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Courtship Rite
''Courtship Rite'' is a science fiction novel by Canadian writer Donald Kingsbury, originally serialized in ''Analog'' magazine in 1982. The book is set in the same universe as some of Kingsbury's other stories, such as "Shipwright" (1978) and the unpublished ''The Finger Pointing Solward''. In the UK, the novel was entitled ''Geta'', and in France, ''Parade nuptiale''. ''Courtship Rite'' was the first winner of the Compton Crook Award for best first novel, was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1983 and won the 2016 Prometheus Hall of Fame Award. Setting Geta Geta is a harsh planet settled by humanity centuries before the novel begins. The planet has one large satellite, Scowlmoon; the two are in a mutual tidal lock, so the moon is only visible from half the planet. The planet's day is about half as long as Earth's. Geta is much drier than Earth, with eleven separate bodies of water large enough to be called seas; most of the land area is desert. The Njara ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donald Kingsbury
Donald MacDonald Kingsbury (born 12 February 1929, in San Francisco) is an American–Canadian science fiction author. Kingsbury taught mathematics at McGill University, Montreal, from 1956 until his retirement in 1986. Bibliography Books * '' Courtship Rite''. New York : Simon and Schuster, July 1982. . (Nominated for Hugo for Best Novel in 1983) (Compton Crook Award winner) ( Prometheus Award Hall of Fame 2016 winner) Published in UK as ''Geta''. * ''The Moon Goddess and the Son''. New York : Baen Books, December 1986. . (Short version nominated for Hugo Award for Best Novella in 1980) * '' Psychohistorical Crisis''. New York : Tor Books, December 2001. . (Winner, 2002 Prometheus Award) * ''The Finger Pointing Solward'' has been awaited ever since the publication of '' Courtship Rite''. Kingsbury has never finished the story, noting as far back as September 1982 that he was still "polishing" it (see interview with Robert J. Sawyer) and as recently as his self-supplied Rea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, both in ancient and in recent times. The rate of cannibalism increases in nutritionally poor environments as individuals turn to members of their own species as an additional food source.Elgar, M.A. & Crespi, B.J. (1992) ''Cannibalism: ecology and evolution among diverse taxa'', Oxford University Press, Oxford ngland New York. Cannibalism regulates population numbers, whereby resources such as food, shelter and territory become more readily available with the decrease of potential competition. Although it may benefit the individual, it has been shown that the presence of cannibalism decreases the expected survival rate of the whole population and increases the risk of consuming a relative. Other negative effects may include the increased r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Magazine Of Fantasy And Science Fiction
''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' (usually referred to as ''F&SF'') is a U.S. fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House, a subsidiary of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Press. Editors Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas had approached Spivak in the mid-1940s about creating a fantasy companion to Spivak's existing mystery title, ''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine''. The first issue was titled ''The Magazine of Fantasy'', but the decision was quickly made to include science fiction as well as fantasy, and the title was changed correspondingly with the second issue. ''F&SF'' was quite different in presentation from the existing science fiction magazines of the day, most of which were in pulp format: it had no interior illustrations, no letter column, and text in a single column format, which in the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley "set ''F&SF'' apart, giving it the air and authority of a superior magazine". ''F&SF'' qu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism refers to various theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics, and which were largely defined by scholars in Western Europe and North America in the 1870s. Social Darwinism holds that the strong see their wealth and power increase while the weak see their wealth and power decrease. Social Darwinist definitions of ''the strong'' and ''the weak'' vary, and also differ on the precise mechanisms that reward strength and punish weakness. Many such views stress competition between individuals in ''laissez-faire'' capitalism, while others, emphasizing struggle between national or racial groups, support eugenics, racism, imperialism and/or fascism.Leonard, Thomas C. (2009"Origins of the Myth of Social Darwinism: The Ambiguous Legacy of Richard Hofstadter's Social Darwinism in American Thought" ''Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization'' 71, pp. 37–5 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Clute
John Frederick Clute (born 12 September 1940) is a Canadian-born author and critic specializing in science fiction and fantasy literature who has lived in both England and the United States since 1969. He has been described as "an integral part of science fiction's history"Davis, MattheJohn Clute: Yakfests of the Empyrean, ''Strange Horizons,'' 18 September 2006. and "perhaps the foremost reader-critic of sf in our time, and one of the best the genre has ever known." He was one of eight people who founded the English magazine '' Interzone'' in 1982 (the others included Malcolm Edwards, Colin Greenland, Roz Kaveney, and David Pringle). Clute's articles on speculative fiction have appeared in various publications since the 1960s. He is a co-editor of ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' (with Peter Nicholls) and of ''The Encyclopedia of Fantasy'' (with John Grant), as well as the author of ''The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Science Fiction,'' all of which won Hugo Awards for Be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyamory
Polyamory () is the practice of, or desire for, romantic relationships with more than one partner at the same time, with the informed consent of all partners involved. People who identify as polyamorous may believe in open relationships with a conscious management of jealousy and reject the view that sexual and relational exclusivity are prerequisite for deep, committed, long-term, loving relationships. Others prefer to restrict their sexual activity to only members of the group, a closed polyamorous relationship that is usually referred to as polyfidelity. ''Polyamory'' has come to be an umbrella term for various forms of non-monogamous, multi-partner relationships, or non-exclusive sexual or romantic relationships. Its usage reflects the choices and philosophies of the individuals involved, but with recurring themes or values, such as love, intimacy, honesty, integrity, equality, communication, and commitment. It can sometimes be distinguished from some other forms of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jo Walton
Jo Walton (born 1964) is a Welsh and Canadian fantasy and science fiction writer and poet. She is best known for the fantasy novel ''Among Others'', which won the Hugo Award, Hugo and Nebula Awards in 2012, and ''Tooth and Claw (novel), Tooth and Claw'', a Victorian era novel with dragons which won the World Fantasy Award in 2004. Other works by Walton include the ''Small Change'' series, in which she blends alternate history with the cozy mystery genre, comprising ''Farthing (novel), Farthing'', ''Ha'penny (novel), Ha'penny'' and ''Half a Crown (novel), Half a Crown''. Her fantasy novel ''Lifelode'' won the 2010 Mythopoeic Award, and her alternate history ''My Real Children'' received the 2015 Tiptree Award. Walton is also known for her non-fiction, including book reviews and SF commentary in the magazine ''Tor.com''. A collection of her articles were published in ''What Makes This Book So Great'' (2014), which won the Locus Award for Best Non-Fiction. Background Walton w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased death, mortality. Every inhabited continent in the world has experienced a period of famine throughout history. In the 19th and 20th century, generally characterized Southeast and South Asia, as well as Eastern and Central Europe, in terms of having suffered most number of deaths from famine. The numbers dying from famine began to fall sharply from the 2000s. Since 2010, Africa has been the most affected continent of famine in the world. Definitions According to the United Nations World Food Programme, famine is declared when malnutrition is widespread, and when people have started dying of starvation through lack of access to suf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sailplane
A glider or sailplane is a type of glider aircraft used in the leisure activity and sport of gliding (also called soaring). This unpowered aircraft can use naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to gain altitude. Sailplanes are aerodynamically streamlined and so can fly a significant distance forward for a small decrease in altitude. In North America the term 'sailplane' is also used to describe this type of aircraft. In other parts of the English-speaking world, the word 'glider' is more common. Types Gliders benefit from producing the least drag for any given amount of lift, and this is best achieved with long, thin wings, a slender fuselage and smooth surfaces with an absence of protuberances. Aircraft with these features are able to soar – climb efficiently in rising air produced by thermals or hills. In still air, sailplanes can glide long distances at high speed with a minimum loss of height in between. Sailplanes have rigid wings and either ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steam Engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be transformed, by a connecting rod and crank, into rotational force for work. The term "steam engine" is generally applied only to reciprocating engines as just described, not to the steam turbine. Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separated from the combustion products. The ideal thermodynamic cycle used to analyze this process is called the Rankine cycle. In general usage, the term ''steam engine'' can refer to either complete steam plants (including boilers etc.), such as railway steam locomotives and portable engines, or may refer to the piston or turbine machinery alone, as in the beam engine and stationary steam engine. Although steam-driven devices were known as early as the aeolipile in the f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene
In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a basic unit of heredity and the molecular gene is a sequence of nucleotides in DNA that is transcribed to produce a functional RNA. There are two types of molecular genes: protein-coding genes and noncoding genes. During gene expression, the DNA is first copied into RNA. The RNA can be directly functional or be the intermediate template for a protein that performs a function. The transmission of genes to an organism's offspring is the basis of the inheritance of phenotypic traits. These genes make up different DNA sequences called genotypes. Genotypes along with environmental and developmental factors determine what the phenotypes will be. Most biological traits are under the influence of polygenes (many different genes) as well as gen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar working in the 19th century in Brno, was the first to study genetics scientifically. Mendel studied "trait inheritance", patterns in the way traits are handed down from parents to offspring over time. He observed that organisms (pea plants) inherit traits by way of discrete "units of inheritance". This term, still used today, is a somewhat ambiguous definition of what is referred to as a gene. Trait inheritance and molecular inheritance mechanisms of genes are still primary principles of genetics in the 21st century, but modern genetics has expanded to study the function and behavior of genes. Gene structure and function, variation, and distribution are studied within the context of the cell, the organism (e.g. dominance), and within the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
