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Quofum
''Quofum'' (2008) is a science fiction novel by American writer Alan Dean Foster. Plot Sent by the Humanx Commonwealth Science Council, a team of explorers manage to find the planet Quofum—which only occasionally appears on long range scans. Since the planet is outside of the Commonwealth territory their mission is deemed minor and unimportant. The team's four scientists—two human males, one human female and one male thranx—initially discover four separate, unique sentient species. Combined with Quofum's nine percent alcohol oceans, its unstable appearance is seemingly part of the nature of Quofum: every species on Quofum is seemingly unrelated—casting well-established scientific notions of evolution into doubt. When the team's mechanic, Salvador Araza murders the ship's captain—revealing himself to be a member of the assassin clan, the Qwarm—the scientific exploration nearly ends. Before stranding the scientists on Quofum, Araza kills one member of the team who tri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quofum Fictional Planet
''Quofum'' (2008) is a science fiction novel by American writer Alan Dean Foster. Plot Sent by the Humanx Commonwealth Science Council, a team of explorers manage to find the planet Quofum—which only occasionally appears on long range scans. Since the planet is outside of the Commonwealth territory their mission is deemed minor and unimportant. The team's four scientists—two human males, one human female and one male thranx—initially discover four separate, unique sentient species. Combined with Quofum's nine percent alcohol oceans, its unstable appearance is seemingly part of the nature of Quofum: every species on Quofum is seemingly unrelated—casting well-established scientific notions of evolution into doubt. When the team's mechanic, Salvador Araza murders the ship's captain—revealing himself to be a member of the assassin clan, the Qwarm—the scientific exploration nearly ends. Before stranding the scientists on Quofum, Araza kills one member of the team who trie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humanx Commonwealth
The Humanx Commonwealth is a fictional interstellar ethical/political entity featured in the science fiction novels of Alan Dean Foster. ''Alan Dean Foster'' The Commonwealth takes its name from its two major species, who jointly inhabit Commonwealth planets and administer both the political and religious/ethical aspects. They are the ian Humans of the planet Earth and the ins ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Dean Foster
Alan Dean Foster (born November 18, 1946) is an American writer of fantasy and science fiction. He has written several book series, more than 20 standalone novels, and many novelizations of film scripts. Career ''Star Wars'' Foster was the ghostwriter of the original novelization of ''Star Wars'', which was credited solely to George Lucas. When asked if it was difficult for him to see Lucas get all the credit for ''Star Wars'', Foster said, "Not at all. It was George's story idea. I was merely expanding upon it. Not having my name on the cover didn't bother me in the least. It would be akin to a contractor demanding to have his name on a Frank Lloyd Wright house." Foster also wrote the follow-up novel ''Splinter of the Mind's Eye'' (1978), written with the intention of being adapted as a low-budget sequel to ''Star Wars'' if the film was unsuccessful. However, ''Star Wars'' was a blockbusting success, and ''The Empire Strikes Back'' (1980) would be developed instead. Foster's s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Todd Lockwood
Todd Wills Lockwood, (born July 9, 1957 in Boulder, Colorado, United States) is an American artist specializing in fantasy and science fiction illustration. He is best known for his work on the role-playing game ''Dungeons & Dragons'', and for his covers for the books of R.A. Salvatore. His art has also appeared in books from Tor Books, DAW Books, and on magazine covers, including Satellite Orbit magazine in 1984-1985, ''Asimov's Science Fiction'', ''Analog Science Fiction and Science Fact'', ''Realms of Fantasy'', ''Dragon Magazine'', and '' Dungeon Magazine''. Biography Todd Lockwood was born in Boulder, Colorado. Lockwood received his education at The Art Institute of Colorado, in Denver, Colorado, and went to work immediately in the design and advertising world. Lockwood worked for a design agency for a year and a half, and won numerous awards in the Art Directors Club of New York's annual show. He then focused his career on illustration, doing freelance illustration for ab ... [...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] |
Del Rey Books
Del Rey Books is a branch of Ballantine Books, which is owned by Random House and, in turn, by Penguin Random House. It is a separate imprint established in 1977 under the editorship of author Lester del Rey and his wife Judy-Lynn del Rey. It specializes in science fiction and fantasy books, and formerly manga under its (now defunct) Del Rey Manga imprint. The first new novel published by Del Rey was ''The Sword of Shannara'' by Terry Brooks in 1977. Del Rey also publishes the ''Star Wars'' novels under the LucasBooks sub-imprint (licensed from Lucasfilm, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Studios division of The Walt Disney Company). Authors *Piers Anthony *Isaac Asimov * Stephen Baxter *Amber Benson *Ray Bradbury *Terry Brooks *Pierce Brown *Bonnie Burton *Jack L. Chalker * Arthur C. Clarke * James Clemens *Dan Cragg * Brian Daley * Maurice G. Dantec * Philip K. Dick * Stephen R. Donaldson *David Eddings *Philip José Farmer *Mick Farren * Joe Clifford Faust *Lynn Flewellin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation tends to exist within any given population as a result of genetic mutation and recombination. Evolution occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection (including sexual selection) and genetic drift act on this variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more common or more rare within a population. The evolutionary pressures that determine whether a characteristic is common or rare within a population constantly change, resulting in a change in heritable characteristics arising over successive generations. It is this process of evolution that has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation, including the levels of species, individual organisms, and molecules. The theory of evolution by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Attractor
The Great Attractor is a gravitational anomaly in intergalactic space and the apparent central gravitational point of the Laniakea Supercluster. The observed anomalies suggest a localized concentration of mass millions of times more massive than the Milky Way. However, it is inconveniently obscured by our own Milky Way's galactic plane, lying behind the Zone of Avoidance (ZOA), so that in visible light wavelengths, the Great Attractor is difficult to observe directly. In fact, it will not be for another hundred million years that Earth will be on the other side of the Milky Way galaxy, allowing us to see past the galactic plane. The anomaly is observable by its effect on the motion of galaxies and their associated clusters over a region of hundreds of millions of light-years across the universe. These galaxies are observable above and below the ZOA; all are redshifted in accordance with the Hubble flow, indicating that they are receding relative to us and to each other, but the v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norma Cluster
The Norma Cluster (ACO 3627 or Abell 3627) is a rich cluster of galaxies located near the center of the Great Attractor; it is about distant. Although it is both nearby and bright, it is difficult to observe because it is located in the Zone of Avoidance, a region near the plane of the Milky Way. Consequently, the cluster is severely obscured by interstellar dust at optical wavelengths. Its mass is estimated to be on the order of 1015 solar masses. ESO 137-001, an example of a jellyfish galaxy, is located in Abell 3627. See also * List of galaxy groups and clusters * Coma Cluster * Eridanus Cluster * Fornax Cluster * Virgo Cluster * X-ray astronomy References External links ESO Press Photos 46a-j/99* NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ... Image of the Day, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flinx Transcendent
''Flinx Transcendent'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Alan Dean Foster Alan Dean Foster (born November 18, 1946) is an American writer of fantasy and science fiction. He has written several book series, more than 20 standalone novels, and many novelizations of film scripts. Career ''Star Wars'' Foster was the ghos .... The book is the fourteenth in the chronology of the Pip and Flinx series. It was published in April 2009. The novel is the final volume in the "Great Evil" story arc, but not the final Humanx Commonwealth novel, or even the final Flinx novel. Plot In yet another attempt to avoid his destiny, Flinx sets out to become the first human to live on the AAnn homeworld Blasusarr. Disguised in a simsuit to perfectly take on the appearance of a common AAnn, Flinx successfully lives on the desert planet until his cover story unravels. In his escape attempt he befriends a juvenile AAnn from a prominent family. He manages to parlay this friendship into an au ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2008 American Novels
8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. In mathematics 8 is: * a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2. * a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of the form , being an integer greater than 1. * the first number which is neither prime nor semiprime. * the base of the octal number system, which is mostly used with computers. In octal, one digit represents three bits. In modern computers, a byte is a grouping of eight bits, also called an octet. * a Fibonacci number, being plus . The next Fibonacci number is . 8 is the only positive Fibonacci number, aside from 1, that is a perfect cube. * the only nonzero perfect power that is one less than another perfect power, by Mihăilescu's Theorem. * the order of the smallest non-abelian group all of whose subgroups are normal. * the dimension of the octonions and is the highest possible dimension of a normed division algebra. * the first number ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novels By Alan Dean Foster
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 histor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
