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Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0575121874
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 287
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Book Description
Arthur C. Clarke acquired his first science fiction magazine - a copy of Astounding Stories - in 1930, when he was 13. Immediately he became an avid reader and collector: and, soon enough, a would-be-writer. The rest is history. Now, in Astounding Days, he looks back over those impressed by him, discussing their scientific howlers, and their remarkable proportion of predictive bulls-eyes - and writing of his early life and career. Written with relaxed good humour, Astounding Days is full of fascinating comment and anecdote.
Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0575121874
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 287
Get Book Here
Book Description
Arthur C. Clarke acquired his first science fiction magazine - a copy of Astounding Stories - in 1930, when he was 13. Immediately he became an avid reader and collector: and, soon enough, a would-be-writer. The rest is history. Now, in Astounding Days, he looks back over those impressed by him, discussing their scientific howlers, and their remarkable proportion of predictive bulls-eyes - and writing of his early life and career. Written with relaxed good humour, Astounding Days is full of fascinating comment and anecdote.
Author: Alec Nevala-Lee
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062571966
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 619
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Book Description
Hugo and Locus Award Finalist An Economist Best Book of the Year A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Best Book of 2018 “An amazing and engrossing history...Insightful, entertaining, and compulsively readable.” — George R. R. Martin Astounding is the landmark account of the extraordinary partnership between four controversial writers—John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and L. Ron Hubbard—who set off a revolution in science fiction and forever changed our world. This remarkable cultural narrative centers on the figure of John W. Campbell, Jr., whom Asimov called “the most powerful force in science fiction ever.” Campbell, who has never been the subject of a biography until now, was both a visionary author—he wrote the story that was later filmed as The Thing—and the editor of the groundbreaking magazine best known as Astounding Science Fiction, in which he discovered countless legendary writers and published classic works ranging from the I, Robot series to Dune. Over a period of more than thirty years, from the rise of the pulps to the debut of Star Trek, he dominated the genre, and his three closest collaborators reached unimaginable heights. Asimov became the most prolific author in American history; Heinlein emerged as the leading science fiction writer of his generation with the novels Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land; and Hubbard achieved lasting fame—and infamy—as the founder of the Church of Scientology. Drawing on unexplored archives, thousands of unpublished letters, and dozens of interviews, Alec Nevala-Lee offers a riveting portrait of this circle of authors, their work, and their tumultuous private lives. With unprecedented scope, drama, and detail, Astounding describes how fan culture was born in the depths of the Great Depression; follows these four friends and rivals through World War II and the dawn of the atomic era; and honors such exceptional women as Doña Campbell and Leslyn Heinlein, whose pivotal roles in the history of the genre have gone largely unacknowledged. For the first time, it reveals the startling extent of Campbell’s influence on the ideas that evolved into Scientology, which prompted Asimov to observe: “I knew Campbell and I knew Hubbard, and no movement can have two Messiahs.” It looks unsparingly at the tragic final act that estranged the others from Campbell, bringing the golden age of science fiction to a close, and it illuminates how their complicated legacy continues to shape the imaginations of millions and our vision of the future itself. "Enthralling…A clarion call to enlarge American literary history.” — Washington Post “Engrossing, well-researched… This sure-footed history addresses important issues, such as the lack of racial diversity and gender parity for much of the genre’s history.” — Wall Street Journal “A gift to science fiction fans everywhere.” — Sylvia Nasar, New York Times bestselling author of A Beautiful Mind
Author: Gary Westfahl
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252050630
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 189
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Book Description
Already renowned for his science fiction and scientific nonfiction, Arthur C. Clarke became the world’s most famous science fiction writer after the success of 2001: A Space Odyssey. He then produced novels like Rendezvous with Rama and The Fountains of Paradise that many regard as his finest works. Gary Westfahl closely examines Clarke's remarkable career, ranging from his forgotten juvenilia to the passages he completed for a final novel, The Last Theorem. As Westfahl explains, Clarke’s science fiction offered original perspectives on subjects like new inventions, space travel, humanity’s destiny, alien encounters, the undersea world, and religion. While not inclined to mysticism, Clarke necessarily employed mystical language to describe the fantastic achievements of advanced aliens and future humans. Westfahl also contradicts the common perception that Clarke’s characters were bland and underdeveloped, arguing that these reticent, solitary individuals, who avoid conventional relationships, represent his most significant prediction of the future, as they embody the increasingly common lifestyle of people in the twenty-first century.
Author: Tom Easton
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
ISBN: 080951205X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 354
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Book Description
Tom Easton has served as the monthly book review columnist for Analog Science Fiction for almost three decades, having contributed during that span many hundreds of columns and over a million words of penetrating criticism on the best literature that science fiction has to offer. His reviews have been celebrated for their wit, humor, readability, knowledge, and incisiveness. His love of literature, particularly fantastic literature, is everywhere evident in his essays. Easton has ever been willing to cover small presses, obscure authors, and unusual publications, being the only major critic in the field to do so on a regular basis. He seems to delight in finding the rare gem among the backwaters of the publishing field. "A reviewer's job," he says, "is not to judge books for the ages, but to tell readers enough about a book to give them some idea of whether they would enjoy it." And this he does admirably, whether he's discussing the works of the great writers in the field, or touching upon the least amongst them. This companion volume to "Periodic Stars" (Borgo/Wildside) collects another 250 of Easton's best reviews from the last fifteen years of "The Reference Library." No one does it better, and no other guide provides such lengthy or discerning commentary on the best SF works of recent times. Complete with Introduction and detailed Index.
Author: Earl Derr Biggers
Publisher: e-artnow
ISBN: 8027220122
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 2398
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Book Description
"Seven Keys to Baldpate" – A young novelist William Magee travels to the Baldpate Mountain resort, seeking for solitude and inspiration for his greatest novel yet. Soon after he gets in, he finds out that he is not the only one there, for there are seven keys to the place and seven people with various stories of why they are there. "Love Insurance" – The American branch of Lloyds' insurers is specialized in unusual policies, but one day an impoverished Lord Harrowby showed up with the strangest claim of them all. He wants an insurance against his fiancée Cynthia Meyrick breaking off their engagement. "Inside the Lines" – World War I has started, Britain has gone up against Germany, and few Americans are stranded at Gibraltar desperate to catch a boat back home. Spies are everywhere and Germans are plotting to blow up the English troop at Gibraltar. "The Agony Column" (Second-Floor Mystery) – Geoffrey West is an American in London. Since arriving he has been fascinated by the Agony Column, a personal advertisements in newspapers. One morning he spots an American tourist girl reading the same section, decides to place an ad to catch her attention, and soon they start corresponding. "Fifty Candles" – Young Winthrop is in love with Mary Wills and longs to marry her. His pursuit of her will lead him to a party in the home of a former employer, a millionaire with more enemies than friends. Millionaire is killed at the party, no one can be ruled out as a suspect, and some clues point to Winthrop. "Charlie Chan Series" - Charlie is a Chinese American detective who lives on Hawaii and works for the Honolulu Police Department, but often travels around the world investigating mysteries and solving crimes.
Author: Brian M. Stableford
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 9780810849389
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 512
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Book Description
This reference tracks the development of speculative fiction influenced by the advancement of science and the idea of progress from the eighteenth century to the present day. The major authors and publications of the genre and significant subgenres are covered. Additionally there are entries on fields of science and technology which have been particularly prolific in provoking such speculation. The list of acronyms and abbreviations, the chronology covering the literature from the 1700s through the present, the introductory essay, and the dictionary entries provide science fiction novices and enthusiasts as well as serious writers and critics with a wonderful foundation for understanding the realm of science fiction literature. The extensive bibliography that includes books, journals, fanzines, and websites demonstrates that science fiction literature commands a massive following.
Author: John Robert Colombo
Publisher: Dundurn
ISBN: 1459718208
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 410
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Book Description
What are "snow worms"? Are there more moose than people in the Yukon? What is the meaning of the word "Niagara"? Where will you find the world's largest perogy? Does Elvis have a street in Ottawa named after him? What was Pierre Elliott Trudeau's favourite snack food? Which province was the last to shift traffic from the left-hand side of the road to the right? These are some of the questions that are asked - and answered - in 1000 Questions About Canada. Every reader with an ounce (or a gram) of curiosity will find these intriguing questions and thoughtful answers fascinating to read and ponder. This book is for people who love curious lore and who want to know more about the country in which they live.
Author: Alexander C.T. Geppert
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349953393
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 459
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Book Description
Imagining Outer Space makes a captivating advance into the cultural history of outer space and extraterrestrial life in the European imagination. How was outer space conceived and communicated? What promises of interplanetary expansion and cosmic colonization propelled the project of human spaceflight to the forefront of twentieth-century modernity? In what way has West-European astroculture been affected by the continuous exploration of outer space? Tracing the thriving interest in spatiality to early attempts at exploring imaginary worlds beyond our own, the book analyzes contact points between science and fiction from a transdisciplinary perspective and examines sites and situations where utopian images and futuristic technologies contributed to the omnipresence of fantasmatic thought. Bringing together state-of-the-art work in this emerging field of historical research, the volume breaks new ground in the historicization of the Space Age.
Author: Michael Neufeld
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307389375
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 626
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Book Description
Curator and space historian at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum delivers a brilliantly nuanced biography of controversial space pioneer Wernher von Braun. Chief rocket engineer of the Third Reich and one of the fathers of the U.S. space program, Wernher von Braun is a source of consistent fascination. Glorified as a visionary and vilified as a war criminal, he was a man of profound moral complexities, whose intelligence and charisma were coupled with an enormous and, some would say, blinding ambition. Based on new sources, Neufeld's biography delivers a meticulously researched and authoritative portrait of the creator of the V-2 rocket and his times, detailing how he was a man caught between morality and progress, between his dreams of the heavens and the earthbound realities of his life.
Author: Earl Derr Biggers
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Americans
Languages : en
Pages : 230
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Book Description
While traveling to London, a young American writer becomes smitten when he overhears a young lady say she is smitten when he overhears a young lady say she is addicted to reading the personal ads, known in London as the "agony columns."
