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Playgrounds Of The Mind
''Playgrounds of the Mind'' is a collection of short stories by American writer Larry Niven, published in 1991. It is the sequel to ''N-Space (short story collection), N-Space''. Many of the stories are set in Niven's Known Space universe. There are also excerpts from his ''The Magic Goes Away'' novel series, as well as several stories from his ''The Draco Tavern'' setting (an alien bar) and other sources. Contents * "Thraxisp: A Memoir" * "A Teardrop Falls" * From Inferno (Niven and Pournelle novel), ''Inferno'' (with Jerry Pournelle) * From ''A World Out of Time'' * "Rammer" * From "The Ethics of Madness" * "Becalmed in Hell" * "Wait It Out" * "A Relic of the Empire" * From ''Lucifer's Hammer'' (with Jerry Pournelle) * "The Soft Weapon" * "The Borderland of Sol" * From ''The Ringworld Engineers'' * "What Good Is a Glass Dagger?" * From ''The Magic Goes Away'' * "The Defenseless Dead" * From ''The Patchwork Girl'' * "Leviathan!" * From ''Oath of Fealty (novel), Oath of Fealty'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steven Barnes
Steven Barnes (born March 1, 1952) is an American science fiction, fantasy, and mystery writer. He has written novels, short fiction, screen plays for television, scripts for comic books, animation, newspaper copy, and magazine articles. Career Barnes wrote several episodes of ''The Outer Limits'' and '' Baywatch''. His " A Stitch In Time" episode of The Outer Limits won an Emmy Award. He also wrote the episode "Brief Candle" for '' Stargate SG-1'' and the '' Andromeda'' episode "The Sum of Its Parts". Barnes's first published piece of fiction, the 1979 novelette "The Locusts", was written with Larry Niven, and was a Hugo Award nominee.Award nominees [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction Convention
Science fiction conventions are gatherings of fans of the speculative fiction genre, science fiction. Historically, science fiction conventions had focused primarily on literature, but the purview of many extends to such other avenues of expression as films, television, comics, animation, and games. The format can vary but will tend to have a few similar features such as a guest of honour, discussion panels, readings and large special events such as opening/closing ceremonies and some form of party or entertainment. Science fiction conventions started off primarily in the UK and US but have now spread further and several countries have their own individual conventions as well as playing host to rotating international conventions. History The precise time and place of the first science fiction convention is a matter of some dispute. The idea and form was clearly anticipated in Robert Bloch's short story about a large convention of writers, "The Ultimate Ultimatum" (''Fanta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Slaver Weapon
"The Slaver Weapon" is the fourteenth episode of the first season of the American animated science fiction television series '' Star Trek: The Animated Series''. It first aired on NBC on December 8, 1973, and was written by Larry Niven. It was based on his original short story " The Soft Weapon". This episode was expanded to become the first half of a full-length novel by science-fiction author Alan Dean Foster as ''Star Trek Log Ten''. Set in the 23rd century, the series follows the adventures of Captain James T. Kirk (voiced by William Shatner) and the crew of the Starfleet starship ''Enterprise''. In this episode, while traveling by shuttlecraft, several ''Enterprise'' crew members are captured and have to use their individual strengths to prevent a powerful alien weapon from falling into the wrong hands. Plot On stardate 4187.3, the ''Enterprise'' shuttlecraft ''Copernicus'', carrying Science Officer Spock (voiced by Leonard Nimoy), Communications Officer Lt. Uhura ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Animated Series
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with nouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of the archaic pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berserker (Saberhagen)
The Berserker series is a series of space opera science fiction short stories and novels by Fred Saberhagen, in which robotic self-replicating machines strive to destroy all life. These Berserkers, named after the human berserker warriors of Norse legend, are doomsday weapons left over from an interstellar war between two races of extraterrestrials. They all have machine intelligence, and their sizes range from that of an asteroid, in the case of an automated repair and construction base, down to human size (and shape) or smaller. The Berserkers' bases are capable of manufacturing more and deadlier Berserkers as the need arises. The Berserker hypothesis, formed as a possible solution to the Fermi paradox, takes its name from the series. The ''Berserker'' stories (published as novels and short stories) depict the fight between Berserkers and the sentient species of the Milky Way Galaxy: ''Homo sapiens'' (referred to as "Earth-descended" or "ED" humans, or as "Solarians") whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fred Saberhagen
Fred Thomas Saberhagen (May 18, 1930 – June 29, 2007) was an American science fiction and fantasy author most famous for his ''Berserker'' series of science fiction short stories and novels. Saberhagen also wrote a series of vampire novels in which the famous Dracula is the main protagonist, and a series of post-apocalyptic mytho-magical novels beginning with his popular Empire of the East series and continuing through a long series of ''Swords'' and ''Lost Swords'' novels. Saberhagen died of cancer, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Biography Saberhagen was born in and grew up in the area of Chicago, Illinois. Saberhagen served as an enlisted man in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War while he was in his early twenties. Back in civilian life, Saberhagen worked as an electronics technician for the Motorola Corporation from 1958 to 1962, when he was around 30 years old. It was while he was working for Motorola that Saberhagen started writing fiction seriously at the age of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The California Voodoo Game
''Dream Park'' is a 1981 sci-fi/murder mystery novel written by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes set in a futuristic amusement park of the same name. It was nominated for the 1982 Locus Award and later expanded into a series of cyberpunk murder mysteries: ''The Barsoom Project'' (1989), ''The California Voodoo Game'' (1992), and ''The Moon Maze Game'' (2011). The books describe a futuristic form of live action role-playing games (LARPs), although the term was not in use when the original novel was published. The novels inspired many LARP groups, notably the International Fantasy Games Society, named after a fictional entity in the book. Overview The ''Dream Park'' series is set in a near-future Earth, the first book taking place in March 2051. Technology is used to create realistic games in which participants act out the roles of free-willed protagonists in various stories. These are role-playing games and foreshadowed many aspects of modern live action role-playing games. Many e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fallen Angels (science Fiction Novel)
''Fallen Angels'' (1991) is a science fiction novel by American science fiction authors Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn published by Jim Baen. The winner of 1992 Prometheus Award, the novel was written as a tribute to science fiction fandom, and includes many of its well-known figures, legends, and practices. It also champions modern technology and heaps scorn upon its critics - budget cutting politicians, fringe environmentalists and the forces of ignorance. The novel takes aim at several targets of ridicule: Senator William Proxmire, radical environmentalists and mystics, such as one character who believes that one cannot freeze to death in the snow because ice is a crystal and "crystals are healing." It also mocks ignorance in journalism, which greatly helps the main characters (for example, one "expert" cited in a news article believes that the astronauts must have superhuman strength, based on a photograph of a ''weightless'' astronaut easily handli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Gripping Hand
''The Gripping Hand'' is a science fiction novel by American writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, published in 1993. A sequel to their 1974 work ''The Mote in God's Eye'', ''The Gripping Hand'' is, chronologically, the last novel to be set in the CoDominium universe (though in 2010, Pournelle's daughter, Jennifer, published an authorized sequel entitled ''Outies''). In the United Kingdom, it was released as ''The Moat around Murcheson's Eye'' (sometimes misspelled "The Mote around Murchison's Eye"). ''The Gripping Hand'' is set in the year 3042 (twenty-five years after the events of ''The Mote in God's Eye'') and revolves primarily around two characters of the first book, Captain Sir Kevin Renner (ISN, Reserve) and His Excellency Horace Bury, Imperial Trader Magnate. It also resolves many of the conflicts and tension remaining from the preceding novel, but much of the plot cannot be understood without reading ''The Mote in God's Eye''. Plot At the end of ''The Mote in God' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Footfall
''Footfall'' is a 1985 science fiction novel by American writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. The book depicts the arrival of members of an alien species called the Fithp that have traveled to the Solar System from Alpha Centauri in a large spacecraft driven by a Bussard ramjet. Their intent is conquest of the planet Earth. Plot The alien Fithp resemble baby elephants with multiple prehensile trunks. They possess more advanced technology than humans, but did not develop any of it on their own. In the distant past on their planet, another species was dominant. The predecessor species badly damaged the environment, rendering itself and many other species extinct, but left behind their knowledge inscribed on large stone cubes from which the Fithp gained their technology. An arms race between two rival herds threatened to render the species extinct, so they wagered to see who would depart in a starship and seek a new home elsewhere. The leadership of the loser formed the ''Cht ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Legacy Of Heorot
''The Legacy of Heorot'' is a science fiction novel by American writers Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes, first published in 1987. Reproduction and fertility expert Dr Jack Cohen acted as a consultant on the book, designing the novel life cycle of the alien antagonists, the grendels. This is the first book in the Heorot series. It concerns the establishment of the first human colony on Avalon, the fourth planet of Tau Ceti. Plot summary Two hundred colonists arrive on Avalon, having made the 100-year journey from Earth in suspended animation on the starship ''Geographic''. The colonists, selected for their outstanding physical and mental acuity, make a terrible discovery: the suspended animation has damaged their intellect and reasoning skills. Some are only mildly afflicted, while others have serious intellectual disabilities; eight cannot be reanimated at all. The colonists build a settlement on an isolated island, and begin growing crops and stocking the near ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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