Topic: Science Fiction (Page 3)
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π A Canticle for Leibowitz
A Canticle for Leibowitz is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer Walter M. Miller Jr., first published in 1959. Set in a Catholic monastery in the desert of the southwestern United States after a devastating nuclear war, the book spans thousands of years as civilization rebuilds itself. The monks of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz preserve the surviving remnants of man's scientific knowledge until the world is again ready for it.
The novel is a fixup of three short stories Miller published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction that were inspired by the author's participation in the bombing of the monastery at the Battle of Monte Cassino during World War II. The book is considered one of the classics of science fiction and has never been out of print. Appealing to mainstream and genre critics and readers alike, it won the 1961 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel, and its themes of religion, recurrence, and church versus state have generated a significant body of scholarly research. A sequel, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman, was published posthumously in 1997.
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- "A Canticle for Leibowitz" | 2024-03-02 | 59 Upvotes 16 Comments
- "A Canticle for Leibowitz" | 2020-06-20 | 12 Upvotes 3 Comments
π Neuromancer was released 40 years ago today
Neuromancer is a 1984 science fiction novel by American-Canadian writer William Gibson. Considered one of the earliest and best-known works in the cyberpunk genre, it is the only novel to win the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Award, and the Hugo Award. It was Gibson's debut novel and the beginning of the Sprawl trilogy. Set in the future, the novel follows Henry Case, a washed-up hacker hired for one last job, which brings him in contact with a powerful artificial intelligence.
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- "Neuromancer was released 40 years ago today" | 2024-07-01 | 52 Upvotes 35 Comments
π Rossum's Universal Robots
R.U.R. is a 1920 science-fiction play by the Czech writer Karel Δapek. "R.U.R." stands for Rossumovi UniverzΓ‘lnΓ Roboti (Rossum's Universal Robots, a phrase that has been used as a subtitle in English versions). The play had its world premiere on 2 January 1921 in Hradec KrΓ‘lovΓ©; it introduced the word "robot" to the English language and to science fiction as a whole. R.U.R. soon became influential after its publication. By 1923 it had been translated into thirty languages. R.U.R. was successful in its time in Europe and North America. Δapek later took a different approach to the same theme in his 1936 novel War with the Newts, in which non-humans become a servant-class in human society.
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- "Rossum's Universal Robots" | 2022-03-02 | 59 Upvotes 18 Comments
π WarGames was released today 40 years ago
WarGames is a 1983 American science fiction techno-thriller film written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes and directed by John Badham. The film, which stars Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, John Wood, and Ally Sheedy, follows David Lightman (Broderick), a young hacker who unwittingly accesses a United States military supercomputer programmed to simulate, predict and execute nuclear war against the Soviet Union.
WarGames was a critical and commercial success, grossing $125Β million worldwide against a $12Β million budget. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards.
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- "WarGames was released today 40 years ago" | 2023-06-03 | 53 Upvotes 14 Comments
π Red Star (Novel)
Red Star (Russian: ΠΡΠ°ΡΠ½Π°Ρ Π·Π²Π΅Π·Π΄Π°) is Alexander Bogdanov's 1908 science fiction novel about a communist society on Mars. The first edition was published in St. Petersburg in 1908, before eventually being republished in Moscow and Petrograd in 1918, and then again in Moscow in 1922. Set in early Russia during the Revolution of 1905 and additionally on a fictional socialist society on Mars, the novel tells the story of Leonid, a Russian scientist-revolutionary who travels to Mars to learn and experience their socialist system and to teach them of his own world. In the process, he becomes enamored of the people and technological efficiency that he encounters in this new world. An English translation by Charles Rougle was published in 1984.
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- "Red Star (Novel)" | 2020-12-01 | 49 Upvotes 14 Comments
π Ark II
Ark II is an American live-action science fiction television series, aimed at children, that aired on CBS from September 11 to December 18, 1976 (with reruns continuing through November 13, 1977) as part of its weekend line-up. It returned again in rerun from September 16, 1978 through August 25, 1979. Only 15 half-hour episodes were ever produced. The program's central characters were created by Martin Roth; Ted Post helped Roth develop its core format.
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- "Ark II" | 2019-04-21 | 46 Upvotes 16 Comments
π Kurt Vonnegut's rules for writing short stories
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (; November 11, 1922 β April 11, 2007) was an American writer. In a career spanning over 50 years, Vonnegut published fourteen novels, three short story collections, five plays, and five works of non-fiction, with further collections being published after his death. He is most famous for his darkly satirical, best-selling novel Slaughterhouse-Five (1969).
Born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, Vonnegut attended Cornell University but dropped out in January 1943 and enlisted in the United States Army. As part of his training, he studied mechanical engineering at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) and the University of Tennessee. He was then deployed to Europe to fight in World War II and was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He was interned in Dresden and survived the Allied bombing of the city by taking refuge in a meat locker of the slaughterhouse where he was imprisoned. After the war, Vonnegut married Jane Marie Cox, with whom he had three children. He later adopted his sister's three sons, after she died of cancer and her husband was killed in a train accident.
Vonnegut published his first novel, Player Piano, in 1952. The novel was reviewed positively but was not commercially successful. In the nearly 20 years that followed, Vonnegut published several novels that were only marginally successful, such as Cat's Cradle (1963) and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1964). Vonnegut's breakthrough was his commercially and critically successful sixth novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. The book's anti-war sentiment resonated with its readers amidst the ongoing Vietnam War and its reviews were generally positive. After its release, Slaughterhouse-Five went to the top of The New York Times Best Seller list, thrusting Vonnegut into fame. He was invited to give speeches, lectures and commencement addresses around the country and received many awards and honors.
Later in his career, Vonnegut published several autobiographical essays and short-story collections, including Fates Worse Than Death (1991), and A Man Without a Country (2005). After his death, he was hailed as a morbidly comical commentator on the society in which he lived and as one of the most important contemporary writers. Vonnegut's son Mark published a compilation of his father's unpublished compositions, titled Armageddon in Retrospect. In 2017, Seven Stories Press published Complete Stories, a collection of Vonnegut's short fiction including five previously unpublished stories. Complete Stories was collected and introduced by Vonnegut friends and scholars Jerome Klinkowitz and Dan Wakefield. Numerous scholarly works have examined Vonnegut's writing and humor.
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- "Kurt Vonnegut's rules for writing short stories" | 2009-10-08 | 46 Upvotes 14 Comments
π Children of Men
Children of Men is a 2006 dystopian action thriller film co-written and directed by Alfonso CuarΓ³n. The screenplay, based on P. D. James' 1992 novel The Children of Men, was credited to five writers, with Clive Owen making uncredited contributions. The film takes place in 2027, when two decades of human infertility have left society on the brink of collapse. Asylum seekers seek sanctuary in the United Kingdom, where they are subjected to detention and refoulement by the government. Owen plays civil servant Theo Faron, who must help refugee Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) escape the chaos. Children of Men also stars Julianne Moore, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Pam Ferris, Charlie Hunnam, and Michael Caine.
The film was released by Universal Pictures on 22 September 2006 in the UK and on 25 December in the US. Critics noted the relationship between the US' Christmas opening and the film's themes of hope, redemption, and faith. Despite the limited release and lack of any clear marketing strategy during awards season by the film's distributor, Children of Men received critical acclaim and was recognised for its achievements in screenwriting, cinematography, art direction, and innovative single-shot action sequences. It was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing. It was also nominated for three BAFTA Awards, winning Best Cinematography and Best Production Design, and for three Saturn Awards, winning Best Science Fiction Film. In 2016 it was voted 13th among 100 films considered the best of the 21st century by 117 film critics from around the world.
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- "Children of Men" | 2022-11-15 | 38 Upvotes 21 Comments
π Solarpunk
Solarpunk is a movement that encourages optimistic envisionings of the future in light of present environmental concerns, such as climate change and pollution, as well as social inequality. Solarpunk encompasses a multitude of media such as literature, art, architecture, fashion, music, and games. Solarpunk focuses on renewable energies, as well as technology as a whole, to envision a positive future for humanity; although, it also embraces less advanced ways to reduce carbon emissions, like gardening. Solarpunk is also a genre of speculative fiction; some of the most well-known examples are Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World and Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation.
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- "Solarpunk" | 2022-08-16 | 23 Upvotes 1 Comments
- "Solarpunk" | 2020-04-16 | 25 Upvotes 5 Comments
π I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (1967)
"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" is a post-apocalyptic science fiction short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. It was first published in the March 1967 issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction.
It won a Hugo Award in 1968. The name was also used for a short story collection of Ellison's work, featuring this story. It was reprinted by the Library of America, collected in volume two (Terror and the Uncanny, from the 1940s to Now) of American Fantastic Tales.
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- "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (1967)" | 2023-10-12 | 46 Upvotes 6 Comments