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Revelation Space (album)
''Revelation Space'' is a 2000 science fiction novel by Welsh author Alastair Reynolds. It was the first novel (but not first published work of fiction) set in Reynolds's eponymous universe. The novel reflects Reynolds's professional background: he has a PhD in astronomy and worked for many years for the European Space Agency. It was short listed for the 2000 BSFA and Arthur C. Clarke Awards. Summary ''Revelation Space'' begins with three seemingly unrelated narrative strands that merge as the novel progresses. This plot structure is characteristic of many of Reynolds's works. The first strand centres around Dan Sylveste, beginning in the year 2551. Sylveste is an archaeologist excavating the remains of the long-dead Amarantin race that lived on a planet in the Delta Pavonis system. Over the course of decades, Sylveste learns that the Amarantin may have become technologically sophisticated before their sun destroyed life on the planet Resurgam nearly a million years prior. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alastair Reynolds
Alastair Preston Reynolds (born 13 March 1966) is a Welsh science fiction author. He specialises in hard science fiction and space opera. He spent his early years in Cornwall, moved back to Wales before going to Newcastle University, where he studied physics and astronomy. Afterwards, he earned a PhD in astrophysics from the University of St Andrews. In 1991, he moved to Noordwijk in the Netherlands where he met his wife Josette (who is from France). There, he worked for the European Space Research and Technology Centre (part of the European Space Agency) until 2004 when he left to pursue writing full-time. He returned to Wales in 2008 and lives near Cardiff. Works Reynolds wrote his first four published science fiction short stories while still a graduate student, in 1989–1991; they appeared in 1990–1992, his first sale being to '' Interzone''. In 1991 Reynolds graduated and moved from Scotland to the Netherlands to work at ESA. He then started spending much of his writing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xenoarchaeology
Xenoarchaeology, a branch of xenology dealing with extraterrestrial cultures, is a hypothetical form of archaeology that exists mainly in works of science fiction. The field is concerned with the study of the material remains to reconstruct and interpret past life-ways of alien civilizations. Xenoarchaeology is not currently practiced by mainstream archaeologists due to the current lack of any material for the discipline to study. Etymology The name derives from Greek ''xenos'' (ξένος) which means 'stranger, alien', and archaeology 'study of ancients'. Xenoarchaeology is sometimes called ''astroarchaeology'' or ''exoarchaeology'', although some would argue that the prefix exo- would be more correctly applied to the study of human activities in a space environment. Other names for xenoarchaeology, or specialised fields of interest, include Probe SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), extraterrestrial archaeology, space archaeology, SETA (Search for Extra-Te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Revelation Space
''Revelation Space'' is a 2000 science fiction novel by Welsh author Alastair Reynolds. It was the first novel (but not first published work of fiction) set in Reynolds's eponymous universe. The novel reflects Reynolds's professional background: he has a PhD in astronomy and worked for many years for the European Space Agency. It was short listed for the 2000 BSFA and Arthur C. Clarke Awards. Summary ''Revelation Space'' begins with three seemingly unrelated narrative strands that merge as the novel progresses. This plot structure is characteristic of many of Reynolds's works. The first strand centres around Dan Sylveste, beginning in the year 2551. Sylveste is an archaeologist excavating the remains of the long-dead Amarantin race. Over the course of decades, Sylveste learns that the Amarantin may have become technologically sophisticated before their sun destroyed life on the planet Resurgam nearly a million years prior. The next strand centres around Ilia Volyova aboard th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ISFDB
The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) is a database of bibliographic information on genres considered speculative fiction, including science fiction and related genres such as fantasy, alternate history, and horror fiction. The ISFDB is a volunteer effort, with the database being open for moderated editing and user contributions, and a wiki that allows the database editors to coordinate with each other. the site had catalogued 2,002,324 story titles from 232,816 authors. The code for the site has been used in books and tutorials as examples of database schema and organizing content. The ISFDB database and code are available under Creative Commons licensing. The site won the Wooden Rocket Award in the Best Directory Site category in 2005. Purpose The ISFDB database indexes speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror, and alternate history) authors, novels, short fiction, essays, publishers, awards, and magazines in print, electronic, and audio formats. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Damien Broderick
Damien Francis Broderick (born 22 April 1944) is an Australian science fiction and popular science writer and editor of some 74 books. His science fiction novel ''The Dreaming Dragons'' (1980) introduced the trope of the generation time machine, his ''The Judas Mandala'' (1982) contains the first appearance of the term "virtual reality" in science fiction, and his 1997 popular science book '' The Spike'' was the first to investigate the technological singularity in detail. Life Broderick holds a Ph.D. in Literary Studies from Deakin University, Australia, with a dissertation (''Frozen Music'') comparing the semiotics of scientific, literary, and science fictional textuality. He was for several years a Senior Fellow in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Broderick lives in San Antonio, Texas, with his wife, tax attorney Barbara Lamar. He was the founding science fiction editor of the Australian popular-science magazin''Cosmos''from mid-2005 t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neutron Star
A neutron star is the collapsed core of a massive supergiant star, which had a total mass of between 10 and 25 solar masses, possibly more if the star was especially metal-rich. Except for black holes and some hypothetical objects (e.g. white holes, quark stars, and strange stars), neutron stars are the smallest and densest currently known class of stellar objects. Neutron stars have a radius on the order of and a mass of about 1.4 solar masses. They result from the supernova explosion of a massive star, combined with gravitational collapse, that compresses the core past white dwarf star density to that of atomic nuclei. Once formed, they no longer actively generate heat, and cool over time; however, they may still evolve further through collision or accretion. Most of the basic models for these objects imply that neutron stars are composed almost entirely of neutrons (subatomic particles with no net electrical charge and with slightly larger mass than protons); the electro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antimatter
In modern physics, antimatter is defined as matter composed of the antiparticles (or "partners") of the corresponding particles in "ordinary" matter. Antimatter occurs in natural processes like cosmic ray collisions and some types of radioactive decay, but only a tiny fraction of these have successfully been bound together in experiments to form antiatoms. Minuscule numbers of antiparticles can be generated at particle accelerators; however, total artificial production has been only a few nanograms. No macroscopic amount of antimatter has ever been assembled due to the extreme cost and difficulty of production and handling. Theoretically, a particle and its antiparticle (for example, a proton and an antiproton) have the same mass, but opposite electric charge, and other differences in quantum numbers. A collision between any particle and its anti-particle partner leads to their mutual annihilation, giving rise to various proportions of intense photons (gamma rays), neutrin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Triumvirate
A triumvirate ( la, triumvirātus) or a triarchy is a political institution ruled or dominated by three individuals, known as triumvirs ( la, triumviri). The arrangement can be formal or informal. Though the three leaders in a triumvirate are notionally equal, the actual distribution of power may vary. The term can also be used to describe a state with three different military leaders who all claim to be the sole leader. Pre-Modern triumvirates Biblical In the Bible triumvirates occurred at some notable events in both the Old Testament and New Testament. In the Book of Exodus Moses, his brother Aaron and, according to some views their nephew or brother-in-law, Hur acted this way during the Battle of Rephidim against the Amalekites. Later, when Moses was away on Mount Sinai Aaron and Hur were left in charge of all the Israelites. In the Gospels as a leading trio among the Twelve Apostles at three particular occasions during public ministry of Jesus acted Peter, James, son of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epsilon Eridani
Epsilon Eridani ( Latinized from ε Eridani), formally named Ran, is a star in the southern constellation of Eridanus, at a declination of 9.46° south of the celestial equator. This allows it to be visible from most of Earth's surface. At a distance of from the Sun, it has an apparent magnitude of 3.73. It is the third-closest individual star or star system visible to the unaided eye. The star is estimated to be less than a billion years old. Because of its relative youth, Epsilon Eridani has a higher level of magnetic activity than the present-day Sun, with a stellar wind 30 times as strong. Its rotation period is 11.2 days at the equator. Epsilon Eridani is smaller and less massive than the Sun, and has a comparatively lower level of elements heavier than helium. It is a main-sequence star of spectral class K2, which means that energy generated at the core through nuclear fusion of hydrogen is emitted from the surface at a temperature of about , giving it an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
