Brian Aldiss

Brian Aldiss
Author: Michael R. Collings
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Total Pages: 126
Release: 1986-01-01
Genre: Science fiction, English
ISBN: 0893709557

A guide to Aldiss's fictional output from the 50's to the 80's.

Old Venus

Old Venus
Author: George R. R. Martin
Publisher: Bantam
Total Pages: 584
Release: 2015-03-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0804179859

Sixteen all-new stories by science fiction’s top talents, collected by bestselling author George R. R. Martin and multiple-award-winning editor Gardner Dozois From pulp adventures such as Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Carson of Venus to classic short stories such as Ray Bradbury’s “The Long Rain” to visionary novels such as C. S. Lewis’s Perelandra, the planet Venus has loomed almost as large in the imaginations of science fiction writers as Earth’s next-nearest neighbor, Mars. But while the Red Planet conjured up in Golden Age science fiction stories was a place of vast deserts and ruined cities, bright blue Venus was its polar opposite: a steamy, swampy jungle world with strange creatures lurking amidst the dripping vegetation. Alas, just as the last century’s space probes exploded our dreams of Mars, so, too, did they shatter our romantic visions of Venus, revealing, instead of a lush paradise, a hellish world inimical to all life. But don’t despair! This new anthology of sixteen original stories by some of science fiction’s best writers—edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin and award-winning editor Gardner Dozois—turns back the clock to that more innocent time, before the hard-won knowledge of science vanquished the infinite possibilities of the imagination. Join our cast of award-winning contributors—including Elizabeth Bear, David Brin, Joe Haldeman, Gwyneth Jones, Mike Resnick, Eleanor Arnason, Allen M. Steele, and more—as we travel back in time to a planet that never was but should have been: a young, rain-drenched world of fabulous monsters and seductive mysteries. FEATURING ALL-NEW STORIES BY Eleanor Arnason • Elizabeth Bear • David Brin • Tobias S. Buckell • Michael Cassutt • Joe Haldeman • Matthew Hughes • Gwyneth Jones • Joe R. Lansdale • Stephen Leigh • Paul McAuley • Ian McDonald • Garth Nix • Mike Resnick • Allen M. Steele • Lavie Tidhar And an Introduction by Gardner Dozois

Harry Harrison

Harry Harrison
Author: Paul Tomlinson
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2002-04-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1587154013

The definitive Harry Harrison bibliography, with lengthy annotations and a special bonus--the Harrison story written for Harlan Ellison's unpublished "Last Dangerous Visions" anthology.

The Entropy Exhibition

The Entropy Exhibition
Author: Colin Greenland
Publisher: Gateway
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2013-05-27
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0575127597

Michael Moorcock edited and produced the magazine New Worlds from 1964 to 1973. Within its pages he encouraged the development of new kinds of popular writing out of the genre of science fiction, energetically reworking traditional themes, images and styles as a radical response to the crisis of modern fiction. The essential paradox of the new writing lay in its fascination with 'entropy' - the universal and irreversible decline of energy into disorder. Entropy provides the key both to the anarchic vitality of the magazine and to its neglect by critics and academics, as well as its intimate connection with other cultural experiments of the 1960s. The fiction of the New Worlds writers, who included Brian Aldiss, J. G. Ballard and Moorcock himself, was not concerned with the far future and outer space, but with the ambiguous and unstable conditions of the modern world. As Ballard put it: 'The only truly alien planet is Earth.' The Entropy Exhibition is the first critical assessment of the literary movement known as 'New Wave' science fiction. It examines the history of the magazine and its background in the popular imagination of the 1960s, traces the strange history of sex in science fiction and analyses development in stylistic theory and practice. Detailed attention is given to each of the three principal contributors to New Worlds - Aldiss, Ballard and Moorcock. Moorcock himself is most commonly judged by his commercial fantasy novels instead of by the magazine he supported with them, but here the balance is at last redressed: New Worlds emerges as nothing less than a focus and a metaphor for many of the transformations of English and American literature in the past two decades.

The History of Astronomy

The History of Astronomy
Author: Anne Rooney
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2017-12-15
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1508177031

This volume traces humanity's exploration of the heavens from Neolithic times to NASA. Moving beyond early superstitions and cosmology, scientific study began by first making calendars and predicting astronomical events. The invention of the telescope around 1600 marked a watershed in the field of astronomy. Since the first recognition that the planets are other worlds, the wonders of space have puzzled and enthralled us. With a wealth of full-color and archival images and a compelling narrative style, this text charts our fascination with stars from before Stonehenge to the search for exoplanets and extraterrestrial life.

Post-Jungian Psychology and the Short Stories of Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut

Post-Jungian Psychology and the Short Stories of Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut
Author: Steve Gronert Ellerhoff
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2016-02-22
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1317384911

In this book, Steve Gronert Ellerhoff explores short stories by Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut, written between 1943 and 1968, with a post-Jungian approach. Drawing upon archetypal theories of myth from Joseph Campbell, James Hillman and their forbearer C. G. Jung, Ellerhoff demonstrates how short fiction follows archetypal patterns that can illuminate our understanding of the authors, their times, and their culture. In practice, a post-Jungian ‘mythodology’ is shown to yield great insights for the literary criticism of short fiction. Chapters in this volume carefully contextualise and historicize each story, including Bradbury and Vonnegut’s earliest and most imaginatively fantastic works. The archetypal constellations shaping Vonnegut’s early works are shown to be war and fragmentation, while those in Bradbury’s are family and the wholeness of the sun. Analysis is complemented by the explored significance of illustrations that featured alongside the stories in their first publications. By uncovering the ways these popular writers redressed old myths in new tropes—and coined new narrative elements for hopes and fears born of their era—the book reveals a fresh method which can be applied to all imaginative short stories, increasing understanding and critical engagement. Post-Jungian Psychology and the Short Stories of Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut is an important text for a number of fields, from Jungian and Post-Jungian studies to short story theoriesand American studies to Bradbury and Vonnegut studies. Scholars and students of literature will come away with a renewed appreciation for an archetypal approach to criticism, while the book will also be of great interest to practising depth psychologists seeking to incorporate short stories into therapy.

The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds

The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds
Author: Mark Wolf
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 677
Release: 2017-09-27
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1317268288

This companion provides a definitive and cutting-edge guide to the study of imaginary and virtual worlds across a range of media, including literature, television, film, and games. From the Star Trek universe, Thomas More’s classic Utopia, and J. R. R. Tolkien’s Arda, to elaborate, user-created game worlds like Minecraft, contributors present interdisciplinary perspectives on authorship, world structure/design, and narrative. The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds offers new approaches to imaginary worlds as an art form and cultural phenomenon, explorations of the technical and creative dimensions of world-building, and studies of specific worlds and worldbuilders.

The Story of Astronomy

The Story of Astronomy
Author: Anne Rooney
Publisher: Arcturus Publishing
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2017-11-30
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1784287350

'Astronomy, as nothing else can do, teaches men humility.' Arthur C. Clarke, The Challenge of the Spaceship For thousands of years, the stars, planets, Moon and Sun were central to religious and superstitious beliefs. Astronomy has its origins in the context of these beliefs. From this starting point, scientific thinking emerged, as humans began to seek explanations for the existence of celestial bodies - explanations that did not rely on the supernatural. In the 17th century, the invention of the telescope marked a watershed, opening the heavens to scrutiny and revealing that the planets are other worlds. The wonders of space have multiplied ever since, puzzling and enthralling us. The Story of Astronomy charts our fascination with stars, from before Stonehenge to the search for exoplanets and extra-terrestrial life. This accessible, fascinating account of discoveries, from the times of Palaeolithic star-gazers to current space missions, shows how we have come to know so much about the universe. At the same time, unfolding knowledge has opened new horizons to explore. Our understanding of the boundless cosmos has only just begun. Topics include: Cosmology, from ancient times to the Big Bang Our place in the solar system Astrolabes, telescopes and radio astronomy Mapping the stars Space missions and probes Comets, asteroids, supernovae and black holes The unknown, from empty space to dark energy

Brian W. Aldiss

Brian W. Aldiss
Author: Paul Kincaid
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2022-07-12
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0252053478

Brian W. Aldiss wrote classic science fiction novels like Report on Probability A and Hothouse. Billion Year Spree, his groundbreaking study of the field, defined the very meaning of SF and delineated its history. Yet Aldiss’s discomfort with being a guiding spirit of the British New Wave and his pursuit of mainstream success characterized a lifelong ambivalence toward the genre. Paul Kincaid explores the many contradictions that underlay the distinctive qualities of Aldiss’s writing. Wartime experiences in Asia and the alienation that arose upon his return to the cold austerity of postwar Britain inspired themes and imagery that Aldiss drew upon throughout his career. He wrote of prolific nature overwhelming humanity, believed war was madness even though it provided him with the happiest period of his life, and found parallels in the static lives of Indian peasants and hidebound English society. As Kincaid shows, contradictions created tensions that fueled the metaphorical underpinnings of Aldiss's work and shaped not only his long career but the evolution of postwar British science fiction.