Showboat World
''Showboat World'' (original title: ''The Magnificent Showboats of the Lower Vissel River, Lune XXIII, Big Planet'') is a science fiction novel by American writer Jack Vance, first published in 1975. It is the second, stand-alone novel in a pair of novels (the first being ''Big Planet'') that share the same setting, a backward, lawless, metal-poor world called Big Planet. The plot structure which involves a series of dramatic presentations, often with humorous consequences, has parallels with Vance's 1965 novel ''Space Opera''. Plot summary ''Showboat World'' follows the farcical adventures of Apollon Zamp, owner of the showboat ''Miraldra's Enchantment'', and his troupe of acrobats, magicians and actors. Zamp is invited by the King of Soyvanesse to travel up the river Vissel to the distant city of Mornune, there to participate in a contest. A rich prize awaits the showboat captain who stages the most spectacular performance and succeeds in entertaining the king. The mysteri ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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WikiProject Novels
A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is an affinity group for contributors with shared goals within the Wikimedia movement. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia, and exist to varying degrees within Wikimedia project, sibling projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata, and Wikisource. They also exist in different languages, and translation of articles is a form of their collaboration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS News noted the role of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by ''Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian'' for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the profile noted had "helped increase the number of female scientists on Wikipedia from around 1,600 to over 5,000". On Wikipedia Some Wikipedia WikiProjects are substantial enough to engage in cooperative activities with outsi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mercedes Lackey
Mercedes Ritchie Lackey (born June 24, 1950) is an American writer of Fantasy literature, fantasy novels. Many of her novels and trilogies are interlinked and set in the world of Velgarth, mostly in and around the country of Valdemar (fictional country), Valdemar. Her Valdemar novels include interaction between human and non-human protagonists with many different cultures and social mores. Her other main world is similar to Earth, but it includes clandestine populations of elves, mages, vampires, and other mythical beings. The ''Bedlam's Bard'' books describe a young man with the power to work magic through music; the ''SERRAted Edge'' books are about racecar driving elves; and the ''Diana Tregarde'' thrillers center on a Wiccan who combats evil. She has also published several novels re-working well-known fairy tales set in a mid-19th to early 20th century setting in which magic is real, although hidden from the mundane world. These novels explore issues of ecology, social class ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1975 Science Fiction Novels
It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 – Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are found guilty of the Watergate cover-up. * January 2 ** The Federal Rules of Evidence are approved by the United States Congress. ** A bomb blast at Samastipur, Bihar, India, fatally wounds Lalit Narayan Mishra, Minister of Railways. * January 5 – Tasman Bridge disaster: The Tasman Bridge in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, is struck by the bulk ore carrier , causing a partial collapse resulting in 12 deaths. * January 15 – Alvor Agreement: Portugal announces that it will grant independence to Angola on November 11. * January 20 ** In Hanoi, North Vietnam, the Politburo approves the final military offensive against South Vietnam. ** Work is abandoned on the 1974 Anglo-French Channel Tunnel scheme. * January ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Novels Set On Fictional Planets
A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and Publication, published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning 'new'. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek novel, Ancient Greek and Roman novel, Medieval Chivalric romance, and the tradition of the Italian Renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, in the historical romances of Walter Scott and the Gothic novel. Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, and John Cowper Powys, preferred the term Romance (literary fiction) ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1975 American Novels
It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 – Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are found guilty of the Watergate cover-up. * January 2 ** The Federal Rules of Evidence are approved by the United States Congress. ** A bomb blast at Samastipur, Bihar, India, fatally wounds Lalit Narayan Mishra, Minister of Railways. * January 5 – Tasman Bridge disaster: The Tasman Bridge in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, is struck by the bulk ore carrier , causing a partial collapse resulting in 12 deaths. * January 15 – Alvor Agreement: Portugal announces that it will grant independence to Angola on November 11. * January 20 ** In Hanoi, North Vietnam, the Politburo approves the final military offensive against South Vietnam. ** Work is abandoned on the 1974 Anglo-French Channel Tunnel scheme. * January ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Macbeth
''The Tragedy of Macbeth'', often shortened to ''Macbeth'' (), is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, estimated to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the physically violent and damaging psychological effects of political ambitions and power. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy. Scholars believe ''Macbeth'', of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of King James I, contains the most allusions to James, patron of Shakespeare's acting company. In the play, a brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to violence by his wife, Macbeth murders the king and takes the Scottish throne for himself. Then, racked with guilt and paranoia, he commits further violent murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, soon becoming a tyrannical ruler. The bloo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon" or simply "the Bard". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592 he began a successful career in Lon ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dave Freer
Dave Freer is a South African–born, Australian-based, award-winning science fiction author writing mostly humorous or alternate history novels. Biography Freer was born and educated in South Africa. He grew up on the edge of a city next to a ~500-acre nature preserve of coastal bush. His father crewed on a commercial fishing boat on weekends. After a stint in boarding school, where he learned "Smoking, strong drink and pursuit of wild women", he was conscripted at the age of 17 into the South African Defence Force and sent to the Angolan border as a medic (his last choice). "My choices were five years in jail, leave the country, or go in for a year. I'm a strong swimmer, but the Atlantic seemed too large...." The year stretched into two. Afterwards he married, went to university and became an ichthyologist, then worked as research officer for the Western Cape commercial shark fishery. To make ends meet, and alleviate writing "amazingly dull" papers on fishery matters, he moon ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eric Flint
Eric Flint (February 6, 1947 – July 17, 2022) was an American author, editor, and e-publisher. The majority of his works are alternate history science fiction, but he also wrote humorous fantasy adventures. His works have been listed on ''The New York Times'', ''The Wall Street Journal'', '' The Washington Post'', and ''Locus'' magazine best-seller lists. He was a co-founder and editor of the Baen Free Library. Early life and education Born in 1947 in Burbank, California, Flint worked on a Ph.D. in history specializing in southern African history. He left his doctoral program to become a political activist in the labor movement. He supported himself from that time until age 50 in a variety of jobs, including longshoreman, truck driver, machinist, and labor union organizer. As a long-time leftist political activist, Flint worked as a member of the Socialist Workers Party. Career After winning the fourth quarter of 1993 Writers of the Future contest, he publishe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn
''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' is a picaresque novel by American author Mark Twain that was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among the Great American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by American literary regionalism, local color regionalism. It is told in the first-person narrative, first person by Huckleberry Finn, Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, the narrator of two other Twain novels (''Tom Sawyer Abroad'' and ''Tom Sawyer, Detective'') and a friend of Tom Sawyer. It is a direct sequel to ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer''. The book is noted for "changing the course of children's literature" in the United States for the "deeply felt portrayal of boyhood". It is also known for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Set in a Antebellum South, Southern antebellum society that ha ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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WikiProject Books
A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is an affinity group for contributors with shared goals within the Wikimedia movement. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ..., and exist to varying degrees within sibling projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata, and Wikisource. They also exist in different languages, and translation of articles is a form of their collaboration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS News noted the role of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by '' Smithsonian'' for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |