The Tragic Thread in Science Fiction

The Tragic Thread in Science Fiction PDF Author: Robert H. Waugh
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781614982463
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
For decades, Robert H. Waugh has been a scintillating critic of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. A leading analyst of H. P. Lovecraft, Waugh now brings his critical talents to the assessment of an array of fantasy and science fiction writers, past and present. In a trilogy of essays, Waugh studies David Lindsay's pioneering novel A Voyage to Arcturus (1920), probing its relations to the work of Goethe and its distinctive vocabulary. Two essays discuss the largely ignored work of Olaf Stapledon, while another pair of essays examine key novels by Arthur C. Clarke. Subsequent pieces reveal Waugh's acumen in analyzing the work of William Gibson (Neuromancer), the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories and other works by Fritz Leiber, and parallels between Leiber's work and that of James Tiptree, Jr. The book concludes with a rumination on Lovecraft's collaborative science fiction story "In the Walls of Eryx." Waugh illuminates the complexities of all these authors' works with effortless elegance and panache. Robert H. Waugh is a former professor of English at the State University of New York at New Paltz. He is the author of the essay collections The Monster in the Mirror: Looking for H. P. Lovecraft (2006) and A Monster of Voices: Speaking for H. P. Lovecraft (2011) as well as the short story collection The Bloody Tugboat and Other Witcheries (2015). He has also published several volumes of poetry.

The Tragic Thread in Science Fiction

The Tragic Thread in Science Fiction PDF Author: Robert H. Waugh
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781614982463
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 236

Get Book Here

Book Description
For decades, Robert H. Waugh has been a scintillating critic of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. A leading analyst of H. P. Lovecraft, Waugh now brings his critical talents to the assessment of an array of fantasy and science fiction writers, past and present. In a trilogy of essays, Waugh studies David Lindsay's pioneering novel A Voyage to Arcturus (1920), probing its relations to the work of Goethe and its distinctive vocabulary. Two essays discuss the largely ignored work of Olaf Stapledon, while another pair of essays examine key novels by Arthur C. Clarke. Subsequent pieces reveal Waugh's acumen in analyzing the work of William Gibson (Neuromancer), the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories and other works by Fritz Leiber, and parallels between Leiber's work and that of James Tiptree, Jr. The book concludes with a rumination on Lovecraft's collaborative science fiction story "In the Walls of Eryx." Waugh illuminates the complexities of all these authors' works with effortless elegance and panache. Robert H. Waugh is a former professor of English at the State University of New York at New Paltz. He is the author of the essay collections The Monster in the Mirror: Looking for H. P. Lovecraft (2006) and A Monster of Voices: Speaking for H. P. Lovecraft (2011) as well as the short story collection The Bloody Tugboat and Other Witcheries (2015). He has also published several volumes of poetry.

The Woman Who Died a Lot

The Woman Who Died a Lot PDF Author: Jasper Fforde
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101601043
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Ex-detective Thursday Next faces her trickiest assignment yet in the seventh novel of this renowned series, “[a] bibliophile’s Wonderland” (The Plain Dealer). “It’s safe to say that if you enjoy that particularly British, Douglas Adams–style absurd delivery of wry observations, you’ll get a kick out of [The Woman Who Died a Lot].”—New York Journal of Books Thursday Next, the Bookworld’s leading enforcement officer, has been forced into semiretirement following an assassination attempt. When her former SpecOps division is reinstated, she assumes she’s the obvious choice to lead the Literary Detectives. Sadly, our banged-up heroine is no spring chicken, and her old boss has a cushier job in mind: Chief Librarian of the Swindon All-You-Can-Eat-at-Fatso’s Drink Not Included Library. But where Thursday goes, trouble follows. As the new Chief Librarian faces 100 percent budget cuts and trouble from the ever-evil Jack Schitt, the Next children face their own career hiccups—and possible nonexistence. Don’t miss any of Jasper Fforde’s delightfully entertaining Thursday Next novels: THE EYRE AFFAIR • LOST IN A GOOD BOOK • THE WELL OF LOST PLOTS • SOMETHING ROTTEN • FIRST AMONG SEQUELS • ONE OF OUR THURSDAYS IS MISSING • THE WOMAN WHO DIED A LOT

A Single Thread

A Single Thread PDF Author: Tracy Chevalier
Publisher:
ISBN: 0525558241
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
After the Great War took both her beloved brother and her fiancZ, Violet Speedwell has become a "surplus woman," one of a generation doomed to a life of spinsterhood. She is drawn into a society of women who embroider kneelers for the cathedral. When forces threaten her new independence and another war appears on the horizon, she fights to put down roots in a place where women aren't expected to grow.grow.

Seveneves

Seveneves PDF Author: Neal Stephenson
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062190415
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anathem, Reamde, and Cryptonomicon comes an exciting and thought-provoking science fiction epic—a grand story of annihilation and survival spanning five thousand years. What would happen if the world were ending? A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space. But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain . . . Five thousand years later, their progeny—seven distinct races now three billion strong—embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown . . . to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth. A writer of dazzling genius and imaginative vision, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, technology, psychology, and literature in a magnificent work of speculative fiction that offers a portrait of a future that is both extraordinary and eerily recognizable. As he did in Anathem, Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and Reamde, Stephenson explores some of our biggest ideas and perplexing challenges in a breathtaking saga that is daring, engrossing, and altogether brilliant.

Book of Lost Threads

Book of Lost Threads PDF Author: Tess Evans
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1742692680
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
In the small town of Opportunity, four mismatched people discover the unexpected power of kindness.

Death's End

Death's End PDF Author: Cixin Liu
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0765377101
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 605

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Book Description
Mutually assured destruction has led to decades of peace between humanity and the Trisolarans, but a new force is awakening and this delicate balance can no longer hold... Half a century after the Doomsday Battle, the uneasy balance of Dark Forest Deterrence keeps the Trisolaran invaders at bay. Earth enjoys unprecedented prosperity due to the infusion of Trisolaran knowledge. With human science advancing daily and the Trisolarans adopting Earth culture, it seems that the two civilizations will soon be able to co-exist peacefully as equals without the terrible threat of mutually assured annihilation. But the peace has also made humanity complacent. Cheng Xin, an aerospace engineer from the early twenty-first century, awakens from hibernation in this new age. She brings with her knowledge of a long-forgotten program dating from the beginning of the Trisolar Crisis, and her very presence may upset the delicate balance between two worlds. Will humanity reach for the stars or die in its cradle? Death's End is the New York Times bestselling conclusion to Cixin Liu's tour-de-force series that began with The Three-Body Problem. "The War of the Worlds for the twenty-first century . . . Packed with a sense of wonder." --The Wall Street Journal "A meditation on technology, progress, morality, extinction, and knowledge that doubles as a cosmos- in-the-balance thriller." --NPR The Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy The Three-Body Problem The Dark Forest Death's End Other Books Ball Lightning (forthcoming)

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (Enhanced Edition)

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (Enhanced Edition) PDF Author: Charles Yu
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307379884
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This enhanced eBook includes video, audio, photographic, and linked content, as well as a bonus short story. Hear TAMMY talk. Learn the origins of Minor Universe 31. See the TM-31. Take a trip in it. Photos and illustrations appear as hyperlinked endnotes. Video and audio are embedded directly in text. *Video and audio may not play on all readers. Check your user manual for details. National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award winner Charles Yu delivers his debut novel, a razor-sharp, ridiculously funny, and utterly touching story of a son searching for his father . . . through quantum space–time. Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. That’s where Charles Yu, time travel technician—part counselor, part gadget repair man—steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he’s not taking client calls or consoling his boss, Phil, who could really use an upgrade, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a one-hour cycle of time, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, and Ed, a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, in order to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory. He learns that the key may be found in a book he got from his future self. It’s called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and he’s the author. And somewhere inside it is the information that could help him—in fact it may even save his life. Wildly new and adventurous, Yu’s debut is certain to send shock waves of wonder through literary space–time.

Threads and Flames

Threads and Flames PDF Author: Esther Friesner
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101445386
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
It's 1910, and thirteen-year-old Raisa has just traveled alone from a small Polish shtetl all the way to New York City. It's overwhelming, awe-inspiring, and even dangerous, especially when she discovers that her sister has disappeared and she must now fend for herself. She finds work in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory sewing bodices on the popular shirtwaists. Raisa makes friends and even-dare she admit it?- falls in love. But then 1911 dawns, and one March day a spark ignites in the factory. One of the city's most harrowing tragedies unfolds, and Raisa's life is forever changed. . . . One hundred years after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, this moving young adult novel gives life to the tragedy and hope of this transformative event in American history.

Thread that Runs So True

Thread that Runs So True PDF Author: Jesse Stuart
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684719045
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
A personal narrative of the author's experiences as a teacher in the mountain region of Kentucky. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Only the Longest Threads

Only the Longest Threads PDF Author: Tasneem Zehra Husain
Publisher: Paul Dry Books
ISBN: 1589880889
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
"Part fiction, part overview of 'Aha!' moments in the forward march of physics, Only the Longest Threads takes readers dramatically through scientific fields such as quantum field theory, electromagnetism, relativity, quantum mechanics, and string theory. Each idea or concept is explored in an inventive chapter, each told from a different first-person narrator; the faux emails, letters, and diary entries take place from 1728 to the present day."—Boing Boing, "The Best Books for Nerds from 2014" "Science is done by real human beings, with human concerns. Only the Longest Threads tells a story that conveys the human side of science in a way that is as moving as it is accurate."—Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist at Caltech and author of The Particle at the End of the Universe Only the Longest Threads will thrill readers with its dramatic and lucid accounts of the great breakthroughs in the history of physics—classical mechanics, electromagnetism, relativity, quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, and string theory, each from the viewpoint of a (fictional) witness to the events. Tasneem Zehra Husain re-imagines the pivotal moments in the history of physics when radical new theories shifted our perception of the universe, and our place in it. Husain immerses the reader in the immediacy and excitement of the discoveries—and she guides us as we begin to understand the underlying science and to grasp the revolutionary step forward each of these milestones represents. "Tasneem Zehra Husain writes lyrically, poetically about life, love, and physics. I highly recommend this wonderful book for anyone interested in what physics, and indeed all of science, is about. She masterfully describes the most momentous moments in physics history with verve and talent."—Amir D. Aczel, bestselling author of Fermat’s Last Theorem "A delightful meditation on the development of modern physics, culminating in the discovery of the Higgs. Husain follows the thread of its creation through a dialog between a journalist and young theory student, and as seen through the eyes of witnesses."—John Huth, Donner Professor of Science, Harvard University "Well-written and cleverly constructed, this book takes us on a journey through the history of physics as a series of fictional adventures, loosely linked by another fiction, the storytellers' emails to each other. Some books are praised because 'I couldn’t put it down,' but this one merits a deeper reading, one that stops, muses on, and savors each story before going on to the next. Each one captures not only the emergence of a significant idea in physics, but also something of the characters, culture, and times surrounding that development. So take your time, pause to ponder, but persevere, you will be well rewarded!"—Helen R. Quinn, Physicist, Science Educator, and co-author of The Mystery of the Missing Antimatter, Professor Emeritus SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory "How do theoretical physicists think? Tasneem Zehra Husain knows. She knows their purpose, feels their passions, articulates their frustrations, shares their triumphs. Through the device of fiction Only the Longest Threads communicates the history of physical thought—its roots in inquisitiveness and essential disinterest in outcome—with greater clarity than any popular science text."—Michael Duff FRS, Abdus Salam Professor of Theoretical Physics, Imperial College London "An artfully constructed journey through space and time."—Freddy Cachazo, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics "Husain skillfully weaves a poetic tapestry."—Joseph Mazur, author of Enlightening Symbols