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Michael Swanwick
Michael Swanwick (born 18 November 1950) is an American fantasy and science fiction author who began publishing in the early 1980s. Writing career Swanwick's fiction writing began with short stories, starting in 1980 when he published "Ginungagap" in ''TriQuarterly'' and "The Feast of St. Janis" in ''New Dimensions 11''. Both stories were nominees for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story in 1981. His first novel was ''In the Drift'' (an Ace Special, 1985), a look at the results of a more catastrophic Three Mile Island incident, which expands on his earlier short story "Mummer's Kiss". This was followed in 1987 by ''Vacuum Flowers'', an adventurous tour of an inhabited Solar System, where the people of Earth have been subsumed by a cybernetic mass-mind. Some characters’ bodies contain multiple personalities, which can be recorded and edited (or damaged) as if they were wetware. In the 1990s, Swanwick moved towards the intersection between science fiction and fantasy and Mag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Jack Faust (novel)
''Jack Faust'' (1997) is a science fiction novel by American writer Michael Swanwick. It was nominated for the BSFA Award in 1997, and for both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1998. Plot introduction The plot is a modernization of the classic German tale of anti-hero Dr. Johannes Faust, who struggles with his growing discomfort with modern thought and questions how and why things happen without scientific explanation. After Faust burns his library and contemplates suicide, a mysterious being named Mephistopheles comes to Faust and offers him all the information of the universe. With Mephistopheles' help, the madman Dr. Johannes Faust becomes the savior Jack Faust by accelerating human progress at a blinding speed, reshaping Germany and then all of Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, sub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Dragons Of Babel
''The Dragons of Babel'' is a 2008 science fantasy novel by American author Michael Swanwick, set in the same world as his earlier work ''The Iron Dragon's Daughter'' (1993). It follows the plight of a young man named Will Le Fey after a crippled dragon takes up residence in his town and inside his mind. Like ''The Iron Dragon's Daughter'', the novel subverts fantasy tropes while it explores the extremely dark and gritty world of Faerie. ''The Dragons of Babel'' was nominated for the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel in 2009. Plot Following the same time period as ''The Iron Dragon's Daughter''; a crippled dragon crawls to a village in Avalon, somewhere in Faerie minor, and crowns himself king. He makes young Will his lieutenant and by night, he crawls in the young fey's mind to get a measure of what his subjects think. But, the dragon’s arrival sets Will on a life-changing adventure where he will encounter danger, deceit, and a truth that was conceived with his birth. Late ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is the subject of active research. They became the dominant terrestrial vertebrates after the Triassic–Jurassic extinction event 201.3 mya; their dominance continued throughout the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. The fossil record shows that birds are feathered dinosaurs, having evolved from earlier theropods during the Late Jurassic epoch, and are the only dinosaur lineage known to have survived the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event approximately 66 mya. Dinosaurs can therefore be divided into avian dinosaurs—birds—and the extinct non-avian dinosaurs, which are all dinosaurs other than birds. Dinosaurs are varied from taxonomic, morphological and ecological standpoints. Birds, at over 10,700 living species, are among ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Time Travel
Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a widely recognized concept in philosophy and fiction, particularly science fiction. The idea of a time machine was popularized by H. G. Wells' 1895 novel ''The Time Machine''. It is uncertain if time travel to the past is physically possible, and such travel, if at all feasible, may give rise to questions of causality. Forward time travel, outside the usual sense of the perception of time, is an extensively observed phenomenon and well-understood within the framework of special relativity and general relativity. However, making one body advance or delay more than a few milliseconds compared to another body is not feasible with current technology. As for backward time travel, it is possible to find solutions in general relativity that allow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bones Of The Earth
''Bones of the Earth'' is a 2002 science fiction novel by Michael Swanwick. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2002, and the Hugo, Campbell, and Locus Awards in 2003. Plot introduction Expanded from his Hugo Award-winning story " Scherzo with Tyrannosaur", ''Bones of the Earth'' spans geologic time, not just centuries but millennia, from the prehistoric past to the distant and unknown future. Most of the novel's events take place in the age of the dinosaurs. The "bones" of the title refer to the time traveling team players described in the story that study throughout Earth's history and prehistory. Plot summary Paleontologist Richard Leyster has reached the pinnacle of his profession: a position with the Smithsonian Museum plus a groundbreaking dinosaur fossil site he can research, publish on, and learn from for years to come. There is nothing that could lure him away – until a disturbingly secretive stranger named Harry Griffin enters Leyster's offic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugo Award For Best Short Story
The Hugo Award for Best Short Story is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The short story award is available for works of fiction of fewer than 7,500 words; awards are also given out for pieces of longer lengths in the novelette, novella, and novel categories. The Hugo Awards have been described as "a fine showcase for speculative fiction" and "the best known literary award for science fiction writing". The Hugo Award for Best Short Story has been awarded annually since 1955, except in 1957. The award was titled "Best Short Fiction" rather than "Best Short Story" in 1960–1966. During this time no Novelette category was awarded and the Novella category had not yet been established; the award was defined only as a work "of less than novel length" that was not published as a stand-alone book. In addition to the regular Hugo awards, beginning in 1996 Retrospective H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Los Caprichos
''Los caprichos'' (''The Caprices)'' is a set of 80 prints in aquatint and etching created by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya in 1797–1798, and published as an album in 1799. The prints were an artistic experiment: a medium for Goya's condemnation of the universal follies and foolishness in the Spanish society in which he lived. The criticisms are far-ranging and acidic; the images expose the predominance of superstition, the ignorance and inabilities of the various members of the ruling class, pedagogical short-comings, marital mistakes and the decline of rationality Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reasons. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an abil .... Some of the prints have anticlericalism, anticlerical themes. Goya described the series as depicting "the innumerable foibles and follies to be found in any civi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th- and 20th-century painters. Goya is often referred to as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was born to a middle-class family in 1746, in Fuendetodos in Aragon. He studied painting from age 14 under José Luzán y Martinez and moved to Madrid to study with Anton Raphael Mengs. He married Josefa Bayeu in 1773. Their life was characterised by a series of pregnancies and miscarriages, and only one child, a son, survived into adulthood. Goya became a court painter to the Spanish Crown in 1786 and this early portion of his career is marked by portraits of the Spanish aristocracy and royalty, and Rococo-style tapestry cartoons des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sci Fiction
''Sci Fiction'' was an online magazine which ran from 2000 to 2005. At one time, it was the leading online science fiction magazine. Published by Syfy and edited by Ellen Datlow, the work won multiple awards before it was discontinued. History The magazine was created by what was then the US Sci Fi Channel (now Syfy), and hosted at SCIFI.COM. The webzine starting publishing in May 2000. The principal editor was Ellen Datlow, who had previously edited two other online magazines: The online incarnation of '' OMNI'', and ''Event Horizon''. The webzine first made a splash when Linda Nagata's "Goddesses" won the Nebula Award for Best Novella for 2000. It was the first time that a piece of fiction originally published on a website won a Nebula. In 2002 Ellen Datlow won her first Hugo Award for Best Editor. In 2003 stories from the webzine won three awards, the Nebula Awards for Best Short Story ("What I Didn't See" by Karen Joy Fowler) and Best Novelette ("The Empire of Ice Cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Periodic Table Of Science Fiction
''The Periodic Table of Science Fiction'' is a collection of 118 very short stories by science fiction author Michael Swanwick. Each story is named after an element in the periodic table, including the then-undiscovered element 117. The stories were commissioned to run on Eileen Gunn's ''The Infinite Matrix'' but were published in the Sci Fiction section of SciFi.com, between 2001 and 2003. The stories were published as they were written, about which Swanwick said, "It made the sequence into a kind of performance art, something akin to being a trapeze artist, which is a possibility not normally open to a writer." The print edition was published in 2005, in two signed limited editions: one slipcase hardback edition with a print run of 200, and one hardback edition with a print run of 500 books. In 2009, Swanwick posted the stories on a weblog dedicated to the purpose. The theme of each story in the collection is inspired by the element it is named after. The book also includes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Puck Aleshire's Abecedary
''Puck Aleshire’s Abecedary'' (2000) by Michael Swanwick, a collection of short-short stories (one for each letter of the alphabet), initially ran in ''The New York Review of Science Fiction'' at a rate of one per month for 26 months starting with Issue 111, November 1997. Each story was accompanied by a collage illustration by the journal's editor Kathryn Cramer. Dragon Press collected these stories in a single volume entitled ''Puck Aleshire’s Abecedary''. There were two editions, a carefully handbound edition produced for Dragon Press by Henry Wessels with linen cloth spine with handmade paper-covered boards and endpapers with deckled edge and a trade paperback edition printed by Odyssey Press in New Hampshire. Cover art, interior illustration, and book design of both editions are by Kathryn Cramer. Swanwick published a subsequent volume of short-shorts, which initially appeared on the website The Infinite Matrix and were collected as The Periodic Table of Science Fictio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
