|
Elvissey
''Elvissey'' (1993) is a Jack Womack science fiction novel, one of his Dryco series, set in a dystopian 2033 CE. This fictional universe is dominated by Dryco, a Machiavellian multinational corporation which pursues its plans for global domination of its world, amidst runaway climate change, unstable weather patterns and rising sea levels, which threaten to eventually inundate old New York (although DryCo has constructed a "New" New York on higher ground). It won a Philip K. Dick Award in its year of publication. Plot summary In this novel, DryCo is facing problems from a mass religious movement centered on the premise that Elvis Presley was a semi divine figure, who performed miracles for believers in his sect. It decides to resolve this problem by retrieving a younger alternate history Elvis, and bringing him to present day New New York to discredit the posthumous reputation and mythology that now surrounds Elvis. The retrieval team are a married couple, Iz and John. Iz is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terraplane (novel)
''Terraplane'', published in 1988, is a Jack Womack science fiction novel. The Terraplane is a 1930s automobile, which plays a significant role in this novel. It is also a time machine from the corporate-dominated future of DryCo, a manipulative multinational corporation in "New" New York City, 2033 CE. In this future, climate change has resulted in rising sea levels, and would have inundated the original city if it had not been for the massive construction of a giant seawall, and New New York on higher ground. Altogether, Jack Womack set six novels in this future world, and its alternate history liaisons. Plot summary DryCo has sent two operatives, retired African-American general Luther and his white bodyguard Jake, to post-communist Moscow, where rival multinational corporation Krasnaya dominates Russian society through consumer capitalist mass production of products. However, Luther and Jake discover that Krasnaya has two highly advanced quantum physicists under duress, Okto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Random Acts Of Senseless Violence
''Random Acts of Senseless Violence'' is a dystopian and speculative fiction novel by Jack Womack. Plot introduction The novel is told in the form of a fictional diary by the 12-year-old protagonist Lola Hart, and details Lola and her family's experiences in a near-future Manhattan in which violence, rising unemployment, and riots are commonplace in the city, as well as the rest of the United States. As the novel progresses, Lola transforms from a student at one of Manhattan's most privileged private schools to a street-wise gangster as she and her family struggle to survive the despair of a crumbling government and economy. Critical reception The book did not attract significant attention on release; though there were a few reviews, it was not nominated for any awards even though Womack's previous work, ''Elvissey'', won the prestigious Philip K. Dick Award and was shortlisted for the Locus Award. In a July 2008 article for Tor.com, Jo Walton decried the critical neglect of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Womack
Jack Womack (born January 8, 1956) is an American author of fiction and speculative fiction. Womack was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and now lives in New York City with his wife and daughter. "Yeah, I was in Kentucky. Lived there till I was 21, moved up here, and I've lived in my present apartment for 32 years in April." Bibliography "Dryco" series, in order of the series timeline: * ''Random Acts of Senseless Violence'' (1995) * '' Heathern'' (1990) * '' Ambient'' (1987) * ''Terraplane'' (1988) * ''Elvissey'' (1993) (Philip K. Dick Award, 1993) * '' Going, Going, Gone'' (2000) Other novels: * '' Let's Put the Future Behind Us'' (1996) Short stories: *" That Old School Tie" (1994) in '' Little Deaths'' (ed. Ellen Datlow) *"Audience" (1997) in ''The Horns of Elfland'' (ed. Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, and Donald G. Keller) Nonfiction: *''Flying Saucers Are Real!'' (2016) References External links * . Paul McAuley and Jack Womack: A Double Interview interview with C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. His energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style, combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines during a civil rights movement, transformative era in race relations, led him to both great success and Cultural impact of Elvis Presley#Danger to American culture, initial controversy. Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and relocated to Memphis, Tennessee, with his family when he was 13 years old. His music career began there in 1954, recording at Sun Records with producer Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African-American music to a wider audience. Presley, on rhythm acoustic guitar, and accompanied by lead ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giuseppe Zangara
Giuseppe Zangara (September 7, 1900 – March 20, 1933) was an Italian immigrant and naturalized United States citizen who attempted to assassinate the President-elect of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, on February 15, 1933, 17 days before Roosevelt's inauguration. During a night speech by Roosevelt in Miami, Florida, Zangara fired five shots with a handgun he had purchased a couple of days before. He missed his target and instead injured five bystanders and killed Anton Cermak, the Mayor of Chicago. Early life Zangara was born on September 7, 1900, in Ferruzzano, Calabria, Italy. After serving in the Tyrolean Alps in World War I, he did a variety of menial jobs in his home village before emigrating with his uncle to the United States in 1923. He settled in Paterson, New Jersey, and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1929. Health issues Zangara had little education and worked as a bricklayer. He suffered severe pain in his abdomen, which doc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the leader of the Democratic Party, he won a record four presidential elections and became a central figure in world events during the first half of the 20th century. Roosevelt directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. He built the New Deal Coalition, which defined modern liberalism in the United States throughout the middle third of the 20th century. His third and fourth terms were dominated by World War II, which ended in victory shortly after he died in office. Born into the prominent Roosevelt family in Hyde Park, New York, he graduated from both Groton School and Harvard College, and attended Columbia Law Scho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination in the United States, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in the United States, disenfranchisement throughout the United States. The movement had its origins in the Reconstruction era during the late 19th century, although it made its largest legislative gains in the 1960s after years of direct actions and grassroots protests. The social movement's major nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience campaigns eventually secured new protections in federal law for the civil rights of all Americans. After the American Civil War and the subsequent Abolitionism in the United States, abolition of slavery in the 1860s, the Reconstruction Amendments to the United States Constitution granted emancipation and constitutional rights of citizenship ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as the 25th vice president of the United States, vice president under President William McKinley from March to September 1901 and as the 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900. Assuming the presidency after Assassination of William McKinley, McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt emerged as a leader of the History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party and became a driving force for United States antitrust law, anti-trust and Progressive Era, Progressive policies. A sickly child with debilitating asthma, he overcame his health problems as he grew by embracing The Strenuous Life, a strenuous lifestyle. Roosevelt integrated his exuberant personalit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perform some form of work while also having their location or residence dictated by the enslaver. Many historical cases of enslavement occurred as a result of breaking the law, becoming indebted, or suffering a military defeat; other forms of slavery were instituted along demographic lines such as race. Slaves may be kept in bondage for life or for a fixed period of time, after which they would be granted freedom. Although slavery is usually involuntary and involves coercion, there are also cases where people voluntarily enter into slavery to pay a debt or earn money due to poverty. In the course of human history, slavery was a typical feature of civilization, and was legal in most societies, but it is now outlawed in most countries of the w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states that had seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be prevented from doing so, which was widely believed would place slavery on a course of ultimate extinction. Decades of political controversy over slavery were brought to a head by the victory in the 1860 U.S. presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery's expansion into the west. An initial seven southern slave states responded to Lincoln's victory by seceding from the United States and, in 1861, forming the Confederacy. The Confederacy seized U.S. forts and other federal assets within their borders. Led by Confederate President Jefferson Davis, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assassination Of Abraham Lincoln
On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth, while attending the play ''Our American Cousin'' at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Shot in the head as he watched the play, Lincoln died the following day at 7:22 am in the Petersen House opposite the theater. He was the first U.S. president to be assassinated, with his funeral and burial marking an extended period of national mourning. Occurring near the end of the American Civil War, Lincoln's assassination was part of a larger conspiracy intended by Booth to revive the Confederate cause by eliminating the three most important officials of the United States government. Conspirators Lewis Powell and David Herold were assigned to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward, and George Atzerodt was tasked with killing Vice President Andrew Johnson. Beyond Lincoln's death, the plot failed: Seward was only wounded, and Johnson's wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War and succeeded in preserving the Union, abolishing slavery, bolstering the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy. Lincoln was born into poverty in a log cabin in Kentucky and was raised on the frontier, primarily in Indiana. He was self-educated and became a lawyer, Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator, and U.S. Congressman from Illinois. In 1849, he returned to his successful law practice in central Illinois. In 1854, he was angered by the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which opened the territories to slavery, and he re-entered politics. He soon became a leader of the new Republican Party. He reached a national audience in the 1858 Senate campaign debates against Stephen A. Douglas. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
