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The Water Knife
''The Water Knife'' is a 2015 science fiction novel by Paolo Bacigalupi. It is Bacigalupi's sixth novel, and is based on his short story, ''The Tamarisk Hunter'', first published in the news magazine ''High Country News''. It takes place in the near future, where drought brought on by climate change has devastated the Southwestern United States. Central characters *Angel Velasquez was born in Mexico and fled the country with his father after gang members murdered his mother and sister. After being released from prison by Catherine Case, Angel now works for her as her most trusted "water knife"; a hired henchman, assassin and spy who sneaks into the water boards of Nevada’s rival states, California and Arizona, sabotaging and destroying their water supplies. *Lucy Monroe is a Pulitzer winning journalist who has stayed in Phoenix longer than she intended to, making a dangerous living reporting on the water wars. She can’t seem to abandon the chaos that surrounds her, hoping for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paolo Bacigalupi
Paolo Tadini Bacigalupi (born August 6, 1972) is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, John W. Campbell, Compton Crook, Theodore Sturgeon, and Michael L. Printz awards, and has been nominated for the National Book Award. His fiction has appeared in ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'', ''Asimov's Science Fiction'', and the environmental journal ''High Country News''. Nonfiction essays of his have appeared in Salon.com and ''High Country News'', and have been syndicated in newspapers, including the ''Idaho Statesman'', the '' Albuquerque Journal'', and the ''Salt Lake Tribune''. Bacigalupi's short fiction has been collected in the anthology ''Pump Six and Other Stories'' (Night Shade Books, 2008). His debut novel '' The Windup Girl'', also published by Night Shade Books in September 2009, won the Hugo, Nebula, and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards in 2010. ''The Windup Girl'' was also named by ''Time'' as one of the Top 10 Books ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Stratification
Social stratification refers to a society's categorization of its people into groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power (social and political). As such, stratification is the relative social position of persons within a social group, category, geographic region, or social unit. In modern Western societies, social stratification is typically defined in terms of three social classes: the upper class, the middle class, and the lower class; in turn, each class can be subdivided into the upper-stratum, the middle-stratum, and the lower stratum. Moreover, a social stratum can be formed upon the bases of kinship, clan, tribe, or caste, or all four. The categorization of people by social stratum occurs most clearly in complex state-based, polycentric, or feudal societies, the latter being based upon socio-economic relations among classes of nobility and classes of peasants. Whether socia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pastiche
A pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, music, or architecture that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche pays homage to the work it imitates, rather than mocking it. The word is a French cognate of the Italian noun , which is a pâté or pie-filling mixed from diverse ingredients. Metaphorically, and describe works that are either composed by several authors, or that incorporate stylistic elements of other artists' work. Pastiche is an example of eclecticism in art. Allusion is not pastiche. A literary allusion may refer to another work, but it does not reiterate it. Moreover, allusion requires the audience to share in the author's cultural knowledge. Both allusion and pastiche are mechanisms of intertextuality. By art Literature In literary usage, the term denotes a literary technique employing a generally light-hearted tongue-in-cheek imitation of another's style; although jocular, it is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Clockwork Orange (film)
''A Clockwork Orange'' is a 1971 dystopian crime film adapted, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel of the same name. It employs disturbing, violent images to comment on psychiatry, juvenile delinquency, youth gangs, and other social, political, and economic subjects in a dystopian near-future Britain. Alex (Malcolm McDowell), the central character, is a charismatic, antisocial delinquent whose interests include classical music (especially Beethoven), committing rape, theft, and ultra-violence. He leads a small gang of thugs, Pete (Michael Tarn), Georgie ( James Marcus), and Dim (Warren Clarke), whom he calls his ''droogs'' (from the Russian word друг, which is "friend", "buddy"). The film chronicles the horrific crime spree of his gang, his capture, and attempted rehabilitation via an experimental psychological conditioning technique (the "Ludovico Technique") promoted by the Minister of the Interior ( Anthony Sharp). Alex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dune (novel)
''Dune'' is a 1965 epic science fiction novel by American author Frank Herbert, originally published as two separate serials in '' Analog'' magazine. It tied with Roger Zelazny's '' This Immortal'' for the Hugo Award in 1966 and it won the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel. It is the first installment of the ''Dune'' saga. In 2003, it was described as the world's best-selling science fiction novel. ''Dune'' is set in the distant future amidst a feudal interstellar society in which various noble houses control planetary fiefs. It tells the story of young Paul Atreides, whose family accepts the stewardship of the planet Arrakis. While the planet is an inhospitable and sparsely populated desert wasteland, it is the only source of melange, or "spice", a drug that extends life and enhances mental abilities. Melange is also necessary for space navigation, which requires a kind of multidimensional awareness and foresight that only the drug provides. As melange can only be prod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neo-noir
Neo-noir is a revival of film noir, a genre that had originally flourished during the post-World War II era in the United Statesroughly from 1940 to 1960. The French term, ''film noir'', translates literally to English as "black film", indicating sinister stories often presented in a shadowy cinematographic style. Neo-noir has a similar style but with updated themes, content, style, and visual elements. Definition The neologism neo-noir, using the Greek prefix for the word ''new'', is defined by Mark Conard as "any film coming after the classic noir period that contains noir themes and noir sensibility". Another definition describes it as later noir that often synthesizes diverse genres while foregrounding the scaffolding of ''film noir''. History " Film noir" was coined by critic Nino Frank in 1946 and popularized by French critics Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton in 1955. The term revived in general use beginning in the 1980s, with a revival of the style. The classic ''fil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinatown (1974 Film)
''Chinatown'' is a 1974 American neo-noir mystery film directed by Roman Polanski from a screenplay by Robert Towne, starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. The film was inspired by the California water wars, a series of disputes over southern California water at the beginning of the 20th century, by which Los Angeles interests secured water rights in the Owens Valley. The Robert Evans production, released by Paramount Pictures, was the director's last film in the United States and features many elements of film noir, particularly a multi-layered story that is part mystery and part psychological drama.Wasson, Sam. ''The Big Goodbye. Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood'', Flatiron Books, 2020. In 1991, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" and it is frequently listed as one of the greatest films of all time. At the 47th Academy Awards, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Denise Hamilton
Denise Hamilton is an American crime novelist, journalist and editor of the Edgar award-winning anthologies ''Los Angeles Noir'' and ''Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics''. Hamilton's five Eve Diamond crime novels have been short-listed for many awards, including the Edgar Award in mystery, Willa Cather award in literary fiction and the UK's Creasey Dagger Award. Career Hamilton's novels draw on the city's history, politics, diversity, and culture, and she calls her hometown of Los Angeles “The Ultimate Femme Fatale". Her first novel, ''The Jasmine Trade'', was a national bestseller that grew out of a ''Los Angeles Times'' story she wrote about parachute kids – wealthy Asian immigrant children who live alone in big homes while their parents remain in Asia taking care of family business. When Hamilton filed her story, a ''Times'' editor asked Hamilton's supervisor to check her facts because she found it hard to believe such an outlandish tale was real. Hamilton's sixth novel, ''T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Denver Post
''The Denver Post'' is a daily newspaper and website published in Denver, Colorado. As of June 2022, it has an average print circulation of 57,265. In 2016, its website received roughly six million monthly unique visitors generating more than 13 million page views, according to comScore. Ownership The ''Post'' was the flagship newspaper of MediaNews Group Inc., founded in 1983 by William Dean "Dinky" Singleton and Richard Scudder. MediaNews is today one of the nation's largest newspaper chains, publisher of 61 daily newspapers and more than 120 non-daily publications in 13 states. MediaNews bought ''The Denver Post'' from the Times Mirror Co. on December 1, 1987. Times Mirror had bought the paper from the heirs of founder Frederick Gilmer Bonfils in 1980. Since 2010, The Denver Post has been owned by hedge fund Alden Global Capital, which acquired its bankrupt parent company, MediaNews Group. In April 2018, a group called "Together for Colorado Springs" said that it was rais ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Windup Girl
''The Windup Girl'' is a biopunk science fiction novel by American writer Paolo Bacigalupi. It was his debut novel and was published by Night Shade Books on September 1, 2009. The novel is set in a future Thailand and covers a number of contemporary issues such as global warming and biotechnology. ''The Windup Girl'' was named as the ninth best fiction book of 2009 by ''TIME'' magazine. It won the 2010 Nebula Award and the 2010 Hugo Award (tied with '' The City & the City'' by China Miéville), both for best novel. The book also won the 2010 Campbell Memorial Award, the 2010 Compton Crook Award and the 2010 Locus Award for best first novel. Setting ''The Windup Girl'' is set in 23rd-century Thailand. Global warming has raised the levels of world's oceans, carbon fuel sources have become depleted, and manually wound springs are used as energy storage devices. Biotechnology is dominant and megacorporations (called ''calorie companies'') like AgriGen, PurCal and RedStar control ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Héctor Tobar
Héctor Tobar (born 1963, Los Angeles) is a Los Angeles author and journalist, whose work examines the evolving and interdependent relationship between Latin America and the United States. Life Tobar is the son of Guatemalan immigrants. His long career in journalism includes work for ''The New Yorker'', '' LA Weekly'', and many positions at the ''Los Angeles Times''. He was a Metro columnist for ''The Times'', a book critic, and the paper's bureau chief in Mexico City and in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He also worked for several years as the National Latino Affairs Correspondent. Additionally, Tobar contributed to the newspaper's Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Los Angeles riots of 1992. He is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the MFA program in Creative Writing at the University of California, Irvine. Tobar is the author of ''The Tattooed Soldier,'' a novel set in the impoverished immigrant neighborhoods of Los Angeles in the weeks before the riots ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugo Award
The Hugo Award is an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year, given at the World Science Fiction Convention and chosen by its members. The Hugo is widely considered the premier award in science fiction. The award is administered by the World Science Fiction Society. It is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine ''Amazing Stories''. Hugos were first given in 1953, at the 11th World Science Fiction Convention, and have been awarded every year since 1955. The awards were originally given in seven categories. These categories have changed over the years, and the award is currently conferred in seventeen categories of written and dramatic works. The winners receive a trophy consisting of a stylized rocket ship on a base; the design of the trophy changes each year, though the rocket itself has been standardized since 1984. The Hugo Awards are considered "the premier award in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
