Miss Brunner
Miss Brunner is a fictional character in Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius stories, and also appears in stories by other authors including M. John Harrison and Brian Aldiss. Unlike Cornelius and Una Persson, she is depicted as an authoritarian figure, a sado-masochistic techno-magician. As a result of her techno-magical experimentation, she is occasionally subject to demonic possession, particularly by the demon Belphegor. She is killed a number of times over the course of the various Jerry Cornelius stories written by Moorcock and others, often by Jerry himself. Nevertheless, her interests and those of Cornelius often intersect—though her final goals are usually incompatible with his. She was played by Jenny Runacre in the movie ''The Final Programme'' (loosely based on Moorcock's novel of the same name), at the end of which Miss Brunner and Cornelius are physically merged into a single hermaphroditic In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock (born 18 December 1939) is an English writer, best-known for science fiction and fantasy, who has published a number of well-received literary novels as well as comic thrillers, graphic novels and non-fiction. He has worked as an editor and is also a successful musician. He is best known for his novels about the character Elric of Melniboné, a seminal influence on the field of fantasy since the 1960s and '70s. As editor of the British science fiction magazine ''New Worlds'', from May 1964 until March 1971 and then again from 1976 to 1996, Moorcock fostered the development of the science fiction "New Wave" in the UK and indirectly in the United States, leading to the advent of cyberpunk. His publication of ''Bug Jack Barron'' (1969) by Norman Spinrad as a serial novel was notorious; in Parliament, some British MPs condemned the Arts Council of Great Britain for funding the magazine. He is also a recording musician, contributing to the bands Hawkwind, Blu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jerry Cornelius
Jerry Cornelius is a fictional character created by English author Michael Moorcock. The character is an urban adventurer and an incarnation of the author's Eternal Champion concept. Cornelius is a hipster of ambiguous and occasionally polymorphous gender. Many of the same characters feature in each of several Cornelius books, though the individual books have little connection with one another, having a more metafictional than causal relationship. The first Jerry Cornelius book, ''The Final Programme'', was made into a 1973 film starring Jon Finch and Jenny Runacre. Notting Hill in London features prominently in the stories. Overview The series draws plot elements from Moorcock's Elric series, as well as the ''Commedia dell'Arte''. Moorcock hints in many places that Cornelius may be an aspect of the Eternal Champion. Characters from the Cornelius novels show up in much of Moorcock's other fiction: ''The Dancers at the End of Time'' series has a character called Jherek Carnelian w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Brian Aldiss
Brian Wilson Aldiss (; 18 August 1925 – 19 August 2017) was an English writer, artist, and anthology editor, best known for science fiction novels and short stories. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss, except for occasional pseudonyms during the mid-1960s. Greatly influenced by science fiction pioneer H. G. Wells, Aldiss was a vice-president of the international H. G. Wells Society. He was (with Harry Harrison) co-president of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group. Aldiss was named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 2000 and inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2004. He received two Hugo Awards, one Nebula Award, and one John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He wrote the short story "Supertoys Last All Summer Long" (1969), the basis for the Stanley Kubrick–developed Steven Spielberg film ''A.I. Artificial Intelligence'' (2001). Aldiss was associated with the British New Wave of science fiction. Life and caree ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Una Persson
Una Persson is a recurring character in many of Michael Moorcock's 'multiverse' novels. She has also been used as a character in stories by other writers. She was the character Moorcock chose to start a round-robin story in ''The Guardian''. Often appearing as a cool, anarchistic revolutionary in the many alternate histories, futures and worlds created by Moorcock, she is bisexual in her private life, having been the lover of both Jerry and Catherine Cornelius. In some ways a more dedicated, less dissolute female version of Jerry Cornelius, she is revealed in ''The Condition of Muzak'' as playing the role Harlequin. In '' The End of All Songs'' she appears as a member of the "Guild of Temporal Adventurers". She has appeared in the Jerry Cornelius novels '' A Cure for Cancer'', '' The English Assassin'', ''The Condition of Muzak'' and '' The Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius in the Twentieth Century''. She was in all three of the Nomad of the Time Streams trilogy - ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jenny Runacre
Jenny Runacre (born 18 August 1946) is a South African-born English actress. Her film appearances include '' The Passenger'' (1975), ''The Duellists'' (1977), ''Jubilee'' (1978), ''The Lady Vanishes'' (1979), and '' The Witches'' (1990). Career Runacre was born in Cape Town, South Africa. She moved to London as a child, attended the Actors' Workshop there, and trained in the Stanislavski System. While attending the Actors' Workshop, Runacre was approached by fellow student (and future agent) Tom Busby, who was working as a runner for an American film production that was seeking fledgling English actresses to play opposite John Cassavetes in ''Husbands'', a film to be shot the following year in London. The young actress auditioned with Cassavetes, Ben Gazzara and Peter Falk, and was told six weeks later that she was being offered the part of Mary Tynan in the film. Runacre accepted the offer and ''Husbands'' became her first important film role. Runacre then joined the origina ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Final Programme (film)
''The Final Programme'' is a 1973 British fantasy science fiction-thriller film directed by Robert Fuest, and starring Jon Finch and Jenny Runacre. It was based on the 1968 Jerry Cornelius novel of the same name by Michael Moorcock. It was distributed in the United States and elsewhere as ''The Last Days of Man on Earth''. It is the only Moorcock novel to have reached the screen. Plot synopsis The story opens in Lapland at the funeral pyre of Jerry Cornelius's father, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who has developed the "Final Programme"—a design for a perfect, self-replicating human being. Jerry Cornelius, playboy physicist and dashing secret agent, is in attendance. Afterwards he is questioned by Dr. Smiles, who wants to retrieve a microfilm which he knows is in the Cornelius family home in England. Cornelius, a conspicuous counter-culture dandy with addictions to chocolate biscuits and alcohol, threatens to blow up the family house. Flashbacks to Jerry's conversations wit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Final Programme
''The Final Programme'' is a novel by British science fiction and fantasy writer Michael Moorcock. Written in 1965 as the underground culture was beginning to emerge, it was not published for several years. Moorcock has stated that publishers at the time considered it was "too freaky". It was the first of his Jerry Cornelius series of novels and stories and was originally published in paperback in the US by Avon Books in 1968 then in London in hardback by Allison & Busby in October 1969. It was made into a 1973 film of the same name (directed by Robert Fuest), but Moorcock was critical of the version released on the screen."The Final Programme + Q&A with Michael Moorcock" BFI. Set in a world less abstract and chaotic than depicted in the later volumes, it introduces Jerry Cornelius as a hip super agent playbo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hermaphrodite
In reproductive biology, a hermaphrodite () is an organism that has both kinds of reproductive organs and can produce both gametes associated with male and female sexes. Many Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic groups of animals (mostly invertebrates) do not have separate sexes. In these groups, hermaphroditism is a normal condition, enabling a form of sexual reproduction in which either partner can act as the female or male. For example, the great majority of tunicata, tunicates, pulmonate molluscs, opisthobranch, earthworms, and slugs are hermaphrodites. Hermaphroditism is also found in some fish species and to a lesser degree in other vertebrates. Most plants are also hermaphrodites. Animal species having different sexes, male and female, are called Gonochorism, gonochoric, which is the opposite of hermaphrodite. There are also species where hermaphrodites exist alongside males (called androdioecy) or alongside females (called gynodioecy), or all three exist in the same species ( ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |