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Cluster (novels)
''Cluster'' is a series of science fiction novels by Piers Anthony. Anthony originally conceived of and wrote the series as a trilogy but later added two additional volumes. Setting As the series opens, humanity has colonized an area of the galaxy roughly 100 light years in diameter. This area is called Sphere Sol, as it is the sphere of influence of the race from the star Sol, that is, the Sun. Sphere Sol's "neighborhood" is also home to other spheres, each centered around a particular star: Spheres Polaris, Canopus, Spica, Nath (star), Nath, Mirzam, and Bellatrix as well as the huge, decadent Spheres Gamma Cygni, Sador and Mintaka. In the Cluster setting, races colonize other planets in three ways. The first is through instantaneous teleportation, called ''matter transmission'' or ''mattermission''. This, however, is prohibitively expensive. Second, colonists travel to new worlds in "freezer" ships, where they are Cryonics, cryonically stored for the decades it takes for th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cluster (novels)
''Cluster'' is a series of science fiction novels by Piers Anthony. Anthony originally conceived of and wrote the series as a trilogy but later added two additional volumes. Setting As the series opens, humanity has colonized an area of the galaxy roughly 100 light years in diameter. This area is called Sphere Sol, as it is the sphere of influence of the race from the star Sol, that is, the Sun. Sphere Sol's "neighborhood" is also home to other spheres, each centered around a particular star: Spheres Polaris, Canopus, Spica, Nath (star), Nath, Mirzam, and Bellatrix as well as the huge, decadent Spheres Gamma Cygni, Sador and Mintaka. In the Cluster setting, races colonize other planets in three ways. The first is through instantaneous teleportation, called ''matter transmission'' or ''mattermission''. This, however, is prohibitively expensive. Second, colonists travel to new worlds in "freezer" ships, where they are Cryonics, cryonically stored for the decades it takes for th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protagonist
A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a story contains a subplot, or is a narrative made up of several stories, then each subplot may have its own protagonist. The protagonist is the character whose fate is most closely followed by the reader or audience, and who is opposed by the antagonist. The antagonist provides obstacles and complications and creates conflicts that test the protagonist, revealing the strengths and weaknesses of the protagonist's character, and having the protagonist develop as a result. Etymology The term ''protagonist'' comes , combined of (, 'first') and (, 'actor, competitor'), which stems from (, 'contest') via (, 'I contend for a prize'). Ancient Greece The earliest known examples of a protagonist are found in Ancient Greece. At first, dramatic pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riddle
A riddle is a statement, question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: ''enigmas'', which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and ''conundra'', which are questions relying for their effects on punning in either the question or the answer. Archer Taylor says that "we can probably say that riddling is a universal art" and cites riddles from hundreds of different cultures including Finnish, Hungarian, American Indian, Chinese, Russian, Dutch and Filipino sources amongst many others. Many riddles and riddle-themes are internationally widespread. In the assessment of Elli Köngäs-Maranda (originally writing about Malaitian riddles, but with an insight that has been taken up more widely), whereas myths serve to encode and establish social norms, "riddles make a point of playing with conceptual boundaries and cross ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perseus And Andromeda
In Greek mythology, Andromeda (; grc, Ἀνδρομέδα, Androméda or , ''Andromédē'') is the daughter of the king of Aethiopia, Cepheus, and his wife, Cassiopeia. When Cassiopeia boasts that she is more beautiful than the Nereids, Poseidon sends the sea monster Cetus to ravage the coast of Aethiopia as divine punishment. Andromeda is chained to a rock as a sacrifice to sate the monster, but is saved from death by Perseus, who marries her and takes her to Greece to reign as his queen. As a subject, Andromeda has been popular in art since classical times; rescued by a Greek hero, Andromeda's narration is considered the forerunner to the "princess and dragon" motif. From the Renaissance, interest revived in the original story, typically as derived from Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'' (4.663ff). Etymology Her name is the Latinized form of the Greek (''Androméda'') or (''Andromédē'') 'ruler of men', from (''anēr, andrós'') meaning 'man, husband, human being', and (''med ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tarot
The tarot (, first known as '' trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini. From their Italian roots, tarot playing cards spread to most of Europe evolving into a family of games that includes German Grosstarok and more recent games such as French Tarot and Austrian Königrufen which are still played today. In the late 18th century, French occultists began to make elaborate, but unsubstantiated, claims about their history and meaning, leading to the emergence of custom decks for use in divination via tarot card reading and cartomancy. Thus there are two distinct types of tarot pack: those used for playing games and those used for divination. However, some older patterns, such as the Tarot de Marseille, originally intended for playing card games, have also been used for cartomancy. Like the common playing cards, tarot has four suits whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interrogation
Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful information, particularly information related to suspected crime. Interrogation may involve a diverse array of techniques, ranging from developing a rapport with the subject to torture. Techniques Deception Deception can form an important part of effective interrogation. In the United States, there is no law or regulation that forbids the interrogator from lying about the strength of their case, from making misleading statements or from implying that the interviewee has already been implicated in the crime by someone else. See case law on trickery and deception ('' Frazier v. Cupp''). As noted above, traditionally the issue of deception is considered from the perspective of the interrogator engaging in deception towards the individual being inte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kirlian Aura
Kirlian may refer to: * Semyon Davidovich Kirlian (1898–1978), Russian inventor and researcher of Armenian descent * Kirlian photography, a photographic technique, named after Semyon and his wife Valentina Kirlian * Kirlian, the pseudonym of (born 1968), American techno-musician and producer {{disambiguation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spiritual Possession
Spirit possession is an unusual or altered state of consciousness and associated behaviors purportedly caused by the control of a human body by spirits, ghosts, demons, or gods. The concept of spirit possession exists in many cultures and religions, including Buddhism, Christianity,Mark 5:9, Luke 8:30 Haitian Vodou, Hinduism, Islam, Wicca, and Southeast Asian, African, and Native American traditions. Depending on the cultural context in which it is found, possession may be considered voluntary or involuntary and may be considered to have beneficial or detrimental effects on the host. In a 1969 study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, spirit possession beliefs were found to exist in 74% of a sample of 488 societies in all parts of the world, with the highest numbers of believing societies in Pacific cultures and the lowest incidence among Native Americans of both North and South America. As Pentecostal and Charismatic Christian churches move into both African ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pleiades
The Pleiades (), also known as The Seven Sisters, Messier 45 and other names by different cultures, is an asterism and an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. At a distance of about 444 light years, it is among the nearest star clusters to Earth. It is the nearest Messier object to Earth, and is the most obvious cluster to the naked eye in the night sky. It is also observed to house the reflection nebula NGC 1432, an HII Ionized region. The cluster is dominated by hot blue luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. Reflection nebulae around the brightest stars were once thought to be left over material from their formation, but are now considered likely to be an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium through which the stars are currently passing. This dust cloud is estimated to be moving at a speed of approximately 18 km/s relative to the stars in the cluster. Computer sim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Milky Way Galaxy
The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. The term ''Milky Way'' is a translation of the Latin ', from the Greek ('), meaning "milky circle". From Earth, the Milky Way appears as a band because its disk-shaped structure is viewed from within. Galileo Galilei first resolved the band of light into individual stars with his telescope in 1610. Until the early 1920s, most astronomers thought that the Milky Way contained all the stars in the Universe. Following the 1920 Great Debate between the astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis, observations by Edwin Hubble showed that the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy with an estimated D25 isophotal diameter of , but only about 1,000 light years thick at the spiral arms (more at the bulge) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thousandstar
''Thousandstar'' is a novel by Piers Anthony published in 1980. Plot summary ''Thousandstar'' is a novel in which the main character is an alien blob. Reception Dave Langford reviewed ''Thousandstar'' for ''White Dwarf'' #58, and stated that "pleasant space-opera though a bit long and a bit prone to tell you the moral of each event on the assumption that you're too thick to see it yourself." Reviews *Review by Tom Easton (1981) in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact ''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'' is an American science fiction magazine published under various titles since 1930. Originally titled ''Astounding Stories of Super-Science'', the first issue was dated January 1930, published by William C ..., March 30, 1981 References 1980 novels American science fiction novels Avon (publisher) books {{1980s-sf-novel-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tarot Series
The ''Tarot'' series is a series of novels by Piers Anthony published in 1979 and 1980. It was originally written as a single novel, and has subsequently been published as such. Series The series consists of ''God of Tarot'', ''Vision of Tarot'', and ''Faith of Tarot''. Reception Greg Costikyan reviewed the series in ''Ares (magazine), Ares Magazine'' #2 and commented that "''Tarot'' is readable and pleasant, no mean feat for a pretty much disconnected series of episodes. Anthony has not yet (I hope) reached his full potential, but ''Tarot'' is a pleasant way-station in his path of development." Rob Bricken of Io9 stated that "the ''Tarot'' trilogy is nothing less than Anthony's complete and total exploration of religion, morality, sexuality, politics, education, and goodness knows what else." References {{reflist Ace Books books Piers Anthony sequences ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
