Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World
is a 1985 novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. It was awarded the Tanizaki Prize in 1985. The English translation by Alfred Birnbaum was released in 1991. A strange and dreamlike novel, its chapters alternate between two narratives—"Hard-Boiled Wonderland" (the cyberpunk, science fiction part) and "The End of the World" (the surreal, virtual fantasy part). Plot summary The story is split between parallel narratives. The odd-numbered chapters take place in "Hard-Boiled Wonderland", although that phrase is not used anywhere in the text, only in page headers. The narrator is a , a human data processor and encryption system who has been trained to use his subconscious as an encryption key. The Calcutecs work for the quasi-governmental System, as opposed to the criminal who work for the Factory and who are generally fallen Calcutecs. The relationship between the two groups is simple: the System protects data while the Semiotecs steal it, although it is suggested that one man ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alfred Birnbaum
Alfred Birnbaum (born 1955)Our Authors: Alfred Birnbaum Hyperion Books. Accessed March 10, 2010. is an American translator. Alfred Birnbaum was born in the and raised in Japan from age five. He studied at , , under a [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scientists. Opinions differ about what exactly needs to be studied or even considered consciousness. In some explanations, it is synonymous with the mind, and at other times, an aspect of mind. In the past, it was one's "inner life", the world of introspection, of private thought, imagination and volition. Today, it often includes any kind of cognition, experience, feeling or perception. It may be awareness, awareness of awareness, or self-awareness either continuously changing or not. The disparate range of research, notions and speculations raises a curiosity about whether the right questions are being asked. Examples of the range of descriptions, definitions or explanations are: simple wakefulness, one's sense of selfhood or sou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Castle (Book)
The Castle may refer to: Arts and entertainment Films * ''The Castle'' (1964 film), a Danish family film * ''The Castle'' (1968 film), a West German film adaptation of Kafka's novel * ''The Castle'' (1994 film), a Russian film adaptation of Kafka's novel * ''The Castle'' (1997 Australian film), a comedy-drama film * ''The Castle'' (1997 Austrian film), an adaptation of Kafka's novel Other uses in arts and entertainment * ''The Castle'' (novel) (''Das Schloß''), a 1926 novel by Franz Kafka * ''The Castle'', alternate title of ''Kështjella'', ''The Siege'', a 1970 Albanian novel by Ismail Kadare * ''The Castle'' (board game), 1981 * ''The Castle'' (video game), 1986 * ''The Castle'' (radio series), a British radio comedy 2007–2012 * "The Castle", a song on the 1966 album ''Da Capo'' by Love * "The Castle", a song on the 2017 album '' Oczy Mlody'' by The Flaming Lips * '' The Castle: Aik Umeed'', a 2015 Pakistani television drama series * Castle Recording Labor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Detective Fiction
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as speculative fiction and other genre fiction in the mid-nineteenth century and has remained extremely popular, particularly in novels. Some of the most famous heroes of detective fiction include C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, and Hercule Poirot. Juvenile stories featuring The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and The Boxcar Children have also remained in print for several decades. History Ancient Some scholars, such as R. H. Pfeiffer, have suggested that certain ancient and religious texts bear similarities to what would later be called detective fiction. In the Old Testament story of Susanna and the Elders (the Protestant Bible locates this story within the apocrypha), the account told by two witnesses broke down when Daniel cross-examines th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Great Depression. His first short story, " Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in '' Black Mask,'' a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, ''The Big Sleep'', was published in 1939. In addition to his short stories, Chandler published seven novels during his lifetime (an eighth, in progress at the time of his death, was completed by Robert B. Parker). All but '' Playback'' have been made into motion pictures, some more than once. In the year before his death, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America. Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature. He is a founder of the hardboiled school of detective fiction, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other ''Black Mask ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hard-boiled
Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction (especially detective fiction and noir fiction). The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence of organized crime that flourished during Prohibition (1920–1933) and its aftermath, while dealing with a legal system that has become as corrupt as the organized crime itself. Rendered cynical by this cycle of violence, the detectives of hardboiled fiction are often antiheroes. Notable hardboiled detectives include Dick Tracy, Philip Marlowe, Mike Hammer, Sam Spade, Lew Archer, Slam Bradley, and The Continental Op. Genre pioneers The style was pioneered by Carroll John Daly in the mid-1920s, popularized by Dashiell Hammett over the course of the decade, and refined by James M. Cain and by Raymond Chandler beginning in the late 1930s. Its heyday was in 1930s–50s America. Pulp fiction From its earliest days, hardboiled fiction was publi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tilapia
Tilapia ( ) is the common name for nearly a hundred species of cichlid fish from the coelotilapine, coptodonine, heterotilapine, oreochromine, pelmatolapiine, and tilapiine tribes (formerly all were "Tilapiini"), with the economically most important species placed in the Coptodonini and Oreochromini. Tilapia are mainly freshwater fish inhabiting shallow streams, ponds, rivers, and lakes, and less commonly found living in brackish water. Historically, they have been of major importance in artisanal fishing in Africa, and they are of increasing importance in aquaculture and aquaponics. Tilapia can become a problematic invasive species in new warm-water habitats such as Australia, whether deliberately or accidentally introduced, but generally not in temperate climates due to their inability to survive in cold water. Tilapia has been the fourth-most consumed fish in the United States since 2002. The popularity of tilapia came about due to its low price, easy preparation, and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kappa (folklore)
A — also known as , , with a boss called or – is a reptiloid ''kami'' with similarities to ''yōkai'' found in traditional Japanese folklore. '' Kappa'' can become harmful when they are not respected as gods. They are typically depicted as green, human-like beings with webbed hands and feet and a turtle-like carapace on their back. The ''kappa'' are known to favor cucumbers and love to engage in sumo wrestling. They are often accused of assaulting humans in water and removing a mythical organ called the ''shirikodama'' from their victim's anus. Terminology The name ''kappa'' is a contraction of the words ''kawa'' (river) and ''wappa'', a variant form of 童 ''warawa'' (also ''warabe'') "child". Another translation of kappa is "water sprites". The ''kappa'' are also known regionally by at least eighty other names such as ''kawappa'', ''kawako'', ''kawatarō'', ''gawappa'', ''kōgo'', ''suitengu''., citing Ōno (1994), p. 14 It is also called ''kawauso'' 'otter', ''d ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Criminal
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Cane and Conoghan (editors), ''The New Oxford Companion to Law'', Oxford University Press, 2008 (), p. 263Google Books). though statutory definitions have been provided for certain purposes. The most popular view is that crime is a category created by law; in other words, something is a crime if declared as such by the relevant and applicable law. One proposed definition is that a crime or offence (or criminal offence) is an act harmful not only to some individual but also to a community, society, or the state ("a public wrong"). Such acts are forbidden and punishable by law. The notion that acts such as murder, rape, and theft are to be prohibited exists worldwide. What precisely is a criminal offence is defined by the criminal law of each r ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland across Estonia to the south. Finland covers an area of with a population of 5.6 million. Helsinki is the capital and largest city, forming a larger metropolitan area with the neighbouring cities of Espoo, Kauniainen, and Vantaa. The vast majority of the population are ethnic Finns. Finnish, alongside Swedish, are the official languages. Swedish is the native language of 5.2% of the population. Finland's climate varies from humid continental in the south to the boreal in the north. The land cover is primarily a boreal forest biome, with more than 180,000 recorded lakes. Finland was first inhabited around 9000 BC after the Last Glacial Period. The Stone Age introduced several differ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Yuppie
Yuppie, short for "young urban professional" or "young upwardly-mobile professional", is a term coined in the early 1980s for a young professional person working in a city. The term is first attested in 1980, when it was used as a fairly neutral demographic label, but by the mid-to-late 1980s, when a "yuppie backlash" developed due to concerns over issues such as gentrification, some writers began using the term pejoratively. History The first printed appearance of the word was in a May 1980 ''Chicago'' magazine article by Dan Rottenberg. Rottenberg reported in 2015 that he did not invent the term, he had heard other people using it, and at the time he understood it as a rather neutral demographic term. Nonetheless, his article did note the issues of socioeconomic displacement which might occur as a result of the rise of this inner-city population cohort. Joseph Epstein was credited for coining the term in 1982, although this is contested. The term gained currency in the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Japanese Pronouns
Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspora, Japanese emigrants and their descendants around the world * Japanese citizens, nationals of Japan under Japanese nationality law ** Foreign-born Japanese, naturalized citizens of Japan * Japanese writing system, consisting of kanji and kana * Japanese cuisine, the food and food culture of Japan See also * List of Japanese people * * Japonica (other) * Japonicum * Japonicus * Japanese studies Japanese studies (Japanese: ) or Japan studies (sometimes Japanology in Europe), is a sub-field of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on Japan. It incorporates fields such as the study of Japanese ... {{disambiguation Language and nationality disambiguation pages ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |