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Marîd Audran
''When Gravity Fails'' is a cyberpunk science fiction novel by American writer George Alec Effinger, published in 1986. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1987 and the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1988. The title is taken from " Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues", a song by Bob Dylan: "When your gravity fails and negativity don't pull you through". Taking place in a futuristic Middle-Eastern setting, the series reverses some of the usual expectations of a future world order by painting the West in decline while Muslim countries seem to prosper. The book's other main themes are the effects of drug use and alternate personality technologies, as well as the personal interactions and increasing isolation of a flawed protagonist. It is the first book in Effinger's "Marîd Audran" series, named after the protagonist, and was followed by '' A Fire in the Sun'' in 1989 and '' The Exile Kiss'' in 1991. Effinger started work on a fourth Audran novel, ''Word of Night'', but d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Alec Effinger
George Alec Effinger (January 10, 1947 – April 27, 2002) was an American science fiction author, born in Cleveland, Ohio. Writing career Effinger was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on January 10, 1947. His father was a United States Navy veteran and his mother was a prostitute, and he grew up very poor. He attended Yale University on a scholarship, but he failed organic chemistry and dropped out of the pre-med program. He moved to New York City and began writing. His first wife, Diana, sometimes babysat for Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm, a married couple who were both science fiction writers. He joined the Clarion Writers' Workshop which they sponsored. Effinger's first three stories were published in the first Clarion anthology in 1971. His first published story was "The Eight-Thirty to Nine Slot" in ''Fantastic'' in 1971. During his early period, he also published under a variety of pseudonyms. His first novel, ''What Entropy Means to Me'' (1972), was nominated for the Ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opiate
An opiate is an alkaloid substance derived from opium (or poppy straw). It differs from the similar term ''opioid'' in that the latter is used to designate all substances, both natural and synthetic, that bind to opioid receptors in the brain (including antagonists). Opiates are alkaloid compounds naturally found in the opium poppy plant ''Papaver somniferum''. The psychoactive compounds found in the opium plant include morphine, codeine, and thebaine. Opiates have long been used for a variety of medical conditions, with evidence of opiate trade and use for pain relief as early as the eighth century AD. Most opiates are considered drugs with moderate to high abuse potential and are listed on various "Substance-Control Schedules" under the Uniform Controlled Substances Act of the United States of America. In 2014, between 13 and 20 million people used opioids recreationally, representing 0.3% to 0.4% of the global population between the ages of 15 and 65. According to the CDC, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turnaround (filmmaking)
Turnaround in filmmaking is the use of outside assistance to resolve problems preventing a film project from completing its development phase and entering the pre-production phase. A project stuck in development phase is said to be in development hell. Background The outside help needed to get a film project into turnaround may appear in the form of new money being invested into a project in development hell, or it might come along as another outside studio taking interest in a project which the original studio may find difficult to move forward into the pre-production phase. When an outside source takes over a film project from development hell in one studio and transfers the film project to another studio which is willing to invest further resources to move the project into pre-production, then the project is said to have gone through a 'turnaround'. The film project can now move forward out of development hell in one studio into the pre-production phase of filmmaking at anoth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spill
A spill occurs when the contents of something, usually in liquid form, are emptied out onto a surface, person or clothes, often unintentionally. Spill may also refer to: *Oil spill *Chemical spill *Data spill *Leadership spill *Spill (audio), where audio from one source is picked up by a microphone intended for a different source *Variable spilling, a side effect of register allocation *Thin sticks of wood or tightly rolled paper tapers, used for transferring fire, and stored in a spill vase *SPILL – an acronym for St Pancras International Low Level, the Thameslink platforms at St Pancras railway station St Pancras railway station (), officially known since 2007 as London St Pancras International, is a major central London railway terminus on Euston Road in the London Borough of Camden. It is the terminus for Eurostar services from Belgium, F ... in London As a proper name * Thomas Spilsbury, soccer player nicknamed ''Spill'' * Spill (band), a British dance duo * Spill.co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scott Derrickson
Scott Derrickson (born July 16, 1966) is an American filmmaker. He is known for his work in the horror genre, directing films such as ''The Exorcism of Emily Rose'' (2005), ''Sinister (film), Sinister'' (2012), and ''The Black Phone'' (2021). He is also known for the superhero film ''Doctor Strange (2016 film), Doctor Strange'' (2016), based on the Marvel Comics character. Early life Scott Derrickson grew up in Denver, Colorado. He graduated from Biola University with a Bachelor of Arts, BA in Humanities with an emphasis in philosophy and literature and a B.A. in communications with an emphasis in film and a minor in theology. He completed his graduate studies at USC School of Cinema-Television. Career Derrickson's debut feature was ''Hellraiser: Inferno'', the fifth installment in the Hellraiser (film series), long-running ''Hellraiser'' film series. It was released straight to video in 2000. Following this, Derrickson and co-writer Paul Harris Boardman spent several years do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sinister (film)
''Sinister'' is a 2012 supernatural horror film directed by Scott Derrickson, and written by C. Robert Cargill and Derrickson. It stars Ethan Hawke as a struggling true-crime writer whose discovery of snuff films depicting gruesome murders and strange supernatural elements in his new house puts his family in danger. Juliet Rylance, Fred Thompson, James Ransone, Clare Foley, Michael Hall D'Addario, and Vincent D'Onofrio appear in supporting roles. ''Sinister'' was inspired by a nightmare Cargill had after watching the 2002 film '' The Ring''. Principal photography on ''Sinister'' began in Autumn of 2011 on Long Island, New York with a production budget of $3 million. To add to the authenticity of old home movies and snuff films, the Super 8 segments were shot on actual Super 8 cameras and film stock. The film was a co-production between the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. It premiered at the SXSW festival on March 10, 2012. It was released in the United Kingd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Westwood Associates
Westwood Studios, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was founded by Brett Sperry and Louis Castle in 1985 as Brelous Software, but got changed after 2 months into Westwood Associates and was renamed to Westwood Studios when Virgin Games (later Virgin Interactive Entertainment) bought the company in 1992. The company was bought by Electronic Arts alongside Virgin Interactive's North American operations in 1998. In January 2003, it was announced that Westwood, alongside Westwood Pacific (EA Pacific), would be merged into EA Los Angeles. The main studio location closed in March of that year. Westwood is best known for developing video games in the real-time strategy, adventure and role-playing genres. It was listed in ''Guinness World Records'' for selling 30 million copies of ''Command & Conquer'' games worldwide. History Early history and company name Brett Sperry and Louis Castle met in late 1983 in Las Vegas. Sperry had a background in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Circuit's Edge
''Circuit's Edge'' is a video game developed by Westwood Associates and released by Infocom in 1990. It is based on George Alec Effinger's 1987 novel '' When Gravity Fails''. The game is a hybrid interactive fiction/role-playing video game; it contains a window of text, a graphic window for depiction of the player's current location, and various menus and mini-windows for character statistics and other game functions. Plot The player assumes the role of Marîd Audran, a private detective. The game is set in "The Budayeen", an entertainment/criminal quarter in an unnamed city somewhere in the Middle East that is based on New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 .... While running a series of errands/"business deals" for "Saied the Half-Hajj", a friend of Marîd's, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mutilation
Mutilation or maiming (from the ) is Bodily harm, severe damage to the body that has a subsequent harmful effect on an individual's quality of life. In the modern era, the term has an overwhelmingly negative connotation, referring to alterations that render something inferior, dysfunctional, imperfect, or ugly. Terminology In 2019, Michael H. Stone, Gary Brucato, and Ann Burgess proposed formal criteria by which "mutilation" might be systematically distinguished from the act of "dismemberment", as these terms are commonly used interchangeably. They suggested that dismemberment involves "the entire removal, by any means, of a large section of the body of a living or dead person, specifically, the head (also termed decapitation), arms, hands, torso, pelvic area, legs, or feet". Mutilation, by contrast, involves "the removal or irreparable disfigurement, by any means, of some smaller portion of one of those larger sections of a living or dead person. The latter would include ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Serial Killer
A serial killer (also called a serial murderer) is a person who murders three or more people,An offender can be anyone: * * * * * (This source only requires two people) with the killings taking place over a significant period of time in separate events. Their psychological gratification is the Motive (law), motivation for the killings, and many serial murders involve sexual contact with the victims at different points during the murder process. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) states that the motives of serial killers can include anger, thrill killing , thrill-seeking, attention seeking, and financial gain, and killings may be Modus operandi, executed as such. The victims tend to have things in common, such as demographic profile, appearance, gender, or Race (human categorization), race. As a group, serial killers suffer from a variety of personality disorders. Most are often not adjudicated as insane under the law. Although a serial killer is a distinct cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with general principles that are relevant across multiple contexts, including in engineering, ecological, economic, biological, cognitive and social systems and also in practical activities such as designing, learning, and managing. Cybernetics' transdisciplinary character has meant that it intersects with a number of other fields, leading to it having both wide influence and diverse interpretations. The field is named after an example of circular causal feedback—that of steering a ship (the ancient Greek κυβερνήτης (''kybernḗtēs'') refers to the person who steers a ship). In steering a ship, the position of the rudder is adjusted in continual response to the effect it is observed as having, forming a feedback loop throu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
