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2018 In Science Fiction
In 2018, the following events occurred in science fiction. Deaths *March 8 – Kate Wilhelm, American writer (born 1928) * Ursula K. Le Guin, a writer of science fiction and fantasy ('' Hainish Cycle'' in particular). * Stephen Hawking, an astrophysicist and writer who greatly influenced science fiction; co-author of children's sci-fi book series '' George''. * Gardner Dozois, a writer and editor * Harlan Ellison, a writer. * Stan Lee, a comic book writer. * Dave Duncan, writer * Bertil Mårtensson, writer and philosopher * Mary Rosenblum, writer * Helen Mary Hoover, writer * Michael Anderson, director * Christopher Stasheff, writer * David F. Bischoff, writer * Eddy C. Bertin, writer * Eric Koch, writer and academic * Gerald M. Weinberg, writer and computer scientist Literary releases * ''Artificial Condition'' by Martha Wells * '' Ball Lightning'' by Liu Cixin * ''The Calculating Stars'' by Mary Robinette Kowal * ''The Consuming Fire'' by John Scalzi * ''Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, extraterrestrial life, sentient artificial intelligence, cybernetics, certain forms of immortality (like mind uploading), and the singularity. Science fiction predicted several existing inventions, such as the atomic bomb, robots, and borazon, whose names entirely match their fictional predecessors. In addition, science fiction might serve as an outlet to facilitate future scientific and technological innovations. Science fiction can trace its roots to ancient mythology. It is also related to fantasy, horror, and superhero fiction and contains many subgenres. Its exact definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Science fiction, in literature, film, television, and other media, has beco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Bischoff
David F. Bischoff (December 15, 1951 – March 19, 2018) was an American science fiction and television writer. General background Born in Washington D.C., Bischoff wrote science fiction books, short stories, and scripts for television. He began writing during the early 1970s and had more than 80 books published. Bischoff was known best for novelizations of popular movies and television series including ''Aliens'', '' Gremlins 2: The New Batch'', Star Trek: The Next Generation, and ''WarGames''. Early career Bischoff began writing science fiction and reviews of the genre while studying at the University of Maryland. His first publications were for ''Thrust'', a fanzine offering science fiction commentary and criticism. The editor, Doug Fratz, later converted ''Thrust'' to a trade magazine, for which Bischoff was a regular contributor. His first novel, '' The Seeker'' (with Christopher Lampton) was published in 1976, and in 1978 Bischoff coauthored "Tin Woodman", a short sto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Becky Chambers (author)
Becky Chambers (born 3 May 1985) is an American science fiction writer. She is the author of the Hugo Award-winning ''Wayfarers'' series as well as novellas including '' To Be Taught, if Fortunate'' and the ''Monk & Robot'' series, which begins with the Hugo Award-winning '' A Psalm for the Wild-Built''. She is known for her imaginative world-building and character-driven stories. Early life, family and education Chambers was born in 1985 in Southern California and grew up outside Los Angeles. Chambers' family included several people with an interest in various NASA space exploration efforts. Her parents are an astrobiology educator and a satellite engineer. She became fascinated with 'space' and its exploration at an early age. During her youth, after she first encountered a person who believed that such programs were unwise and that their funding would be better applied to solving Earth's problems, she began studying in detail humans’ efforts to explore the cosmos, concludin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian McDonald (British Author)
Ian McDonald (born 1960) is a British science fiction novelist, living in Belfast. His themes include nanotechnology, postcyberpunk settings, and the impact of rapid social and technological change on non-Western societies. Early life Ian McDonald was born in 1960, in Manchester, to a Scottish father and Irish mother. He moved to Belfast when he was five and has lived there ever since. He lived through the whole of the 'Troubles' (1968–1999), and his sensibility has been permanently shaped by coming to understand Northern Ireland as a post-colonial society imposed on an older culture. Career McDonald sold his first story to a local Belfast magazine when he was 22, and in 1987 became a full-time writer. He has also worked in TV consultancy within Northern Ireland, contributing scripts to the Northern Irish Sesame Workshop production of ''Sesame Tree''. McDonald's debut novel was ''Desolation Road'' (1988), which takes place on a far future Mars in a town that develops around ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Head On (novel)
''Head On'' is a science fiction police procedural novel by American writer John Scalzi. The book was published by Tor Books on April 17, 2018. Retrieved 19 December 2017. Audible has released two audiobook editions, each with a different narrator, Amber Benson and . It is a to '' [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Watts (author)
Peter Watts (born January 25, 1958) is a Canadian science fiction author. He specializes in hard science fiction. He earned a Ph.D from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1991, from the Department of Zoology and Resource Ecology. He went on to hold several academic research and teaching positions, and worked as a marine-mammal biologist. He began publishing fiction around the time he finished graduate school. Career His first novel ''Starfish'' (1999) reintroduced Lenie Clarke from his short story, "A Niche" (1990); Clarke is a deep-ocean power station worker physically altered for underwater living and the main character in the sequels: ''Maelstrom'' (2001), ''βehemoth: β-Max'' (2004) and ''βehemoth: Seppuku'' (2005). The last two volumes constitute one novel, but were published separately for commercial reasons. ''Starfish'', ''Maelstrom'', and ''βehemoth'' make up a trilogy usually referred to as "Rifters" after the modified humans de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Scalzi
John Michael Scalzi II (born May 10, 1969) is an American science fiction author and former president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He is best known for his ''Old Man's War'' series, three novels of which have been nominated for the Hugo Award, and for his blog ''Whatever'', where he has written on a number of topics since 1998. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 2008 based predominantly on that blog, which he has also used for several charity drives. His novel '' Redshirts'' won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel. He has written non-fiction books and columns on diverse topics such as finance, video games, films, astronomy, writing and politics, and served as a creative consultant for the TV series ''Stargate Universe''. Early life, education, and early career Scalzi was born in Fairfield, California, on May 10, 1969. One of three children to a single mother, he grew up in the Los Angeles suburbs of Covina, Glendora, Azusa, and San Dimas. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Consuming Fire
''The Consuming Fire'' is a space opera novel by American writer John Scalzi. The book was published by Tor Books on October 16, 2018. Audible (store), Audible released an audio book version narrated by Wil Wheaton. It is the middle volume of The Interdependency trilogy and a sequel to ''The Collapsing Empire''; the third and final book, ''The Last Emperox'', was published on 14 April 2020. ''The Consuming Fire'' reached #15 on ''The New York Times'' bestseller list for combined print and e-book fiction. Plot Following the events of The Collapsing Empire, End is now isolated from Hub as the result of a Flow shoal breakdown. Seeking to unite the population of the Interdependency behind an agenda to get ahead of the coming collapse of Flow-supported space travel, Grayland II (Cardenia Wu-Patrick) claims, in her capacity as head of the Church of the Interdependency, to have had visions affirming the need to plan for the collapse. This causes religious disquiet in the church, and pol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Robinette Kowal
Mary Robinette Kowal (; born February 8, 1969) is an American author and puppeteer. Originally a puppeteer by primary trade after receiving a bachelor's degree in art education, she became art director for science fiction magazines and by 2010 was also authoring her first full-length published novels. The majority of her work is characterized by science fiction themes, such as interplanetary travel; a common element present in many of her novels is historical or alternate history fantasy, such as in her Glamourist Histories and Lady Astronaut books. Kowal has been active in the SF&F community, acting as secretary, vice president (2010), and later president (2019-2021) of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. In response to frustration from the fanbase over panel selection, and perceived misallocation of resources in advance of the 2018 WorldCon, the board named her chair of programming. She has since returned as a chair at the 2021 WorldCon, which was delayed to mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liu Cixin
Liu Cixin (, pronounced ; born 23 June 1963) is a Chinese science fiction writer. He is a nine-time winner of China's Galaxy Award and has also received the 2015 Hugo Award for his novel '' The Three-Body Problem'' as well as the 2017 Locus Award for ''Death's End''. He is also a winner of the Chinese Nebula Award. In English translations of his works, his name is given as Cixin Liu. He is a member of China Science Writers Association and the vice president of Shanxi Writers Association. He is also called "Da Liu" ("Big Liu"). Life and career Liu was born on 23 June 1963 in Beijing and raised in Yangquan, Shanxi, where his parents had been sent to work in the mines. Due to the violence of the Cultural Revolution he was sent to live in his ancestral home in Luoshan County, Henan. Liu graduated from the North China University of Water Conservancy and Electric Power in 1988. He then worked as a computer engineer at a power plant in Shanxi province. Writing Liu's writing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ball Lightning (novel)
''Ball Lightning'' () is a hard science fiction novel by Chinese author Liu Cixin. The original Chinese version was published in 2004. In 2018 the English version, translated by Joel Martinsen, was published in the US by Tor Books. Plot The novel follows the experiences of a first-person protagonist, Chen, whose family was killed by ball lightning while he was in high school. Both traumatized and inspired by that experience, he makes the investigation of ball lightning his life's work, first getting his PhD in the subject, then exploring the phenomenon through both applied and theoretical research. During his research, military technology researcher Lin Yun recruits him into a weapons development team. With the help of a theoretical physicist, Ding Yi, they discover that ball lightning is not formed by lightning conditions, but rather when lightning encounters "macro-electrons" hypercharging the electrons until they express their energy. They learn how to capture these macro-el ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martha Wells
Martha Wells (born September 1, 1964) is an American writer of speculative fiction. She has published a number of fantasy novels, young adult novels, media tie-ins, short stories, and nonfiction essays on fantasy and science fiction subjects. Her novels have been translated into twelve languages. Wells has won four Hugo Awards, two Nebula Awards and three Locus Awards for her science fiction series ''The Murderbot Diaries''. She is also known for her fantasy series '' Ile-Rien'' and ''The Books of the Raksura.'' Wells is praised for the complex, realistically detailed societies she creates; this is often credited to her academic background in anthropology. Life Martha Wells was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and has a B.A. in Anthropology from Texas A&M University. She lives in College Station, Texas, with her husband. She was involved in SF/F fandom in college and was chairman of AggieCon 17. Career As an aspiring writer Wells attended many local writing workshops and conventions, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
