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Hainish Cycle
The ''Hainish Cycle'' consists of a number of science fiction novels and stories by Ursula K. Le Guin. It is set in a future history in which civilizations of human beings on planets orbiting a number of nearby stars, including Terra ("Earth"), are contacting each other for the first time and establishing diplomatic relations, and setting up a confederacy under the guidance of the oldest of the human worlds, peaceful Hain. In this history, human beings did not evolve on Earth but were the result of interstellar colonies planted by Hain long ago, which was followed by a long period when interstellar travel ceased. Some of the races have new genetic traits, a result of ancient Hainish experiments in genetic engineering, including people who can dream while awake, and a world of hermaphroditic people who only come into active sexuality once a month, not knowing which sex will manifest in them. In keeping with Le Guin's style, she uses varied social and environmental settings to explor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space exploration, time travel, Parallel universes in fiction, parallel universes, and extraterrestrials in fiction, extraterrestrial life. The genre often explores human responses to the consequences of projected or imagined scientific advances. Science fiction is related to fantasy (together abbreviated wikt:SF&F, SF&F), Horror fiction, horror, and superhero fiction, and it contains many #Subgenres, subgenres. The genre's precise Definitions of science fiction, definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Major subgenres include hard science fiction, ''hard'' science fiction, which emphasizes scientific accuracy, and soft science fiction, ''soft'' science fiction, which focuses on social sciences. Other no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Again, Dangerous Visions
''Again, Dangerous Visions'' (1972) is a science fiction short story anthology, edited by American author Harlan Ellison. It is the follow-up to ''Dangerous Visions'' (1967), also edited by Ellison. Cover art and interior illustrations are by Ed Emshwiller. Like its predecessor, ''Again, Dangerous Visions'', and many of the collected stories, have received awards recognition. "The Word for World is Forest", by Ursula K. Le Guin, won the 1973 Hugo for Best Novella. "When It Changed", by Joanna Russ, won a 1972 Nebula Award for Best Short Story. Harlan Ellison was recognized with a special Hugo Award for anthologizing, his second special award, in 1972. ''Again, Dangerous Visions'' was released as a two-volume paperback edition by Signet in the United States, and by Pan in the United Kingdom. A sequel was planned, '' The Last Dangerous Visions'', but was never published in Ellison's lifetime. It was then later released in 2024. The first printing was a hardback edition of 6,500 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oikos
''Oikos'' ( ; : ) was, in Ancient Greece, two related but distinct concepts: the family and the family's house. Its meaning shifted even within texts. The ''oikos'' was the basic unit of society in most Greek city-states. For regular Attic_Greek, Attic usage within the context of families, the ''oikos'' referred to a line of descent from father to son from generation to generation. Alternatively, as Aristotle used it in his ''Politics (Aristotle), Politics'', the term was sometimes used to refer to everybody living in a given house. Thus, the head of the ''oikos'', along with his immediate family and his slaves, would all be encompassed. Large ''oikoi'' also had farms that were usually tended by the slaves, which were also the basic agricultural unit of the Economy of ancient Greece, ancient Greek economy. House Traditional interpretations of the layout of the ''oikos'' in Classical Athens have divided into men's and women's spaces, with an area known as the ''gynaeceum, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oikoumene
In ancient Greece, the term ''oecumene'' (British English, UK) or ''ecumene'' (American English, US; ) denoted the known, inhabited, or habitable world. In classical antiquity, Greek antiquity, it referred to the portions of the world known to list of Graeco-Roman geographers, Hellenic geographers, subdivided into three continents: Africa, Europe, and Asia. Under the Roman Empire, it came to refer to civilization itself, as well as the secular and religious imperial administration. In present usage, it is most often used in the context of "Ecumenism, ecumenical" and describes the Christian Church as a unified whole, or the unified modern world civilization. It is also used in cartography to describe a type of world map (''mappa mundi'') used in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Etymology The Ancient Greek, Greek term cited above is the grammatical gender, feminine present tense, present middle voice, middle participle of the verb (, '(I) inhabit') and is a clipping (morpholo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Language
Greek (, ; , ) is an Indo-European languages, Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic languages, Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece, Cyprus, Italy (in Calabria and Salento), southern Albania, and other regions of the Balkans, Caucasus, the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor, and the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the list of languages by first written accounts, longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system is the Greek alphabet, which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with the epics of Homer, ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon. Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Time Dilation
Time dilation is the difference in elapsed time as measured by two clocks, either because of a relative velocity between them (special relativity), or a difference in gravitational potential between their locations (general relativity). When unspecified, "time dilation" usually refers to the effect due to velocity. The dilation compares "wristwatch" clock readings between events measured in different inertial frames and is not observed by visual comparison of clocks across moving frames. These predictions of the theory of relativity have been repeatedly confirmed by experiment, and they are of practical concern, for instance in the operation of satellite navigation systems such as GPS and Galileo. Invisibility Time dilation is a relationship between clock readings. Visually observed clock readings involve delays due to the propagation speed of light from the clock to the observer. Thus there is no direct way to observe time dilation. As an example of time dilation, two expe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interstellar Travel
Interstellar travel is the hypothetical travel of spacecraft between star systems. Due to the vast distances between the Solar System and nearby stars, interstellar travel is not practicable with current propulsion technologies. To travel between stars within a reasonable amount of time (decades or centuries), an interstellar spacecraft must reach a significant fraction of the speed of light, requiring enormous energy. Communication with such interstellar craft will experience years of delay due to the speed of light. Collisions with cosmic dust and gas at such speeds can be catastrophic for such spacecrafts. Crewed interstellar travel could possibly be conducted more slowly (far beyond the scale of a human lifetime) by making a generation ship. Hypothetical interstellar propulsion systems include nuclear pulse propulsion, fission-fragment rocket, fusion rocket, beamed solar sail, and antimatter rocket. The benefits of interstellar travel include detailed surveys of habitable exop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genetic Engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism's genes using technology. It is a set of Genetic engineering techniques, technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells, including the transfer of genes within and across species boundaries to produce improved or novel organisms. New DNA is obtained by either isolating and copying the genetic material of interest using recombinant DNA methods or by Artificial gene synthesis, artificially synthesising the DNA. A Vector (molecular biology), construct is usually created and used to insert this DNA into the host organism. The first recombinant DNA molecule was made by Paul Berg in 1972 by combining DNA from the monkey virus SV40 with the Lambda phage, lambda virus. As well as inserting genes, the process can be used to remove, or "Gene knockout, knock out", genes. The new DNA can either be inserted randomly or Gene targeting, targeted to a spe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Always Coming Home
''Always Coming Home'' is a 1985 science fiction novel by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. It is in parts narrative, pseudo-textbook and pseudo-anthropologist's record. It describes the life and society of the Kesh people, a cultural group who live in the distant future long after modern society has collapsed. It is presented by Pandora, who seems to be an anthropologist or ethnographer from the readers' contemporary culture, or a culture very close to it. Pandora describes the book as a protest against contemporary civilization, which the Kesh call "''the Sickness of Man''". Setting The book's setting is a time so post-apocalyptic that no cultural source can remember the apocalypse, though a few folk tales refer to our time. The only signs of our civilization that have lasted into their time are indestructible artefacts such as styrofoam and a self-manufacturing, self-maintaining, solar-system-wide computer network. There has been a great sea level rise since our time, fl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Lathe Of Heaven
''The Lathe of Heaven'' is a 1971 science fiction novel by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, first serialized in the American science fiction magazine ''Amazing Stories''. It received nominations for the 1972 Hugo and the 1971 Nebula Award, and won the Locus Award for Best Novel in 1972. Two television film adaptations were released: the PBS production, '' The Lathe of Heaven'' (1980), and '' Lathe of Heaven'' (2002), a remake produced by the A&E Network. The novel explores themes and philosophies such as positivism, Taoism, behaviorism, and utilitarianism. Its central plot surrounds a man whose dreams are able to alter past and present reality and the ramifications of those psychologically derived changes for better and worse. Title The title is from the writings of Chuang Tzu (Zhuang Zhou) — specifically a passage from Book XXIII, paragraph 7, quoted as an epigraph to Chapter 3 of the novel: To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Four Ways To Forgiveness
''Four Ways to Forgiveness'' is a collection of four short stories and novellas by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. All four stories are set in the future and deal with the planets Yeowe and Werel, both members of the Ekumen, a collective of planets used by Le Guin as part of the background for many novels and short stories in her Hainish Cycle. In 2017 it was reissued in the second volume of ''Hainish Novels & Stories'' and as an e-book, augmented with a fifth related story by Le Guin, as ''Five Ways to Forgiveness''. Setting The stories in the book are set on two planets in a distant solar system, Werel and Yeowe, inhabited by humans placed there by the ancient Hainish. (This 'Werel' is not the same as the world called Werel in Le Guin's '' Planet of Exile'' and '' City of Illusions''.) Werel has a long history of institutional enslavement of its lighter-skinned ethnic groups by its darker-skinned ethnic groups (the latter's derogatory term for the former is "dusties"). Whe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Fisherman Of The Inland Sea
''A Fisherman of the Inland Sea'' is a 1994 collection of short stories and novellas by the American author Ursula K. Le Guin. The collection was second in the 1995 Locus Award poll in the collection category. . Accessed January 23, 2006 Contents The collection comprises eight works: *"The First Contact with the Gorgonids" *"Newton's Sleep" *"The Ascent of the North Face" *"The Rock That Changed Things" *"The Kerastion" *" The Shobies' Story" *"Dancing to Ganam" *"Another Story or A Fisherman of the Inland Sea"Details The First Contact with the Gorgonids "The First Contact with the Gorgonids" is a running joke within Le Guin's work. The stand-alone story is ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
