|
Unexpected Stories
''Unexpected Stories'' is a collection of two short speculative fiction works by Octavia Butler that was posthumously published in 2014. The collection includes ''A Necessary Being'' and ''Childfinder''. Plot ''A Necessary Being'' Tahneh of the Rohkhon people is a Hao, a type of humanoid creature with blue skin and tall stature. Hao are considered to be natural leaders in the caste system of the story. Tahneh is the only Hao in her tribe; she has been unable to produce a Hao heir. She receives a report that a young male Hao is traveling through Rohkhon territory. Her advisors encourage her to capture the boy and forcibly assimilate him, grooming him to be their next leader. Tahneh has reservations about the traditional methods of kidnapping Hao youth; she reminisces about her own father, a Hao man who was kidnapped and hobbled so he could never return to his birth tribe. Diut, the young Hao, is captured by the Rohkhon. He escapes, fleeing through the Rokhon city and taking ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Octavia Butler
Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006) was an American science fiction writer who won several awards for her works, including Hugo, Locus, and Nebula awards. In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.Crossley, Robert. "Critical Essay." In ''Kindred'', by Octavia Butler. Boston: Beacon, 2004. Born in Pasadena, California, Butler was raised by her widowed mother. She was extremely shy as a child, but Butler found an outlet at the library reading fantasy, and in writing. She began writing science fiction as a teenager. Butler attended community college during the Black Power movement in the 1960s. While participating in a local writer's workshop, she was encouraged to attend the Clarion Workshop which focused on science fiction. She sold her first stories soon after, and by the late 1970s had become sufficiently successful as an author to be able to write full-time. Butler's books and short stories dr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caste System
A caste is a fixed social group into which an individual is born within a particular system of social stratification: a caste system. Within such a system, individuals are expected to marry exclusively within the same caste (endogamy), follow lifestyles often linked to a particular occupation, hold a ritual status observed within a hierarchy, and interact with others based on cultural notions of exclusion, with certain castes considered as either more pure or more polluted than others. The term "caste" is also applied to morphological groupings in eusocial insects such as ants, bees, and termites. The paradigmatic ethnographic example of caste is the division of India's Hindu society into rigid social groups. Its roots lie in South Asia's ancient history and it still exists; however, the economic significance of the caste system in India seems to be declining as a result of urbanisation and affirmative action programs. A subject of much scholarship by sociologists and ant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Survivor (Octavia Butler Novel)
''Survivor'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Octavia Butler, Octavia E. Butler. First published in 1978 as part of Butler's "Patternist series", ''Survivor'' is the only one of Butler's early novels not to be reprinted after its initial editions. Butler expressed dislike for the work, referring to it as "my ''Star Trek'' novel." Plot introduction ''Survivor'' follows the early contact between the Missionaries, a group of human colonists fleeing a plague on Earth, and the Kohn, intelligent natives of the planet on which the Missionaries have arrived. In particular, the novel focuses on Alanna, the adopted daughter of the Missionaries' leader, as she attempts to prevent the Missionaries' destruction or assimilation at the hands of a dominant local culture. During the course of the novel, Alanna's experiences assimilating and negotiating with the Kohn draw upon her earlier, similar experience joining the Missionaries themselves, and Alanna's ability to interact wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patternist Series
The ''Patternist'' series (also known as the ''Patternmaster'' series or ''Seed to Harvest'') is a group of science fiction novels by Octavia E. Butler that detail a secret history continuing from the Ancient Egyptian period to the far future that involves telepathic mind control and an extraterrestrial plague. A profile of Butler in ''Black Women in America'' notes that the themes of the series include "racial and gender-based animosity, the ethical implications of biological engineering, the question of what it means to be human, ethical and unethical uses of power, and how the assumption of power changes people." Butler's first published novel, 1976's ''Patternmaster'', was the first book in this series to be released. From 1977 until 1984, she published four more ''Patternist'' novels: '' Mind of My Mind'' (1977), ''Survivor'' (1978), '' Wild Seed'' (1980) and '' Clay's Ark'' (1984). Until Butler began publishing the '' Xenogenesis'' trilogy in 1987, all but one of her publis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Jay Ellison (May 27, 1934 – June 28, 2018) was an American writer, known for his prolific and influential work in New Wave science fiction, New Wave speculative fiction and for his outspoken, combative personality. His published works include more than 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, comic-book scripts, teleplays, essays, and a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media. Some of his best-known works include the 1967 ''Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek'' episode "The City on the Edge of Forever", considered by some to be the single greatest episode of the ''Star Trek'' franchise (he subsequently wrote a book about the experience that includes his original teleplay), his ''A Boy and His Dog'' cycle (which was made into A Boy and His Dog (1975 film), a film), and his short stories "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" (later adapted by Ellison into I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (video game), a video game) and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Huntington Library
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, known as The Huntington, is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington and Arabella Huntington in San Marino, California, United States. In addition to the library, the institution houses an extensive art collection with a focus on 18th and 19th century European art and 17th to mid-20th century American art. The property also has approximately of specialized botanical landscaped gardens, including the "Japanese Garden", the "Desert Garden", and the "Chinese Garden". History As a landowner, Henry Edwards Huntington (1850–1927) played a major role in the growth of Southern California. Huntington was born in 1850, in Oneonta, New York, and was the nephew and heir of Collis P. Huntington (1821–1900), one of the famous "Big Four" railroad tycoons of nineteenth century California history. In 1892, Huntington relocated to San Francisco with his first wife, Mary Alice ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Marino, California
San Marino is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. It was incorporated on April 25, 1913. At the 2020 United States census the population was 12,513, a decline from the 2010 United States census. History Origin of name The city takes its name from the ancient Republic of San Marino, founded by Saint Marinus who fled his home in Dalmatia (modern Croatia) at the time of the Diocletianic Persecution. The seal of the City of San Marino, California is modeled on that of the republic, depicting the Three Towers of San Marino each capped with a bronze plume, surrounded by a heart-shaped scroll with two roundels and a lozenge (of unknown significance) at the top. The crown representing sovereignty on the original was replaced with five stars, representing the five members of the city's governing body. Beneath the city's seal are crossed palm fronds and orange branches. The city celebrated its centennial in 2013, including publication by the San Marino Histo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open Road Integrated Media
Open Road Integrated Media or ORIM (stylized as OR/M and also called Open Road) is a digital media company in New York City that was created by Jane Friedman and Jeffrey Sharp in 2009 with a focus on publishing ebook editions of older works of literature and nonfiction. In addition to its ebook publishing business, Open Road Integrated Media is the parent company of book publisher Open Road Media and content brands Early Bird Books, The Lineup, The Archive, Murder & Mayhem, A Love So True, and The Portalist. Publishing veteran David Steinberger and an investment group including Abry Partners, MEP Capital, and Grove Atlantic acquired the company in 2021, and Steinberger was named CEO in 2022. History Former HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman and film producer Jeffrey Sharp launched Open Road Integrated Media with the goal of bringing backlist books back to life in digital formats and partnering with writers of contemporary and classic works. The Open Road Media catalog include ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novels Published Posthumously
A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and 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 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''. Such romances should not be confused with t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction Short Stories
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which study the physical world, and the social sciences, which study individuals and societies. While referred to as the formal sciences, the study of logic, mathematics, and theoretical computer science are typically regarded as separate because they rely on deductive reasoning instead of the scientific method as their main methodology. Meanwhile, applied sciences are disciplines that use scientific knowledge for practical purposes, such as engineering and medicine. The history of science spans the majority of the historical record, with the earliest identifiable predecessors to modern science dating to the Bronze Age in Egypt and Mesopotamia (). Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped the Greek natural philo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
