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Flux (novel)
''Flux'' is a 1993 science fiction novel by British author Stephen Baxter. It is the third book in Baxter's Xeelee Sequence. Plot introduction Dura and her fellow human beings live inside a neutron star, as they have for generations. As long as they can remember, "glitches" (instabilities of the magnetic field inside the star caused by changes in the star's rotation) have happened from time to time. As the novel starts, the worst glitch that anyone can remember threatens to destroy her home. To survive, Dura must travel to a far-off city, and eventually outside of the star itself. Explanation of the novel's title ''Flux'' is so called as the main race of the book, microscopic human-like beings who live within a neutron star, travel around using the magnetic field lines within that star. It also relates to a bigger element of the plot, dealing with instabilities in this field which affect many characters in different ways. Plot summary As the novel begins, a glitch—an instabil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Baxter (author)
Stephen Baxter (born 13 November 1957) is an English hard science fiction author. He has degrees in mathematics and engineering. Writing style Strongly influenced by SF pioneer H. G. Wells, Baxter has been Vice-President of the international H. G. Wells Society since 2006. His fiction falls into three main categories of original work plus a fourth category, extending other authors' writing; each has a different basis, style, and tone. Baxter's "Future History" mode is based on research into hard science. It encompasses the Xeelee Sequence, which consists of nine novels (including the ''Destiny's Children'' trilogy and Vengeance/Redemption duology that is set in alternate timeline), plus three volumes collecting the 52 short pieces (short stories and novellas) in the series, all of which fit into a single timeline stretching from the Big Bang singularity of the past to his ''Timelike Infinity'' singularity of the future. These stories begin in the present day and end when th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dragon's Egg
''Dragon's Egg'' is a 1980 hard science fiction novel by American writer Robert L. Forward. In the story, Dragon's Egg is a neutron star with a surface gravity 67 billion times that of Earth, and inhabited by cheela, intelligent creatures the size of a sesame seed who live, think and develop a million times faster than humans. Most of the novel, from May to June 2050, chronicles the cheela civilization beginning with its discovery of agriculture to advanced technology and its first face-to-face contact with humans, who are observing the hyper-rapid evolution of the cheela civilization from orbit around Dragon's Egg. As is typical of the genre, ''Dragon's Egg'' attempts to communicate unfamiliar ideas and imaginative scenes while giving adequate attention to the known scientific principles involved. Plot summary The neutron star Half a million years ago and 50 light-years from Earth, a star in the constellation Draco turns supernova, and the star's remnant becomes a neutr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hard Science Fiction
Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell's '' Islands of Space'' in the November issue of ''Astounding Science Fiction''. The complementary term soft science fiction, formed by analogy to hard science fiction,) first appeared in the late 1970s. The term is formed by analogy to the popular distinction between the "hard" (natural) and "soft" (social) sciences, although there are examples generally considered as "hard" SF, such as Isaac Asimov's ''Foundation'' series, built on mathematical sociology. Science fiction critic Gary Westfahl argues that neither term is part of a rigorous taxonomy; instead they are approximate ways of characterizing stories that reviewers and commentators have found useful. History Stories revolving around scientific and technical consistency were written as early as the 1870s with the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HarperCollins Books
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Corp. The name is a combination of several publishing firm names: Harper & Row, an American publishing company acquired in 1987—whose own name was the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers (founded in 1817) and Row, Peterson & Company—together with Scottish publishing company William Collins, Sons (founded in 1819), acquired in 1989. The worldwide CEO of HarperCollins is Brian Murray. HarperCollins has publishing groups in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, India, and China. The company publishes many different imprints, both former independent publishing houses and new imprints. History Collins Harper Mergers and acquisitions Collins was bought by Rupert Murdoch's News Corpora ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1993 Science Fiction Novels
File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peacefully dissolved into the Czech Republic and Slovakia; In the United States, the ATF besieges a compound belonging to David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in a search for illegal weapons, which ends in the building being set alight and killing most inside; Eritrea gains independence; A major snow storm passes over the United States and Canada, leading to over 300 fatalities; Drug lord and narcoterrorist Pablo Escobar is killed by Colombian special forces; Ramzi Yousef and other Islamic terrorists detonate a truck bomb in the subterranean garage of the North Tower of the World Trade Center in the United States., 300x300px, thumb rect 0 0 200 200 Oslo I Accord rect 200 0 400 200 1993 Russian constitutional crisis rect 400 0 6 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novels By Stephen Baxter
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the historica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1993 British Novels
File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The White House (Moscow), Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peacefully Dissolution of Czechoslovakia, dissolved into the Czech Republic and Slovakia; In the United States, the ATF Waco siege, besieges a compound belonging to David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in a search for illegal weapons, which ends in the building being set alight and killing most inside; Eritrea gains independence; A major 1993 Storm of the Century, snow storm passes over the United States and Canada, leading to over 300 fatalities; Drug lord and narcoterrorism, narcoterrorist Pablo Escobar is killed by Military Forces of Colombia, Colombian special forces; Ramzi Yousef and other Islamic terrorism, Islamic terrorists 1993 World Trade Center bombing, detonate a truck bomb in the subterranean garage of List of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert L
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] |
Xeelee
The Xeelee Sequence (; ) is a series of hard science fiction space opera novels, novellas, and short stories written by British science fiction author Stephen Baxter. The series spans billions of years of fictional history, centering on humanity's future expansion into the universe, its intergalactic war with an enigmatic and supremely powerful Kardashev Type IV alien civilization called the Xeelee (eldritch symbiotes composed of spacetime defects, Bose-Einstein condensates, and baryonic matter), and the Xeelee's own cosmos-spanning war with dark matter entities called Photino Birds. The series features many other species and civilizations that play a prominent role, including the Squeem (a species of group-mind aquatics), the Qax (beings whose biology is based on the complex interactions of convection cells), and the Silver Ghosts (colonies of symbiotic organisms encased in reflective skins). Several stories in the Sequence also deal with humans and posthumans living in ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Eggleton
Bob Eggleton (born September 13, 1960) is an American science fiction, fantasy and horror artist. Eggleton is a nine-time Hugo Award–winner for Best Pro Artist in science fiction and fantasy, first winning in 1994. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book in 2001 for his art book ''Greetings from Earth''. He also won the Chesley Award for Artistic Achievement in 1999 and was the guest of honor at Chicon 2000. His illustrations have appeared in Dark Horse Comics, Random House ''Godzilla'' books, IDW’s ''Godzilla'' comic series and on covers for ''Famous Monsters of Filmland'' magazine. In film, he has worked as a concept artist on ''Sphere'' (1997), ''Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius'' (2001) and ''The Ant Bully'' (2006). He also illustrated matte paintings on the short film '' The Idol'' (2007) and was an extra in the Millennium ''Godzilla'' film ''Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla'' (2002). Style and subjects Eggleton's drawing and paintings cover a wide range of genre topics, o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glitch (astronomy)
A glitch is a sudden increase (around 1 part in 106) in the rotational frequency of a rotation-powered pulsar, which usually decreases steadily due to braking provided by the emission of radiation and high-energy particles. It is unknown whether they are related to the timing noise which all pulsars exhibit. Following a glitch is a period of gradual recovery where the observed periodicity slows to a period close to that observed before the glitch. These gradual recovery periods have been observed to last from days to years. Currently, only multiple glitches of the Crab and Vela pulsars have been observed and studied extensively. Cause While the exact cause of glitches is unknown, they are thought to be caused by an internal process within the pulsar. This differs from the steady decrease in the star's rotational frequency which is caused by external processes. Although the details of the glitch process are unknown, it is thought that the resulting increase in the pulsar's r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neutron Star
A neutron star is the collapsed core of a massive supergiant star, which had a total mass of between 10 and 25 solar masses, possibly more if the star was especially metal-rich. Except for black holes and some hypothetical objects (e.g. white holes, quark stars, and strange stars), neutron stars are the smallest and densest currently known class of stellar objects. Neutron stars have a radius on the order of and a mass of about 1.4 solar masses. They result from the supernova explosion of a massive star, combined with gravitational collapse, that compresses the core past white dwarf star density to that of atomic nuclei. Once formed, they no longer actively generate heat, and cool over time; however, they may still evolve further through collision or accretion. Most of the basic models for these objects imply that neutron stars are composed almost entirely of neutrons (subatomic particles with no net electrical charge and with slightly larger mass than protons); the electro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
