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Interworld Police Coordinating Company
Demon Princes is a series of five science fiction novels by Jack Vance, which cumulatively relate the story of an adventurer, Kirth Gersen, as he exacts his revenge on five notorious criminals, collectively known as the Demon Princes, who carried the people of his village off into slavery during his childhood. Each novel deals with his pursuit of one of the five Princes, which extends from Earth to other planets using spaceships. Novels * '' Star King'' (1964). Gersen's first target for his revenge is Attel Malagate, a renegade from a species called the Star Kings. The Star Kings can consciously evolve themselves and are driven to imitate and surpass the most successful species they encounter. With their contact with humanity, they begin making themselves into imitations of human beings. Gersen traps him with an undeveloped and fantastically beautiful planet whose location is known only to Gersen. Malagate covets the planet in order to become the father of a new race that can out ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galaxy 196312
A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar medium, interstellar gas, cosmic dust, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. Galaxies, averaging an estimated 100 million stars, range in size from dwarf galaxy, dwarfs with less than a hundred million stars, to the List of largest galaxies, largest galaxies known – Type-cD galaxy, supergiants with one hundred 10^12, trillion stars, each orbiting its galaxy's center of mass. Most of the mass in a typical galaxy is in the form of dark matter, with only a few percent of that mass visible in the form of stars and nebulae. Supermassive black holes are a common feature at the centres of galaxies. Galaxies are categorized according to their visual morphology (astronomy), morphology as elliptical galaxy, elliptical, Spiral galaxy, spiral, or irregular galaxy, irregular. M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction Book Series
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for scientific reasoning is tens of thousands of years old. The earliest written records in the history of science come from Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3000 to 1200 BCE. Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages, but was preserved in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age and later by the efforts of Byzantine Greek scholars who brought Greek man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novels By Jack Vance
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] |
Ares (magazine)
''Ares'' was an American science fiction wargame magazine published by Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI), and then TSR, Inc., between 1980 and 1984. In addition to the articles, each issue contained a wargame, complete with a foldout stiff paper map, a set of cardboard counters, and the rules. Publication history Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI) began publishing ''Ares'' in 1980 as a science-fiction companion to ''Strategy & Tactics''.''Ares'' magazine was similar to ''Strategy & Tactics'', with a game every issue, but it focused on science-fiction and fantasy. SPI suffered financial problems and went into debt, and TSR bought the company and its assets in 1982. Shannon Appelcine stated that "TSR did very little with SPI's roleplaying games. ''Ares Magazine'' #12 (1982), which was prepared by SPI and published by TSR, included a game called 'Star Traders,' which was for use with ''Universe''; it was the last support for that game system ..As TSR turned further away fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greg Costikyan
Greg Costikyan (born July 22, 1959, in New York City), sometimes known under the pseudonym "Designer X", is an American game designer and science fiction writer. Costikyan's career spans nearly all extant genres of gaming, including: hex-based wargames, role-playing games, boardgames, card games, computer games, online games and mobile games. Several of his games have won Origins Awards. He co-founded Manifesto Games, now out of business, with Johnny Wilson in 2005. Personal life and education Greg Costikyan is the son of attorney and politician Edward N. and Frances (Holmgren) Costikyan. He and Warren Spector, a game designer, were friends since high school. He is a 1982 graduate (B.S.) of Brown University. (subscription required) He married Louise Disbrow (a securities analyst), September 4, 1986. They have three children. He is a frequent speaker at game industry events including the Game Developers Conference and E³. Career Greg Costikyan has been a game designer since th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Games Workshop
Games Workshop Group (often abbreviated as GW) is a British manufacturer of miniature wargames, based in Nottingham, England. Its best-known products are ''Warhammer Age of Sigmar'' and ''Warhammer 40,000''. Founded in 1975 by John Peake (game designer), John Peake, Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson (UK), Steve Jackson, Games Workshop was originally a manufacturer of wooden boards for games including backgammon, mancala, nine men's morris and Go (board game), Go. It later became an importer of the U.S. role-playing game ''Dungeons & Dragons'', and then a publisher of wargames and role-playing games in its own right, expanding from a bedroom mail-order company in the process. It expanded into Europe, the US, Canada, and Australia in the early 1990s. All UK-based operations were relocated to the current headquarters in Lenton, Nottingham in 1997. It started promoting games associated with The Lord of the Rings (film series), ''The Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy in 2001. It al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White Dwarf (magazine)
''White Dwarf'' is a magazine published by British games manufacturer Games Workshop, which has long served as a promotions and advertising platform for Games Workshop and Citadel Miniatures products. During the first ten years of its publication, it covered a wide variety of fantasy and science-fiction role-playing games (RPGs) and board games, particularly the role playing games ''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons'' (''AD&D''), '' Call of Cthulhu'', ''RuneQuest'' and '' Traveller''. These games were all published by other games companies and distributed in the United Kingdom by Games Workshop stores. The magazine underwent a major change in style and content in the late 1980s. It is now dedicated exclusively to the miniature wargames produced by Games Workshop. History 1975: ''Owl and Weasel'' to ''White Dwarf'' Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone initially produced a newsletter called ''Owl and Weasel'', which ran for twenty-five issues from February 1975 before it evolved into '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Langford
David Rowland Langford (born 10 April 1953) is a British author, editor, and critic, largely active within the science fiction field. He publishes the science fiction fanzine and newsletter ''Ansible'', and holds the all-time record for most Hugo Awards, with a total of 29 wins. Personal background David Langford was born and grew up in Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales before studying for a degree in Physics at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he first became involved in science fiction fandom. Langford is married to Hazel and is the brother of the musician and artist Jon Langford. His first job was as a weapons physicist at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston, Berkshire from 1975 to 1980. In 1985 he set up a "tiny and informally run software company" with science fiction writer Christopher Priest, called Ansible Information after Langford's news-sheet. The company has ceased trading. Increasing hearing difficulties have reduced Langford's participation i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Book Of Dreams (Vance Novel)
''The Book of Dreams'' is a 1981 science fiction book by American author Jack Vance, the fifth and last novel in the "Demon Princes" series. Plot summary Kirth Gersen learns that his enemy Howard Alan Treesong, already "Lord of the Overmen" (i.e., head of the underworld across all of humanity's planets), had almost engineered his appointment as Chief of the Interworld Police Coordinating Commission, the sole interstellar police organization. Gersen ponders what Treesong could be working on that could top that. Gersen's extensive business empire includes ''Cosmopolis'' magazine, often masquerading as a journalist, "Henry Lucas". Gersen examines old ''Cosmopolis'' files for anything about Treesong. He discovers a photograph, apparently of a formal dinner, bearing the words "H A Treesong is here", with no other information. He launches ''Extant'', a livelier sister magazine to ''Cosmopolis'', and publishes the picture in the free inaugural issue, offering large cash prizes for the ... [...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] |
Terraforming
Terraforming or terraformation ("Earth-shaping") is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying the atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology of a planet, moon, or other body to be similar to the environment of Earth to make it habitable for humans to live on. The concept of terraforming developed from both science fiction and actual science. Carl Sagan, an astronomer, proposed the planetary engineering of Venus in 1961, which is considered one of the first accounts of the concept. The term was coined by Jack Williamson in a science-fiction short story ("Collision Orbit") published in 1942 in '' Astounding Science Fiction'', although terraforming in popular culture may predate this work. Even if the environment of a planet could be altered deliberately, the feasibility of creating an unconstrained planetary environment that mimics Earth on another planet has yet to be verified. While Venus, Earth, Mars, and even the Moon have been studied in relation to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
