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The Eyes Of The Overworld
''The Eyes of the Overworld'' is a picaresque fantasy fix-up novel by American writer Jack Vance, published by Ace in 1966, the second book in the Dying Earth series that Vance inaugurated in 1950. Retitled ''Cugel the Clever'' in its Vance Integral Edition (2005), the story takes place in Vance's Dying Earth setting, where the Sun is dying and magic and technology coexist. It features the self-proclaimed Cugel the Clever in linked episodic stories. Cugel is an anti-hero character; while he is typically a crafty scoundrel who seeks to turn a profit from a situation, he retains some good values at times. In the novel, Cugel is caught stealing from a wizard, who forces Cugel to travel to a faraway realm to find a rare magical jewel. The components of the fix-up were five short works published in ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' from December 1965 to July 1966, and one original to the book. The 1934 film '' The Spectacle Maker'', based on the 1913 Frank Harris story "T ...
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WikiProject Novels
A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is a Wikimedia movement affinity group for contributors with shared goals. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia, and exist to varying degrees within sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata, and Wikisource. They also exist in different languages, and translation of articles is a form of their collaboration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS News noted the role of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by '' Smithsonian'' for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the profile noted had "helped increase the number of female scientists on Wikipedia from around 1,600 to over 5,000". On Wikipedia Some Wikipedia WikiProjects are substantial enough to engage in cooperative activities with outside organizations relevant to the field at issue. For e ...
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The Spectacle Maker
''The Spectacle Maker'' is a 1934 short film directed by John Farrow and starring Nora Cecil. It was Farrow's directorial debut. It was filmed in full three-strip Technicolor. Plot Summary Once upon a time, Peter, a lame boy who requires a crutch to walk, dreams of being able to dance like all the other children. His grandfather, Hans Schmidt, the village's spectacle maker, is presented with an opportunity by a mysterious man who walks into his shop: make a lens that when looked through makes everything and everyone appear beautiful, in return for his shop being filled with gold. Hans wants to oblige if only to be able to fix Peter's leg, but first Hans has to learn what beauty actually is. In consulting with the wisest source he knows, Hans is able to produce such a lens which makes everything and everyone on the surface appear beautiful on the surface, and in return he is showered with gold. Another mysterious man comes forth explaining to Hans that the spectacle is deceitful in h ...
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1966 Fantasy Novels
Events January * January 1 – In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa takes over as military ruler of the Central African Republic, ousting President David Dacko. * January 3 – 1966 Upper Voltan coup d'état: President Maurice Yaméogo is deposed by a military coup in the Republic of Upper Volta (modern-day Burkina Faso). * January 10 ** Pakistani–Indian peace negotiations end successfully with the signing of the Tashkent Declaration, a day before the sudden death of Indian prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. ** The House of Representatives of the US state of Georgia refuses to allow African-American representative Julian Bond to take his seat, because of his anti-war stance. ** A Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference convenes in Lagos, Nigeria, primarily to discuss Rhodesia. * January 12 – United States President Lyndon Johnson states that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there is ended. * January 15 – 1966 Nigerian coup d ...
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1966 American Novels
Events January * January 1 – In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa takes over as military ruler of the Central African Republic, ousting President David Dacko. * January 3 – 1966 Upper Voltan coup d'état: President Maurice Yaméogo is deposed by a military coup in the Republic of Upper Volta (modern-day Burkina Faso). * January 10 ** Pakistani–Indian peace negotiations end successfully with the signing of the Tashkent Declaration, a day before the sudden death of Indian prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. ** Georgia House of Representatives, The House of Representatives of the US state of Georgia refuses to allow African-American representative Julian Bond to take his seat, because of his anti-war stance. ** A Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference convenes in Lagos, Nigeria, primarily to discuss Rhodesia. * January 12 – United States President Lyndon Johnson states that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communism, Communist aggression there is e ...
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American Fantasy Novels
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * ...
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Novels By Jack Vance
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 historic ...
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The Futurological Congress
''The Futurological Congress'' ( pl, Kongres futurologiczny) is a 1971 Black comedy, black humour science fiction novel by Polish author Stanisław Lem. It details the exploits of the hero of a number of his stories, Ijon Tichy, as he visits the Eighth World Futurological Congress at a Hilton Hotel in Costa Rica.Lem sets the story in a fictional republic of Kostarykana (Costarikana; Costa Rica is called Kostaryka in Polish). In most foreign translations, except the English one by Michael Kandel, the name is rendered as "Costaricana", thus retaining its fictional reference. The book is Lem's take on the science fictional trope of an apparently Utopian future that turns out to be an illusion. Overview The book opens at the eponymous congress. A riot breaks out, and the hero, Ijon Tichy, is hit by various psychoactive drugs that were put into the drinking water supply lines by the government to pacify the riots. Ijon and a few others escape to the safety of a sewer beneath the Hilt ...
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F&SF
''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' (usually referred to as ''F&SF'') is a U.S. fantasy fiction magazine, fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House, a subsidiary of Lawrence E. Spivak, Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Publications, Mercury Press. Editors Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas had approached Spivak in the mid-1940s about creating a fantasy companion to Spivak's existing mystery title, ''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine''. The first issue was titled ''The Magazine of Fantasy'', but the decision was quickly made to include science fiction as well as fantasy, and the title was changed correspondingly with the second issue. ''F&SF'' was quite different in presentation from the existing science fiction magazines of the day, most of which were in pulp magazine, pulp format: it had no interior illustrations, no letter column, and text in a single column format, which in the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley (writer), ...
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Eight Fantasms And Magics
''Eight Fantasms and Magics'' is a collection of science fiction and fantasy stories by Jack Vance. It was originally published by Macmillan in 1969 and reprinted in paperback by Collier Books in 1970. No further editions have been issued. Contents * "Foreword" * "The Miracle-Workers" ('' Astounding'' 1958) * "When the Five Moons Rise" (''Cosmos SF&F'' 1954) * " Telek" (''Astounding'' 1952) * "Noise" (''Startling Stories'' 1952) * "The New Prime" ('' Worlds Beyond'' 1951) * "Cil" ('' The Eyes of the Overworld'' 1966) * "Guyal of Sfere" ('' The Dying Earth'' 1950) * "The Men Return" ('' Infinity Science Fiction'' 1957) "The New Prime" was originally published as "Brain of the Galaxy". Reception James Blish praised Vance's "marvelous feeling for the telling of sensual detail, his incantatory tone, his muted humor, his rather arcane vocabulary, his ear for exactly the right proper names, his love for the medieval and for anachronisms in general", and found the stories to be log ...
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Anti-hero
An antihero (sometimes spelled as anti-hero) or antiheroine is a main character in a story who may lack conventional heroic qualities and attributes, such as idealism, courage, and morality. Although antiheroes may sometimes perform actions that most of the audience considers morally correct, their reasons for doing so may not align with the audience's morality. An antihero typically exhibits one of the "Dark Triad" personality traits, which include narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. There is a controversy over what exactly defines an antihero. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an antihero as "someone who lacks heroic qualities", yet scholars typically have differing ideas on what constitutes as an antihero. Some scholars refer to the "Racinian" antihero, who is defined by several factors. The first being that they are doomed to fail before their adventure begins. The second constitutes the blame of that failure on everyone but themselves. Thirdly, they offe ...
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A Quest For Simbilis
''A Quest for Simbilis'' is a novel by Michael Shea published in 1974. Plot summary ''A Quest for Simbilis'' is a novel in which the plot is a sequel to Jack Vance's ''The Eyes of the Overworld'' (a.k.a. ''Cugel the Clever''). Reception Dave Langford reviewed ''A Quest for Simbilis'' for ''White Dwarf'' #74, and stated that "Vance can be relied on for unwavering polish, but tends to recycle old plot elements; Shea, though more rough-hewn, adds innovations plus a touch of true, murky hellfire from an imagination fuelled by Hieronymus Bosch." Reviews *Review by Dave Bischoff (1974) in Thrust Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that syst ..., #5 1974 References 1974 American novels 1974 fantasy novels DAW Books books {{1970s-fantasy-novel-stub ...
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Michael Shea (author)
Michael Shea (July 3, 1946 – February 16, 2014) was an American fantasy, horror, and science fiction author. His novel ''Nifft the Lean'' won the World Fantasy Award, as did his novella ''Growlimb''. Life and work Shea was born to Irish parents in Los Angeles in 1946. There he frequented Venice Beach and the Baldwin Hills for their wildlife. He attended UCLA and Berkeley and hitch-hiked twice across the US and Canada. At a hotel in Juneau, Alaska, Shea chanced on a battered book from the lobby shelves, ''The Eyes of the Overworld'' by Jack Vance (1966). Four years later, after a brief first marriage and one year hitch-hiking through France and Spain, he wrote a novel in homage to Vance, who graciously declined to share the advance offered by DAW Books. It was Shea's first publication, ''A Quest for Simbilis'' (1974), and an authorized sequel to Vance's two Dying Earth books then extant. ISFDB notes that it "became non-canonic" in 1983 when Vance "continued ... ''The Eyes'' ...
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