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The Stars My Destination
''The Stars My Destination'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Alfred Bester. Set in the 24th or 25th century, which varies between editions of the book, when humans have colonized the Solar System, it tells the story of Gully ulliverFoyle, a teleporter driven by a burning desire for revenge. Its first publication was in book form in June 1956 in the United Kingdom, where it was titled ''Tiger! Tiger!'', named after William Blake's 1794 poem "The Tyger", the first verse of which is printed as the first page of the novel. The book remains widely known under that title in the markets in which this edition was circulated. It was subsequently serialized in ''Galaxy'' magazine in four parts beginning with the October 1956 issue. A working title was ''Hell's My Destination'', and the book was also associated with the name ''The Burning Spear''. Plot At the time when the book is set, "jaunting"—personal teleportation—has so upset the social and economic bal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Bester
Alfred Bester (December 18, 1913 – September 30, 1987) was an American science fiction author, TV and radio scriptwriter, magazine editor and scripter for comic strips and comic books. He is best remembered for his science fiction, including ''The Demolished Man'', winner of the inaugural Hugo Award in 1953. Science fiction author Harry Harrison wrote, "Alfred Bester was one of the handful of writers who invented modern science fiction." Shortly before his death, the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) named Bester its ninth Grand Master, presented posthumously in 1988. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted him in 2001. Life and career Alfred Bester was born in Manhattan, New York City, on December 18, 1913. His father, James J. Bester, owned a shoe store and was a first-generation American whose parents were both Austrian Jews. Alfred's mother, Belle (née Silverman), was born in Russia and spoke Yiddish as her first language before coming to A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conscience
Conscience is a cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational associations based on an individual's moral philosophy or value system. Conscience stands in contrast to elicited emotion or thought due to associations based on immediate sensory perceptions and reflexive responses, as in sympathetic central nervous system responses. In common terms, conscience is often described as leading to feelings of remorse when a person commits an act that conflicts with their moral values. The extent to which conscience informs moral judgment before an action and whether such moral judgments are or should be based on reason has occasioned debate through much of modern history between theories of basics in ethic of human life in juxtaposition to the theories of romanticism and other reactionary movements after the end of the Middle Ages. Religious views of conscience usually see it as linked to a morality inherent in all humans, to a beneficent universe and/or to divinity. The diverse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rocket
A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely from propellant carried within the vehicle; therefore a rocket can fly in the vacuum of space. Rockets work more efficiently in a vacuum and incur a loss of thrust due to the opposing pressure of the atmosphere. Multistage rockets are capable of attaining escape velocity from Earth and therefore can achieve unlimited maximum altitude. Compared with airbreathing engines, rockets are lightweight and powerful and capable of generating large accelerations. To control their flight, rockets rely on momentum, airfoils, auxiliary reaction engines, gimballed thrust, momentum wheels, deflection of the exhaust stream, propellant flow, spin, or gravity. Rockets for military and recreational uses date back to at least 13th-century China. Signific ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Whiteside Parsons
John Whiteside Parsons (born Marvel Whiteside Parsons; October 2, 1914 – June 17, 1952) was an American Aerospace engineering, rocket engineer, chemist, and Thelema, Thelemite occultist. Associated with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Parsons was one of the principal founders of both the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Aerojet, Aerojet Engineering Corporation. He invented the first rocket engine to use a Castability, castable, Composite material, composite rocket propellant, and pioneered the advancement of both Liquid-fuel rocket, liquid-fuel and Solid-fuel rocket, solid-fuel rockets. Born in Los Angeles, Parsons was raised by a wealthy family on Orange Grove Boulevard (Pasadena), Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena, California, Pasadena. Inspired by science fiction literature, he developed an interest in rocketry in his childhood and in 1928 began Amateur rocketry, amateur rocket experiments with school friend Edward S. Forman. He dropped out of Pasa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man
''A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'' is the first novel of Irish writer James Joyce. A ''Künstlerroman'' written in a modernist style, it traces the religious and intellectual awakening of young Stephen Dedalus, Joyce's fictional alter ego, whose surname alludes to Daedalus, Greek mythology's consummate craftsman. Stephen questions and rebels against the Catholic and Irish conventions under which he has grown, culminating in his self-exile from Ireland to Europe. The work uses techniques that Joyce developed more fully in ''Ulysses (novel), Ulysses'' (1922) and ''Finnegans Wake'' (1939). ''A Portrait'' began life in 1904 as ''Stephen Hero''—a projected 63-chapter autobiographical novel in a realistic style. After 25 chapters, Joyce abandoned ''Stephen Hero'' in 1907 and set to reworking its themes and protagonist into a condensed five-chapter novel, dispensing with strict realism and making extensive use of free indirect speech that allows the reader to peer into St ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Rhyme
A book rhyme is a short poem or rhyme that was formerly printed inside the front of a book or on the flyleaf to discourage theft (similar to a book curse) or to indicate ownership. Book rhymes were fairly common in the United States during the 18th and 19th centuries, but the printing of bookplates pushed them out of use. Anti-theft warnings One of the most common is: If this book you steal away, What will you say On Judgment Day? Identification rhyme An example of a common style of identification rhyme is:''Everytown is my dwelling-place'' ''America is my nation'' ''John Smith is my name'' The end line has several variations, ''And Christ is my salvation'' ''And heaven my expectation'' An example of an identification rhyme found in James Joyce's ''A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'' is'':'' "Stephen Dedalus is my name, Ireland is my nation. Clongowes is my dwellingplace And heaven my expectation." The title of Thornton Wilder's novel "Heaven's My Destination" and Alfred ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quatrain
A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines. Existing in a variety of forms, the quatrain appears in poems from the poetic traditions of various ancient civilizations including Persia, Ancient India, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and China, and continues into the 21st century, where it is seen in works published in many languages. This form of poetry has been continually popular in Iran since the medieval period, as Ruba'is form; an important faction of the vast repertoire of Persian poetry, with famous poets such as Omar Khayyam and Mahsati Ganjavi of Seljuk Persia writing poetry only in this format. Michel de Nostredame (Nostradamus) used the quatrain form to deliver his famous prophecies in the 16th century. There are fifteen possible rhyme schemes, but the most traditional and common are ABAA, AAAA, ABAB, and ABBA. Forms *The heroic stanza or elegiac stanza consists of the iambic pentameter, with the rhyme scheme of ABAB or AABB. An e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poon Lim
Poon Lim BEM (; 8 March 1918 – 4 January 1991) was a Chinese sailor who survived 133 days alone in the South Atlantic. Lim worked as second steward on , a British merchant ship that was sunk by , a German U-boat, on 23 November 1942. He soon found an wooden raft with supplies. When the supplies ran low, Lim resorted to fishing, catching seabirds, and rain collection. On 5 April 1943, Lim was rescued by three Brazilian fishermen as he neared the coast of Brazil. After his return to the United Kingdom, Lim was awarded a British Empire Medal by King George VI. After the war, Lim emigrated to the United States. World War II Lim was born on China's Hainan Island on 8 March 1918. In 1942, during World War II, he was working as second steward on the British armed merchant ship , which was on its way from Cape Town to Paramaribo and New York. The ship was armed but slow moving and was sailing alone instead of in a convoy. On 23 November, , a German U-boat, intercepte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Geographic Magazine
''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely read magazines of all time. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine months after the establishment of the society, but is now a popular magazine. In 1905, it began including pictures, a style for which it became well-known. Its first color photos appeared in the 1910s. During the Cold War, the magazine committed itself to present a balanced view of the physical and human geography of countries beyond the Iron Curtain. Later, the magazine became outspoken on environmental issues. Since 2019, controlling interest has been held by The Walt Disney Company. Topics of features generally concern geography, history, nature, science, and world culture. The magazine is well known for its distinctive appearance: a thick squar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Count Of Monte Cristo
''The Count of Monte Cristo'' (french: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) is an adventure novel written by French author Alexandre Dumas (''père'') completed in 1844. It is one of the author's more popular works, along with ''The Three Musketeers''. Like many of his novels, it was expanded from plot outlines suggested by his collaborating ghostwriter Auguste Maquet. The story takes place in France, Italy, and islands in the Mediterranean during the historical events of 1815–1839: the era of the Bourbon Restoration in France, Bourbon Restoration through the reign of Louis-Philippe of France. It begins on the day that Napoleon left his first island of exile, Elba, beginning the Hundred Days period when Napoleon returned to power. The historical setting is a fundamental element of the book, an adventure story centrally concerned with themes of hope, justice, vengeance, mercy, and forgiveness. It centers on a man who is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes from jail, acquires a fortune, and set ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Telepathy
Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), and has remained more popular than the earlier expression ''thought-transference''.Glossary of Parapsychological terms – Telepathy – . Retrieved December 19, 2006. Telepathy experiments have historically been criticized for a lack of proper controls and repeatability. There is no good evidence that telepathy e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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