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Chung Kuo (novel Series)
Chung Kuo is a series of science fiction novels written by David Wingrove. The novels present a future history of an Earth dominated by China. Setting ''Chung Kuo'' is primarily set 200 years in the future in mile-high, continent-spanning cities made of a super-plastic called 'ice'. Housing a global population of 40 billion, the cities are divided into 300 levels and success and prestige is measured by how far above the ground one lives. Some – in the Above – live in great comfort. Others – in the Lowers – live in squalor, whilst at the bottom of the pile is 'Below the Net', a place where the criminal element is exiled and left to rot. Beneath the cities lie the ruins of old Earth – the Clay – a lightless, stygian hell in which, astonishingly, humans still exist. These divisions are known as 'the world of levels'. In addition to the world of levels, there are the great meat-animal pens and sprawling, vast plantations to feed the population. There is also activity beyon ... [...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 Wingrove
David Wingrove (born September 1954) is a British science fiction writer. He is well known as the author of the '' Chung Kuo'' novels. He is also the co-author (with Rand and Robyn Miller) of the three ''Myst'' novels. Biography Wingrove worked in the banking industry for seven years until he became fed up with it. He then attended the University of Kent, Canterbury, where he read English and American Literature. He is married and, with his wife Susan, has four daughters: Jessica, Amy, Georgia, and Francesca. Career Between 1972 and 1982 he wrote over 300 unpublished short stories and 15 novels. He started work on a new fictional project called ''A Perfect Art''. Between 1984 and 1988, when it was first submitted, the title was changed twice, becoming first ''A Spring Day at the Edge of the World'' and then finally ''Chung Kuo'', under which title it was sold to 18 publishers throughout the world. The ''Chung Kuo'' series ran to eight of nine planned volumes before the series ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Future History
A future history is a postulated history of the future and is used by authors of science fiction and other speculative fiction to construct a common background for fiction. Sometimes the author publishes a timeline of events in the history, while other times the reader can reconstruct the order of the stories from information provided therein. Background The term appears to have been coined by John W. Campbell, Jr., the editor of ''Astounding Science Fiction'', in the February 1941 issue of that magazine, in reference to Robert A. Heinlein's ''Future History''. Neil R. Jones is generally credited as the first author to create a future history.Ashley, M. (April, 1989). The Immortal Professor, Astro Adventures No.7, p.6. A set of stories which share a backdrop but are not really concerned with the sequence of history in their universe are rarely considered future histories. For example, neither Lois McMaster Bujold's ''Vorkosigan Saga'' nor George R. R. Martin's 1970s sho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surface is made up of the ocean, dwarfing Earth's polar ice, lakes, and rivers. The remaining 29% of Earth's surface is land, consisting of continents and islands. Earth's surface layer is formed of several slowly moving tectonic plates, which interact to produce mountain ranges, volcanoes, and earthquakes. Earth's liquid outer core generates the magnetic field that shapes the magnetosphere of the Earth, deflecting destructive solar winds. The atmosphere of the Earth consists mostly of nitrogen and oxygen. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere like carbon dioxide (CO2) trap a part of the energy from the Sun close to the surface. Water vapor is widely present in the atmosphere and forms clouds that cover most of the planet. More solar e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land, the most of any country in the world, tied with Russia. Covering an area of approximately , it is the world's third largest country by total land area. The country consists of 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The national capital is Beijing, and the most populous city and financial center is Shanghai. Modern Chinese trace their origins to a cradle of civilization in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. The semi-legendary Xia dynasty in the 21st century BCE and the well-attested Shang and Zhou dynasties developed a bureaucratic political system to serve hereditary monarchies, or dyna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dramatis Personae
Dramatis personae (Latin: 'persons of the drama') are the main characters in a dramatic work written in a list. Such lists are commonly employed in various forms of theatre, and also on screen. Typically, off-stage characters are not considered part of the dramatis personae. It is said to have been recorded in English since 1730, and is also evident in international use. It is customary to give a cast list, which also has next to each character in a second column the name of the actor or actress playing the part; an alternative version lists the names of the actors who played the parts originally. In order not to give away vital parts of the plot some names may be altered, for example, mixed up with another name. Some minor characters may be listed just as the actors who perform the parts. Other uses In a wider sense, the term can be applied to any situation in which people or characters play a role, or appear to do so—such as a metaphor, a drama, or a court case. It may al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding is the process of constructing a world, originally an imaginary one, sometimes associated with a fictional universe. Developing an imaginary setting with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, and ecology is a key task for many science fiction or fantasy writers. Worldbuilding often involves the creation of geography, a backstory, flora, fauna, inhabitants, technology and often if writing speculative fiction, different races. This may include social customs as well as invented languages for the world. The world could encompass different planets spanning vast distances of space or be limited in scope to a single small village. World building exists in novels, tabletop role-playing games, and visual media such as films, video games and comics. Prior to 1900 most worldbuilding was conducted by novelists, who could leave imagination of the fictional setting in part to the reader. Some authors of fiction set multiple works in the same world. This is known as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Herbert
Franklin Patrick Herbert Jr. (October 8, 1920February 11, 1986) was an American science fiction author best known for the 1965 novel '' Dune'' and its five sequels. Though he became famous for his novels, he also wrote short stories and worked as a newspaper journalist, photographer, book reviewer, ecological consultant, and lecturer. The ''Dune'' saga, set in the distant future, and taking place over millennia, explores complex themes, such as the long-term survival of the human species, human evolution, planetary science and ecology, and the intersection of religion, politics, economics and power in a future where humanity has long since developed interstellar travel and settled many thousands of worlds. ''Dune'' is the best-selling science fiction novel of all time, and the entire series is considered to be among the classics of the genre. Biography Early life Frank Patrick Herbert Jr. was born on October 8, 1920, in Tacoma, Washington, to Frank Patrick Herbert Sr. and Ei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dune (novel)
''Dune'' is a 1965 epic science fiction novel by American author Frank Herbert, originally published as two separate serials in '' Analog'' magazine. It tied with Roger Zelazny's '' This Immortal'' for the Hugo Award in 1966 and it won the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel. It is the first installment of the ''Dune'' saga. In 2003, it was described as the world's best-selling science fiction novel. ''Dune'' is set in the distant future amidst a feudal interstellar society in which various noble houses control planetary fiefs. It tells the story of young Paul Atreides, whose family accepts the stewardship of the planet Arrakis. While the planet is an inhospitable and sparsely populated desert wasteland, it is the only source of melange, or "spice", a drug that extends life and enhances mental abilities. Melange is also necessary for space navigation, which requires a kind of multidimensional awareness and foresight that only the drug provides. As melange can only be prod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Clavell
James Clavell (born Charles Edmund Dumaresq Clavell; 10 October 1921 – 7 September 1994) was an Australian-born British (later naturalized American) writer, screenwriter, director, and World War II veteran and prisoner of war. Clavell is best known as the author of his Asian Saga novels, a number of which have had television adaptations. Clavell also wrote such screenplays as those for '' The Fly'' (1958) (based on the short story by George Langelaan) and '' The Great Escape'' (1963) (based on the personal account of Paul Brickhill). He directed the popular 1967 film ''To Sir, with Love'' for which he also wrote the script. Biography Early life Born in Australia, Clavell was the son of Commander Richard Charles Clavell, a Royal Navy officer who was stationed in Australia with the Royal Australian Navy from 1920 to 1922. Richard Clavell was posted back to England when James was nine months old. Clavell was educated at Portsmouth Grammar School. World War II In 1940, Clav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shōgun (novel)
''Shōgun'' is a 1975 novel by James Clavell. It is the first novel (by internal chronology) of the author's Asian Saga. A major best-seller, by 1990 the book had sold 15 million copies worldwide. Premise Beginning in feudal Japan some months before the critical Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, ''Shōgun'' gives an account of the rise of the ''daimyō'' "Toranaga" (based upon the actual Tokugawa Ieyasu). Toranaga's rise to the shogunate is seen through the eyes of the English sailor John Blackthorne, called ''Anjin'' ("Pilot") by the Japanese, whose fictional heroics are loosely based on the historical exploits of William Adams. The book is divided into six sections, preceded by a prologue in which Blackthorne is shipwrecked near Izu, then alternating between locations in Anjiro, Mishima, Osaka, Yedo, and Yokohama. Plot John Blackthorne, an English pilot serving on the Dutch warship ''Erasmus'', is the first Englishman to reach Japan. England (and Holland) seek to disrupt Port ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isaac Asimov
yi, יצחק אזימאװ , birth_date = , birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR , spouse = , relatives = , children = 2 , death_date = , death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S. , nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (1922–1928)American (1928–1992) , occupation = Writer, professor of biochemistry , years_active = 1939–1992 , genre = Science fiction (hard SF, social SF), mystery, popular science , subject = Popular science, science textbooks, essays, history, literary criticism , education = Columbia University ( BA, MA, PhD) , movement = Golden Age of Science Fiction , module = , signature = Isaac Asimov signature.svg Isaac Asimov ( ; 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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