, World Fantasy and SFWA Grand Master Award-winning author, L. Sprague de Camp.…
It is a fascinating insight into a man who began writing in the late 1930's and remained an active voice in the genre up until his death in the last year of the twentieth century, and who was a prime mover in the formation of the fields of Science Fiction and Fantasy as we know them today.The Exegesis of Philip K Dick
By Philip K. Dick. 2011
Based on thousands of pages of typed and handwritten notes, journal entries, letters, and story sketches, The Exegesis of Philip…
K. Dick is the magnificent and imaginative final work of an author who dedicated his life to questioning the nature of reality and perception, the malleability of space and time, and the relationship between the human and the divine. Edited and introduced by Pamela Jackson and Jonathan Lethem, this will be the definitive presentation of Dick's brilliant, and epic, final work. In The Exegesis, Dick documents his eight-year attempt to fathom what he called "2-3-74", a postmodern visionary experience of the entire universe "transformed into information". In entries that sometimes ran to hundreds of pages, Dick tried to write his way into the heart of a cosmic mystery that tested his powers of imagination and invention to the limit, adding to, revising, and discarding theory after theory, mixing in dreams and visionary experiences as they occurred, and pulling it all together in three late novels known as the VALIS trilogy. In this abridgment, Jackson and Lethem serve as guides, taking the reader through the Exegesis and establishing connections with moments in Dick's life and work.Mind Candy
By Lawrence Watt-Evans. 2013
Over the years, in a variety of venues, Lawrence Watt-Evans has turned his sharp, analytical, and slightly crazed mind to…
everything from weaponized poetry to why the Enterprise doesn't have seatbelts, and everyone from Jane Austen to Buffy Summers. Collected for the first time are twenty-three of these essays, discussing icons of comic books, television, novels, movies, and much more!The Unfamiliar Garden: The Comet Cycle Book 2 (The Comet Cycle #2)
By Benjamin Percy. 2022
From award-winning author Benjamin Percy comes the second novel in his grippingly original sci-fi series, The Comet Cycle, in which…
a passing comet has caused irreversible change to the growth of fungi, spawning a dangerous, invasive species in the Pacific Northwest that threatens to control the lives of humans and animals alike.It began with a comet. They called it Cain, a wandering star that passed by Earth, illuminating the night with a swampy green light and twinning the sky by day with two suns. A year later, Earth spun through the debris field the comet left behind. Suddenly, hundreds of thousands of meteors plummeted into the atmosphere, destroying swaths of electrical grids, leaving shores of beaches filled with deceased sea life, and setting acres of land ablaze. It was then, they say, that the sky fell. It was then that Jack lost Mia.Five years after the disappearance of his daughter, Jack has fallen. Once an accomplished professor of botany, he's now a shell of a man who has all but withdrawn from life. Nora, his ex-wife, has thrown herself into her investigative work. Separately, they have each bandaged over the hole Mia left behind.Just as Jack is uncovering a new form of deadly parasitic fungus in his lab, Nora is assigned to investigate the cases of ritualistic murders dotting Seattle. The rituals consist of etchings - crosshatches are carved into bodies and eyes are scooped out of their sockets. The attackers appear to be possessed.It only takes a moment - for a sickness to infect, for a person to be killed, for a child to be lost. When Nora enlists Jack to identify the cause of this string of vicious deaths, Jack is quick to help. Together, they fight to keep their moments - the unexpected laughter, the extraordinary discoveries, the chance that Mia could come back home - but they find that what they're up against defies all logic, and what they have to do to save the world will change every life forever.(P) 2022 HarperCollins PublishersEmily Eternal
By M. G. Wheaton. 2019
Meet Emily - she can solve advanced mathematical problems, unlock the mind's deepest secrets and even fix your truck's air…
con, but unfortunately, she can't restart the Sun.She's an artificial consciousness, designed in a lab to help humans process trauma, which is particularly helpful when the sun begins to die 5 billion years before scientists agreed it was supposed to.So, her beloved human race is screwed, and so is Emily. That is, until she finds a potential answer buried deep in the human genome. But before her solution can be tested, her lab is brutally attacked, and Emily is forced to go on the run with two human companions - college student Jason and small-town Sheriff, Mayra.As the sun's death draws near, Emily and her friends must race against time to save humanity. But before long it becomes clear that it's not only the species at stake, but also that which makes us most human.The Ninth Metal: The Comet Cycle Book 1 (The Comet Cycle #1)
By Benjamin Percy. 2021
From award-winning author Benjamin Percy comes an explosive, breakout speculative thriller in which a powerful new metal arrives on Earth…
in the wake of a meteor shower, triggering a massive new 'gold rush' in the Midwest and turning life as we know it on its head. The first of a cycle of novels set in a shared universe. It might have been the end of days. Instead it was the beginning of something shockingly new. They called the comet Cain, after the astronomer who discovered it. It passed 500,000 miles from Earth. We were spared planetary destruction and granted a light show like no other. But, one year later, Earth span into the debris field left by the comet and a meteor storm struck. Roads, buildings and even a small town were annihilated.The meteors impacted heavily around the dying mining town of Northfall, Minnesota. It was the night of a mysterious double murder, the deed overshadowed by the discovery that the burning remains of the rock contained an unknown substance more precious than gold: the Ninth Metal. And with that discovery, everything changed.Benjamin Percy is an award-winning novelist, celebrated comic books writer and author of the Wolverine podcast. The Ninth Metal is the first of a cycle of novels set in a shared universe. (P) 2021 Houghton Mifflin HarcourtTo Be Taught, If Fortunate: A Novella
By Becky Chambers. 2019
In the future, instead of terraforming planets to sustain human life, explorers of the galaxy transform themselves.*FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES…
BESTSELLING AUTHOR* At the turn of the twenty-second century, scientists make a breakthrough in human spaceflight. Through a revolutionary method known as somaforming, astronauts can survive in hostile environments off Earth using synthetic biological supplementations. They can produce antifreeze in sub-zero temperatures, absorb radiation and convert it for food, and conveniently adjust to the pull of different gravitational forces. With the fragility of the body no longer a limiting factor, human beings are at last able to explore neighbouring exoplanets long suspected to harbour life.Ariadne is one such explorer. On a mission to ecologically survey four habitable worlds fifteen light-years from Earth, she and her fellow crewmates sleep while in transit, and wake each time with different features. But as they shift through both form and time, life back on Earth has also changed. Faced with the possibility of returning to a planet that has forgotten those who have left, Ariadne begins to chronicle the wonders and dangers of her journey, in the hope that someone back home might still be listening.(P) 2019 Hodder & Stoughton LtdThe Extraordinaries (The Extraordinaries)
By T J Klune. 2020
In Nova City, there are extraordinary people, capable of feats that defy the imagination. Shadow Star protects the city and…
manipulates darkness, and Pyro Storm is determined to bring the city to its knees using his power over fire. And then there's Nick who . . . well, being the most popular fanfiction writer in the Extraordinaries fandom is a superpower, right? Instead of fighting crime, Nick contends with a new year at school, a father who doesn't trust him, and a best friend named Seth, who may or may not be the love of Nick's short, uneventful life. It should be enough. But after a chance encounter with Shadow Star, Nova City's mightiest hero (and Nick's biggest crush), Nick sets out to make himself extraordinary. And he'll do it with or without Seth's reluctant help . . . Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl meets Brandon Sanderson's Steelheart in TJ Klune's YA debut: a queer coming-of-age story about a fanboy with ADHD and the heroes he loves.(P) 2020 Macmillan AudioEnder's World: Fresh Perspectives on the SF Classic Ender's Game
By Orson Scott Card, Neal Shusterman, Mary Robinette Kowal, Janis Ian, Aaron Johnston, Eric James Stone. 2013
Experience the thrill of reading Ender's Game all over againGo deeper into the complexities of Orson Scott Card's classic novel…
with science fiction and fantasy writers, YA authors, military strategists, including: Ender prequel series coauthor Aaron Johnston on Ender and the evolution of the child hero. Burn Notice creator Matt Nix on Ender's Game as a guide to life. Hugo award-winning writer Mary Robinette Kowal on how Ender's Game gets away with breaking all the (literary) rules. Retired US Air Force Colonel Tom Ruby on what the military could learn from Ender about leadership. Bestselling YA author Neal Shusterman on the ambivalence toward survival that lies at the heart of Ender's story. Plus pieces by Hilari Bel, John Brown, Mette Ivie Harrison, Janis Ian, Alethea Kontis, David Lubar and Alison S. Myers, John F. Schmitt, Ken Scholes, and Eric James Stone. Also includes never-before-seen content from Orson Scott Card on the writing and evolution of the events in Ender's Game, from the design of Battle School to the mindset of the pilots who sacrificed themselves in humanity's fight against the formics. Hugo and Nebula Awards winner.