The Cutie
"The Cutie" is a science-fiction short story by Australian writer Greg Egan, first published in '' Interzone #29'' in May/June 1989. It was his first to be published in ''Interzone''. The short story was included in the collection ''Axiomatic'' in 1995. It also appeared in the anthology ''Interzone: The 4th Anthology'' edited by John Clute, David Pringle and Simon Ounsley in 1989. Plot A lonely man with a desperate wish to be a father undergoes a medical procedure to impregnate himself with a "Cutie", a child with reduced mental capacities (including the inability to speak), reduced legal status (regarded to be more like a pet) and a lifespan of only four years. When she unexpectedly succeeds to speak simple words, the man begins to form a stronger attachment to her and even unsuccessfully tries to postpone the early death integrated into her genetics. After her death, the mourning father is left wondering, whether her death would have meant this much to him if she never had att ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Greg Egan
Greg Egan (born 20 August 1961) is an Australian science fiction writer and mathematician, best known for his works of hard science fiction. Egan has won multiple awards including the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Hugo Award, and the Locus Award. Life and work Egan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the University of Western Australia. He published his first work in 1983. He specialises in hard science fiction stories with mathematical and quantum ontology themes, including the nature of consciousness. Other themes include genetics, simulated reality, posthumanism, mind uploading, sexuality, artificial intelligence, and the superiority of rational naturalism to religion. He often deals with complex technical material, like new physics and epistemology. He is a Hugo Award winner (with eight other works shortlisted for the Hugos) and has also won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. His early stories feature strong ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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 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 Bibliography'' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Australian Science Fiction Short Stories
Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Australians, indigenous peoples of Australia as identified and defined within Australian law * Australia (continent) ** Indigenous Australians * Australian English, the dialect of the English language spoken in Australia * Australian Aboriginal languages * ''The Australian'', a newspaper * Australiana, things of Australian origins Other uses * Australian (horse), a racehorse * Australian, British Columbia, an unincorporated community in Canada See also * The Australian (other) * Australia (other) * * * Austrian (other) Austrian may refer to: * Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent ** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen * Austrian German dialect * Something associated with the countr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jon Evans
Jon Evans (born April 11, 1973) is a Canadian novelist, journalist, adventure traveler, and software engineer. Early life Born to an expatriate Rhodesian father and Canadian mother, Evans grew up in Waterloo, Ontario, and graduated from the University of Waterloo. He holds a degree in electrical engineering and possesses over 10 years of experience working as a software engineer. Evans currently resides in Berkeley, California, with his wife, who is an attorney. Career Evans received the prestigious 2005 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel from the Crime Writers of Canada for his book ''Dark Places.'' His works have garnered attention and reviews from esteemed publications such as ''The Economist'' and ''The Washington Post''. ''The Executor,'' his graphic novel, was recognized as one of the top ten graphic novels of 2010 by Comic Book Resources, while his novel ''Beasts of New York'' was awarded a 2011 ForeWord Book of the Year medal. In addition to his fiction writing, E ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Reactor (magazine)
''Reactor'', formerly ''Tor.com'', is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine published by Tor Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers. The magazine publishes articles, reviews, original short fiction, re-reads and commentary on speculative fiction. Unlike traditional print magazines such as ''Asimov's'' or '' Analog'', it releases online fiction that can be read free of charge. ''Reactor'' was founded (as ''Tor.com'') in July 2008 and renamed ''Reactor'' on January 23, 2024. Reception Gardner Dozois called ''Tor.com'' "one of the coolest and most eclectic genre-oriented sites on the Internet". He felt in 2011 that its short fiction output that year was weaker than usual, but said it was still a fascinating place to visit. In 2014, ''The Guardian'' Damien Walter remarked on a "digital renaissance" in short SF, and cited a new generation of online magazines, including '' Lightspeed'', ''Strange Horizons'', ''Tor.com'' and '' Escape Pod'', as having transformed the genr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Exorcism
Exorcism () is the religious or spiritual practice of evicting demons, jinns, or other malevolent spiritual entities from a person, or an area, that is believed to be possessed. Depending on the spiritual beliefs of the exorcist, this may be done by causing the entity to swear an oath, performing an elaborate ritual, or simply by commanding it to depart in the name of a higher power. The practice is ancient and part of the belief system of many cultures and religions. Christianity In Christianity, exorcism is the practice of casting out or getting rid of demons. In Christian practice, the person performing the exorcism, known as an exorcist, is a member of a Christian Church, or an individual thought to be graced with special powers or skills. The exorcist may use prayers and religious material, such as set formulae, gestures, symbols, sacred images, sacramentals, etc. The exorcist often invokes God, Jesus or several different angels and archangels to intervene with the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sylvie Denis
Sylvie Denis (born 10 November 1963 in Talence) is a French science fiction writer. She is also a translator and co-edited the magazine "Cyberdreams." A novelist, she won the Solaris Prize in 1988 for ''L'Anniversaire de Caroline'', the Prix Rosny-Aîné, Prix Rosny aîné in 2000 for ''Dedans, dehors'' and the Gilles Thomas, Julia-Verlanger Prize in 2004 for ''Haute-École''. She is also an essayist, critic, anthologist, translator and editor of Cyberdreams. She is considered by critics to be an important figure of French science fiction, both because of her many activities in the field and because of her commitment to science fiction that places great emphasis on the technosciences and their impact on human society. Biography Sylvie Denis was born into a modest family in Saint-Gaudens, Haute-Garonne, Saint-Gaudens, who moved to Ussel, Corrèze, Ussel when she was eight. She became interested in science fiction at an early age, first through a television series, then by discove ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian friar working in the 19th century in Brno, was the first to study genetics scientifically. Mendel studied "trait inheritance", patterns in the way traits are handed down from parents to offspring over time. He observed that organisms (pea plants) inherit traits by way of discrete "units of inheritance". This term, still used today, is a somewhat ambiguous definition of what is referred to as a gene. Phenotypic trait, Trait inheritance and Molecular genetics, molecular inheritance mechanisms of genes are still primary principles of genetics in the 21st century, but modern genetics has expanded to study the function and behavior of genes. Gene structure and function, variation, and distribution are studied within the context of the Cell (bi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Clute
John Frederick Clute (born 12 September 1940) is a Canadian-born author and critic specializing in science fiction and fantasy literature who has lived in both England and the United States since 1969. He has been described as "an integral part of science fiction's history"Davis, MattheJohn Clute: Yakfests of the Empyrean, ''Strange Horizons,'' 18 September 2006. and "perhaps the foremost reader-critic of science fiction in our time, and one of the best the genre has ever known." He was one of eight people who founded the English magazine '' Interzone'' in 1982 (the others included Malcolm Edwards, Colin Greenland, Roz Kaveney, and David Pringle). Clute's articles on speculative fiction have appeared in various publications since the 1960s. He is a co-editor of '' The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' (with Peter Nicholls) and of ''The Encyclopedia of Fantasy'' (with John Grant), as well as the author of ''The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Science Fiction,'' all of which won ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller islands. It has a total area of , making it the list of countries and dependencies by area, sixth-largest country in the world and the largest in Oceania. Australia is the world's flattest and driest inhabited continent. It is a megadiverse countries, megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and Climate of Australia, climates including deserts of Australia, deserts in the Outback, interior and forests of Australia, tropical rainforests along the Eastern states of Australia, coast. The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south-east Asia 50,000 to 65,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Period, last glacial period. By the time of British settlement, Aboriginal Australians spoke 250 distinct l ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Anthology
In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and genre-based anthologies.Chris Baldrick''The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms'' 3rd. ed (2008) Complete collections of works are often called " complete works" or "" (Latin equivalent). Etymology The word entered the English language in the 17th century, from the Greek word, ἀνθολογία (''anthologic'', literally "a collection of blossoms", from , ''ánthos'', flower), a reference to one of the earliest known anthologies, the ''Garland'' (, ''stéphanos''), the introduction to which compares each of its anthologized poets to a flower. That ''Garland'' by Meléagros of Gadara formed the kernel for what has become known as the Greek Anthology. '' Florilegium'', a Latin derivative for a collection of flowers, was used in mediev ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Axiomatic (Egan Book)
''Axiomatic'' () is a 1995 collection of short science fiction stories by Greg Egan. The stories all delve into different aspects of self and identity. ''The Guardian'' described it as "Wonderful mind-expanding stuff, and well-written too." Neural mods Several ''Axiomatic'' stories involve "neural mods", usually presented as small tubes containing powder inhaled through the nose, which alter the brains of their users in highly specific ways with advanced nanotechnology. In the collection's eponymous story "Axiomatic", the protagonist enters a store selling mods not only for every variety of psychedelic experiences, but for altering one's personality traits, sexual orientation, and even religion. The protagonist seeks a custom-made mod that will suspend his moral convictions long enough for him to murder his wife's killer. In " The Walk", an executioner offers his victim a mod that will cause him to accept the executioner's personal philosophy, and thus help him cope with his d ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |