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Redshirts (novel)
''Redshirts'' (originally titled ''Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas'') is a space adventure by science fiction writer John Scalzi that capitalizes on tropes from Star Trek and similar television series. The book was published by Tor Books in June 2012. The audiobook of the novel is narrated by Wil Wheaton. The book won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel and Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. Plot summary In the prologue, several senior officers of the ''Intrepid'', flagship of the Universal Union, lament the unusually high number of casualties of low-ranking crew members during recent away missions and conclude that they will need more crewmen to replace them. The ''Intrepid'' takes on five new ensigns including Andrew Dahl, an expert in alien religions and xenobiology. Dahl quickly discerns that the crew is extremely phobic of being near the senior officers and of going on away missions due to their high fatality rate. Over the course of several missions, various cre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Scalzi
John Michael Scalzi II (born May 10, 1969) is an American science fiction author and former president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He is best known for his ''Old Man's War'' series, three novels of which have been nominated for the Hugo Award, and for his blog ''Whatever'', where he has written on a number of topics since 1998. He won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 2008 based predominantly on that blog, which he has also used for several charity drives. His novel '' Redshirts'' won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel. He has written non-fiction books and columns on diverse topics such as finance, video games, films, astronomy, writing and politics, and served as a creative consultant for the TV series ''Stargate Universe''. Early life, education, and early career Scalzi was born in Fairfield, California, on May 10, 1969. One of three children to a single mother, he grew up in the Los Angeles suburbs of Covina, Glendora, Azusa, and San Dimas. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Near Miss (safety)
A near miss, near hit or close call is an unplanned event that has the potential to cause, but does not actually result in human injury, environmental or equipment damage, or an interruption to normal operation. OSHA defines a near miss as an incident in which no property was damaged and no personal injury was sustained, but where, given a slight shift in time or position, damage or injury easily could have occurred. Near misses also may be referred to as near accidents, accident precursors, injury-free events and, in the case of moving objects, near collisions. A near miss is often an error, with harm prevented by other considerations and circumstances. Causes There are factors for a near miss related to the operator, and factors related to the context. Fatigue is an example for the former. The risk of a car crash after a more than 24h shift for physicians has been observed to increase by 168%, and the risk of near miss by 460%. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Redshirt (character)
A "redshirt" is a stock character in fiction who dies soon after being introduced. The term originates from the original ''Star Trek'' (NBC, 1966–69) television series in which the red-shirted security personnel frequently die during episodes. Redshirt deaths are often used to dramatize the potential peril the main characters face. Origin In ''Star Trek'', red-uniformed security officers and engineers who accompany the main characters on landing parties often suffer quick deaths. The first instance of what now is an established trope can be seen in the episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" (1966). Of the 55 crew members killed in the series, 24 were wearing red shirts, compared to 15 who had unconfirmed shirt colors, 9 in gold shirts, and 7 in blue shirts. Most casualties were security personnel, whose uniform was red. The '' Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'' book ''Legends of the Ferengi'' says Starfleet security personnel "rarely survive beyond the second act break". An ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astrogation
A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation.Grierson, MikeAviation History—Demise of the Flight Navigator FrancoFlyers.org website, October 14, 2008. Retrieved August 31, 2014. The navigator's primary responsibility is to be aware of ship or aircraft position at all times. Responsibilities include planning the journey, advising the ship's captain or aircraft commander of estimated timing to destinations while en route, and ensuring hazards are avoided. The navigator is in charge of maintaining the aircraft or ship's nautical charts, nautical publications, and navigational equipment, and they generally have responsibility for meteorological equipment and communications. With the advent of satellite navigation, the effort required to accurately determine one's position has decreased by orders of magnitude, so the entire field has experienced a revolutionary transition since the 1990s with traditional navigation tasks, like performing c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Writer's Block
Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author is either unable to produce new work or experiences a creative slowdown. Mike Rose found that this creative stall is not a result of commitment problems or the lack of writing skills. The condition ranges from difficulty in coming up with original ideas to being unable to produce a work for years. Writer's block is not solely measured by time passing without writing. It is measured by time passing without productivity in the task at hand. History Throughout history, writer's block has been a documented problem.Clark, Irene. "Invention." ''Concepts in Composition: Theory and Practice in the Teaching of Writing''. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2012. Professionals who have struggled with the affliction include authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Joseph Mitchell, comic strip cartoonist Charles M. Schulz,Downey, Bill. ''Right Brain – Write ON!''. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1984. c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metafiction
Metafiction is a form of fiction which emphasises its own narrative structure in a way that continually reminds the audience that they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about language, literary form, and story-telling, and works of metafiction directly or indirectly draw attention to their status as artifacts. Metafiction is frequently used as a form of parody or a tool to undermine literary conventions and explore the relationship between literature and reality, life, and art. Although metafiction is most commonly associated with postmodern literature that developed in the mid-20th century, its use can be traced back to much earlier works of fiction, such as ''The Canterbury Tales'' (Geoffrey Chaucer, 1387), ''Don Quixote'' (Miguel de Cervantes, 1605), ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' (Laurence Sterne, 1759), and '' Vanity Fair'' (William Makepeace Thackeray, 1847). Metafiction became particularly prominent in the 1960 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extra (acting)
A background actor or extra is a performer in a film, television show, stage, musical, opera, or ballet production who appears in a nonspeaking or nonsinging (silent) capacity, usually in the background (for example, in an audience or busy street scene). War films and epic films often employ background actors in large numbers: some films have featured hundreds or even thousands of paid background actors as cast members (hence the term "cast of thousands"). Likewise, grand opera can involve many background actors appearing in spectacular productions. On a film or TV set, background actors are usually referred to as "junior artists", "atmosphere", "background talent", "background performers", "background artists", "background cast members", or simply "background", while the term "extra" is rarely used. In a stage production, background actors are commonly referred to as " supernumeraries". In opera and ballet, they are called either "extras" or "supers". Casting Casting criteria fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coma
A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhibit a complete absence of wakefulness and are unable to consciously feel, speak or move. Comas can be derived by natural causes, or can be medically induced. Clinically, a coma can be defined as the inability consistently to follow a one-step command. It can also be defined as a score of ≤ 8 on the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) lasting ≥ 6 hours. For a patient to maintain consciousness, the components of ''wakefulness'' and ''awareness'' must be maintained. Wakefulness describes the quantitative degree of consciousness, whereas awareness relates to the qualitative aspects of the functions mediated by the cortex, including cognitive abilities such as attention, sensory perception, explicit memory, language, the execution of tasks, temporal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Backstory
A backstory, background story, back-story, or background is a set of events invented for a plot, presented as preceding and leading up to that plot. It is a literary device of a narrative history all chronologically earlier than the narrative of primary interest. In acting, it is the history of the character before the drama begins, and is created during the actor's preparation. It is the history of characters and other elements that underlie the situation existing at the main narrative's start. Even a purely historical work selectively reveals backstory to the audience. Usage As a literary device, backstory is often employed to lend depth or believability to the main story. The usefulness of having a dramatic revelation was recognized by Aristotle, in ''Poetics''. Backstories are usually revealed, partially or in full, chronologically or otherwise, as the main narrative unfolds. However, a story creator may also create portions of a backstory or even an entire backstory ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doppelgänger
A doppelgänger (), a compound noun formed by combining the two nouns (double) and (walker or goer) (), doppelgaenger or doppelganger is a biologically unrelated look-alike, or a double, of a living person. In fiction and mythology, a doppelgänger is often portrayed as a ghostly or paranormal phenomenon and usually seen as a harbinger of bad luck. Other traditions and stories equate a doppelgänger with an evil twin. In modern times, the term twin stranger is occasionally used. Spelling The word ''doppelganger'' is a loanword from the German. The singular and plural forms are the same in German, but English writers usually prefer the plural "doppelgangers". The first known use, in the slightly different form ''Doppeltgänger'', occurs in the novel ''Siebenkäs'' (1796) by Jean Paul, in which he explains his newly coined word in a footnote; the word also appears in the novel, but with a different meaning. In German, the word is written (as is usual with German nouns) with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supporting Actor
A supporting actor is an actor who performs a role in a play or film below that of the leading actor(s), and above that of a bit part. In recognition of important nature of this work, the theater and film industries give separate awards to the best supporting actors and actresses. These range from minor roles to principal players and are often pivotal or vital to the story as in a best friend, love interest, sidekick (such as Robin in the Batman series), or antagonist (such as the villain). They are sometimes but not necessarily character roles. In earlier times, these could often be ethnic stereotypes. A supporting actor should usually not upstage the main actor or actress, but often do. The title of the role is usually specific to the performance; that is, a person may be a supporting actor in one film and the lead in another. In television, the term day player is used to refer to most performers with supporting speaking roles hired daily without long-term contracts. See a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bit Part
In acting, a bit part is a role in which there is direct interaction with the principal actors and no more than five lines of dialogue, often referred to as a five-or-less or under-five in the United States, or under sixes in British television, or a walk-on part with no dialogue. A bit part is higher than that of an extra and lower than that of a supporting actor. An actor who regularly performs in bit roles, either as a hobby or to earn a living, is referred to as a bit player, a term also used to describe an aspiring actor who has not yet broken into supporting or leading roles. Unlike extras, who do not typically interact with principals, actors in bit parts are sometimes listed in the credits. An exception to this practice is the cameo appearance, wherein a well-known actor or other celebrity appears in a bit part; it is common for such appearances to be uncredited. In MGM's 1951 screen version of the musical ''Show Boat'', the role of the cook Queenie ( Frances E. Will ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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