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Fire Watch (book)
''Fire Watch'' is a book of short stories by Connie Willis, first published in 1984, that touches on time travel, nuclear war, the end of the world, and cornball humour. The title story, "Fire Watch", is about a time-travelling historian who goes back to the Blitz in London. He's miffed because he spent years preparing to travel with St. Paul and gets sent to St. Paul's Cathedral in London, instead. This model of time travel also features in Willis's subsequent novels ''Doomsday Book'', ''To Say Nothing of the Dog'' and ''Blackout/All Clear'', set in the same continuity. The stories are: *" Fire Watch" *"Service for the Burial of the Dead" *"Lost and Found" *"All My Darling Daughters" *"The Father of the Bride" *"A Letter from the Clearys" *"The Sidon in the Mirror" *"And Come from Miles Around" *"Daisy, in the Sun" *"Mail Order Clone" *"Samaritan" *"Blued Moon" This was Connie Willis's first collection. Reception David Pringle rated ''Fire Watch'' three stars out of fou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blackout/All Clear
''Blackout'' and ''All Clear'' are the two volumes that constitute a 2010 science fiction novel by American author Connie Willis. ''Blackout'' was published February 2, 2010 by Spectra. The second part, the conclusion ''All Clear'', was released as a separate book on October 19, 2010. The diptych won the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the 2011 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, and the 2011 Hugo Award for Best Novel. These two volumes are the most recent of four books and a short story that Willis has written involving time travel from Oxford during the mid-21st century, all of which won multiple awards. Plot introduction Willis imagines a near future (first introduced in her 1982 story " Fire Watch" and featured in two of her previous novels: ''Doomsday Book'' and ''To Say Nothing of the Dog'') in which historians conduct field work by traveling into the past as observers. The research is mainly conducted at the University of Oxford in England in the mid-21st cen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction Short Story Collections
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for scientific reasoning is tens of thousands of years old. The earliest written records in the history of science come from Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3000 to 1200 BCE. Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages, but was preserved in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age and later by the efforts of Byzantine Greek scholars who brought Greek m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1984 Short Story Collections
Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). * January 10 ** The United States and the Vatican City, Vatican (Holy See) restore full diplomatic relations. ** The Victoria, Seychelles, Victoria Agreement is signed, institutionalising the Indian Ocean Commission. *January 24 – Steve Jobs launches the Macintosh 128K, Macintosh personal computer in the United States. February * February 3 ** Dr. John Buster and the research team at Harbor–UCLA Medical Center announce history's first embryo transfer from one woman to another, resulting in a live birth. ** STS-41-B: Space Shuttle Challenger, Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' is launched on the 10th Space Shuttle mission. * February 7 – Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered spac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugo Award For Best Short Story
The Hugo Award for Best Short Story is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The short story award is available for works of fiction of fewer than 7,500 words; awards are also given out for pieces of longer lengths in the Hugo Award for Best Novelette, novelette, Hugo Award for Best Novella, novella, and Hugo Award for Best Novel, novel categories. The Hugo Awards have been described as "a fine showcase for speculative fiction" and "the best known literary award for science fiction writing". The Hugo Award for Best Short Story has been awarded annually since 1955, except in 1957. The award was titled "Best Short Fiction" rather than "Best Short Story" in 1960–1966. During this time no Novelette category was awarded and the Novella category had not yet been established; the award was defined only as a work "of less than novel length" that was not published as a stand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nebula Award For Best Short Story
The Nebula Award for Best Short Story is a literary award assigned each year by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for science fiction or fantasy short stories. A work of fiction is defined by the organization as a short story if it is less than 7,500 words; awards are also given out for longer works in the categories of novel, novella, and novelette. To be eligible for Nebula Award consideration a short story must be published in English in the United States. Works published in English elsewhere in the world are also eligible provided they are released on either a website or in an electronic edition. The Nebula Award for Best Short Story has been awarded annually since 1966. The award has been described as one of "the most important of the American science fiction awards" and "the science-fiction and fantasy equivalent" of the Emmy Awards. Nebula Award nominees and winners are chosen by members of SFWA, though the authors of the nominees do not need to be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nebula Award For Best Novelette
The Nebula Award for Best Novelette is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) to a science fiction or fantasy novelette. A work of fiction is defined by the organization as a novelette if it is between 7,500 and 17,500 words; awards are also given out for pieces of longer lengths in the Novel and Novella categories, and for shorter lengths in the Short Story category. To be eligible for Nebula Award consideration a novelette must be published in English in the United States. Works published in English elsewhere in the world are also eligible provided they are released on either a website or in an electronic edition. The Nebula Award for Best Novelette has been awarded annually since 1966. The Nebula Awards have been described as one of "the most important of the American science fiction awards" and "the science-fiction and fantasy equivalent" of the Emmy Awards. Nebula Award nominees and winners are chosen by members of SFWA, though the auth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugo Award For Best Novelette
The Hugo Award for Best Novelette is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The novelette award is available for works of fiction of between 7,500 and 17,500 words; awards are also given out in the short story, novella and novel categories. The Hugo Awards have been described as "a fine showcase for speculative fiction" and "the best known literary award for science fiction writing". The Hugo Award for Best Novelette was first awarded in 1955, and was subsequently awarded in 1956, 1958, and 1959, lapsing in 1960. The category was reinstated for 1967 through 1969, before lapsing again in 1970; after returning in 1973, it has remained to date. In addition to the regular Hugo awards, beginning in 1996 Retrospective Hugo Awards, or "Retro Hugos", have been available to be awarded for 50, 75, or 100 years prior. Retro Hugos may only be awarded for years after 1939 in which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Pringle
David Pringle (born 1 March 1950) is a Scottish science fiction editor and critic. Pringle served as the editor of '' Foundation'', an academic journal, from 1980 to 1986, during which time he became one of the prime movers of the collective which founded '' Interzone'' in 1982. By 1988, he was the sole publisher and editor of ''Interzone'', a position he retained until he sold the magazine to Andy Cox in 2004. For two-and-a-half years, from 1991 to 1993, he also edited and published a magazine entitled ''Million: The Magazine About Popular Fiction''. ''Interzone'' was nominated several times for the Hugo award for best semiprozine, winning in 1995. In 2005, the Worldcon committee gave Pringle a Special Award for his work on ''Interzone''. Pringle is a scholar of J. G. Ballard. He wrote the first short monograph on Ballard, ''Earth is the Alien Planet: J. G. Ballard's Four-Dimensional Nightmare'' (Borgo Press, 1979) and compiled ''J. G. Ballard: A Primary and Secondary B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Letter From The Clearys
"A Letter from the Clearys" is a science fiction short story by American writer Connie Willis, originally published in the July 1982 issue of the ''Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine'', and later reprinted in the short story collections '' Fire Watch'' (1984) and ''The Best of Connie Willis'' (2013). In 1983 it won the Nebula Award for best science fiction short story published in the two years prior to 1983. Plot summary "A Letter from the Clearys" starts with a young teenage girl and her dog making their way home through the countryside after a visit to the town's post office. The narrator is living with her parents, older brother and a neighbour. She feels somewhat neglected as her family are very busy building a greenhouse. In addition, while calling her dog she contrasts him with her previous dog. When the protagonist arrives home she reveals that she has found a letter from their friends, the Clearys. This family was due to have visited them 'before' but never came and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fire Watch (story)
"Fire Watch" is a science fiction novelette by American writer Connie Willis. The story, first published in ''Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine'' in February 1982, involves a time-traveling historian who goes back to the Blitz in London, to participate in the fire lookout at St. Paul's Cathedral. Plot The narrator is a student historian from a future where historians use time-travel to study history directly. He had prepared himself to visit St. Paul in the first century but instead gets sent to St. Paul's Cathedral in 1940. He develops a deep emotional attachment to the cathedral and is highly devoted to his role in defending it – especially due to his bitter knowledge that St. Paul's would survive the World War II bombings but would be obliterated in a terrorist attack nearer to the protagonist's own time. Reception The story won both a Hugo Award for Best Novelette and a Nebula Award for Best Novelette. Relationships to other Willis works "Fire Watch" (1982) was inclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
To Say Nothing Of The Dog
''To Say Nothing of the Dog'': ''or, How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last'' is a 1997 comic science fiction novel by Connie Willis. It used the same setting, including time-traveling historians, which Willis explored in '' Fire Watch'' (1982)'','' ''Doomsday Book'' (1992), and ''Blackout/All Clear'' (2010). ''To Say Nothing of the Dog'' won both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1999, and was nominated for the Nebula Award in 1998. Source of title The book's title is inspired by the subtitle of an 1889 classic work, as explained by the author in the dedication: "To Robert A. Heinlein, who, in ''Have Space Suit—Will Travel'', first introduced me to Jerome K. Jerome's '' Three Men in a Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog''." Plot Ned Henry is a time traveler in 1940 studying Coventry Cathedral after the Coventry Blitz of World War II. He is specifically searching for the location of the "Bishop's bird stump", a MacGuffin that is not defined by the narrator. The narrator shows ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
