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Flat Cat
In Robert A. Heinlein's 1952 science fiction novel, ''The Rolling Stones'', flat cats are a species of Martian animal which reproduce rapidly and overrun a spaceship. Description and origin In the chapter "Free Enterprise", the character Mr. Angelo, a shopkeeper on Mars, introduces Castor and Pollux Stone to a flat cat: The boys take the flat cat onto the family space ship, where it soon has eight "kittens", each of which soon gives birth again, until the ship is overwhelmed with flat cats. The family solves the problem by rounding up the flat cats and putting them into the storage hold at low temperature, where they hibernate. They are later revived and sold to miners in the asteroid belt. Flat cats v. tribbles Heinlein's flat cats are often said to have been the inspiration for the tribbles of the 1967 '' Star Trek'' episode "The Trouble with Tribbles". The similarities to the flat cats and some specific story events involving them was brought to the attention of the Star Trek ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert A
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honour, praise, renown" and ''berht'' "bright, light, shining"). It is the second most frequently used given name of ancient Germanic origin. It is also in use as a surname. Another commonly used form of the name is Rupert. After becoming widely used in Continental Europe it entered England in its Old French form ''Robert'', where an Old English cognate form (''Hrēodbēorht'', ''Hrodberht'', ''Hrēodbēorð'', ''Hrœdbœrð'', ''Hrœdberð'', ''Hrōðberχtŕ'') had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto. Robert is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots, Danish, and Icelandic. It can be use ... [...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] |
The Rolling Stones (novel)
''The Rolling Stones'' (also published under the name ''Space Family Stone'' in the United Kingdom) is a 1952 science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. A condensed version of the novel had been published earlier in ''Boys' Life'' (September, October, November, December 1952) under the title "Tramp Space Ship". It was published in hardcover that year by Scribner's as part of the Heinlein juveniles. Plot summary The Stones, a family of "Loonies" (residents of the Moon, also known as Luna), purchase and rebuild a used spaceship and go sightseeing around the Solar System. The twin teenage boys, named Castor and Pollux after the half-brothers of classical legend, buy used bicycles to sell on Mars, their first stop, where they run afoul of local regulations, but their grandmother Hazel Stone saves them from jail. While on Mars, the twins buy their brother Buster a native Martian creature called a flat cat, which produces a soothing vibration, as a pet. In prepa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Scribner's Sons
Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner's or Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing American authors including Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Stephen King, Robert A. Heinlein, Thomas Wolfe, George Santayana, John Clellon Holmes, Don DeLillo, and Edith Wharton. The firm published ''Scribner's Magazine'' for many years. More recently, several Scribner titles and authors have garnered Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards and other merits. In 1978 the company merged with Atheneum and became The Scribner Book Companies. In turn it merged into Macmillan in 1984. Simon & Schuster bought Macmillan in 1994. By this point only the trade book and reference book operations still bore the original family name. After the merger, the Macmillan and Atheneum adult lists were merged into Scribner's and the Scribner's children list was merged into Atheneum. The former imprint, now simpl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asteroid Belt
The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called asteroids or minor planets. This asteroid belt is also called the main asteroid belt or main belt to distinguish it from other asteroid populations in the Solar System such as near-Earth asteroids and trojan asteroids. The asteroid belt is the smallest and innermost known circumstellar disc in the Solar System. About 60% of its mass is contained in the four largest asteroids: Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea. The total mass of the asteroid belt is calculated to be 3% that of the Moon. Ceres, the only object in the asteroid belt large enough to be a dwarf planet, is about 950 km in diameter, whereas Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea have mean diameters less than 600 km. The remaining bodies range down to the size of a dust particle. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tribble
Tribbles are a fictional alien species in the ''Star Trek'' universe. They were conceived by screenwriter David Gerrold and first appeared in 1967, in the fifteenth episode of the second season of ''The Original Series'', titled "The Trouble with Tribbles". They are depicted as a small, furry, gentle, cute and slow-moving, but rapidly reproducing, lovable species. Though they appear infrequently on-screen, they have become a popular feature of the ''Star Trek'' universe, featuring in their own eponymous official card game, and even lending their name to a conserved family of proteins that was first identified in the fruit fly as a regulator of cell division. Representation Tribbles were first shown in an episode of the second season of the original series, "The Trouble with Tribbles" (1967). They have appeared in several subsequent series, in brief appearances in four ''Star Trek'' films, and in video games such as '' Star Trek: Armada II''. According to ''Star Trek'' can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Original Series
''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that follows the adventures of the starship and its crew. It later acquired the retronym of ''Star Trek: The Original Series'' (''TOS'') to distinguish the show within the media franchise that it began. The show is set in the Milky Way galaxy, circa 2266–2269. The ship and crew are led by Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), First Officer and Science Officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and Chief Medical Officer Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley). Shatner's voice-over introduction during each episode's opening credits stated the starship's purpose: Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship ''Enterprise''. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. Norway Productions and Desilu Productions produced the series from September 1966 to December 1967. Paramount ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Trouble With Tribbles
"The Trouble with Tribbles" is the fifteenth episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series ''Star Trek''. Written by David Gerrold and directed by Joseph Pevney, it was first broadcast on December 29, 1967. In this comic episode, the starship ''Enterprise'' visits a space station that soon becomes overwhelmed by rapidly-reproducing small furry creatures called "tribbles." It is claimed the short story "Pigs Is Pigs" by Ellis Parker Butler inspired the episode, but strong similarities to sections of the novel ''The Rolling Stones'' led the producers to seek a waiver from author Robert A. Heinlein. The original episode has had several produced follow-ups. The first, "More Tribbles, More Troubles", was originally pitched for the show's third season but not accepted; it was ultimately produced for '' Star Trek: The Animated Series''. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of ''Star Trek'' in 1996, the '' Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' episode "Trials and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Desilu Productions
Desilu Productions () was an American television production company founded and co-owned by husband and wife Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. The company is best known for shows such as ''I Love Lucy'', ''The Lucy Show'', ''Mannix'', ''The Untouchables (1959 TV series), The Untouchables'', ''Mission: Impossible (1966 TV series), Mission: Impossible'' and ''Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek''. Until 1962, Desilu was the second-largest independent television production company in the United States, behind MCA Inc., MCA's Universal Television, Revue Studios, until MCA bought Universal Pictures and Desilu became and remained the number-one independent production company, until being sold in 1968. Ball and Arnaz jointly owned the majority stake in Desilu from its inception until 1962, when Ball bought out Arnaz and ran the company by herself for several years. Ball had succeeded in making Desilu profitable again by 1968, when she sold her shares of Desilu to Gulf and Western Indust ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldest film studio in the United States (behind Universal Pictures), and the sole member of the Major film studio, "Big Five" film studios located within the city limits of Los Angeles. In 1916, film producer Adolph Zukor put 24 actors and actresses under contract and honored each with a star on the logo. In 1967, the number of stars was reduced to 22 and their hidden meaning was dropped. In 2014, Paramount Pictures became the first major Hollywood studio to distribute all of its films in digital form only. The company's headquarters and studios are located at 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, California. Paramount Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America, Motion Picture Associ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ellis Parker Butler
Ellis Parker Butler (December 5, 1869 – September 13, 1937) was an American author. He was the author of more than 30 books and more than 2,000 stories and essays and is most famous for his short story "Pigs Is Pigs", in which a bureaucratic stationmaster insists on levying the livestock rate for a shipment of two pet guinea pigs, which soon start proliferating exponentially. His most famous character was Philo Gubb. His career spanned more than forty years, and his stories, poems, and articles were published in more than 225 magazines. His work appeared alongside that of his contemporaries, including Mark Twain, Sax Rohmer, James B. Hendryx, Berton Braley, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Don Marquis, Will Rogers, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Despite the enormous volume of his work, Butler was, for most of his life, only a part-time author. He worked full-time as a banker and was very active in his local community. A founding member of both the Dutch Treat Club and the Authors League of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pigs Is Pigs
"Pigs Is Pigs" is a story by American writer Ellis Parker Butler. First published as a short story in '' American Illustrated Magazine'' in September 1905, "Pigs Is Pigs" went on to dozens of printings as a book and in anthologies over the next several decades. Plot Railway agent Mike Flannery wants to charge the livestock rate for a shipment of two guinea pigs and refuses to accept the lower pet rate, saying "pigs is pigs". Flannery believes that the " guinea" is an indication of the pigs' national origin. He argues that they should bear the higher freight charge of 30¢ for livestock, rather than the lower 25¢ for domestic pets. In support of this, he submits that if they were "dago pigs" or "Irish pigs", there would be no question of the animals' status. Because the customer refuses to accept delivery, Flannery is forced to feed and house what he now calls the "dago pigs" in his office, until he receives permission from his superiors to return the pigs to the company wareho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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