The Book Of Skulls
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The Book Of Skulls
''The Book of Skulls'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert Silverberg, first published in 1972. It was nominated for the Nebula Award in 1972, and both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1973. Synopsis The plot concerns four college students who discover a Catalan manuscript, ''The Book of Skulls'', dealing with an order of monks living in a monastery in the Arizona desert, whose members claim the power to bestow immortality on those who complete their bizarre initiation rite. Most morbid among the order's mysteries is the ninth: for each group of four initiates, only two will become immortal; one will sacrifice himself; and one will be sacrificed by the others. The boys travel across America to the monastery, where they are accepted as a "Receptacle" and told that if one was to leave after swearing their life to the order, the three others would be forfeit. The narrative switches back and forth between the viewpoints of the four students as each confronts his person ...
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Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg (born January 15, 1935) is an American author and editor, best known for writing science fiction. He is a multiple winner of both Hugo and Nebula Awards, a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, and a Grand Master of SF. He has attended every Hugo Awards ceremony since the inaugural event in 1953. Biography Early years Silverberg was born to Jewish parents in Brooklyn, New York. A voracious reader since childhood, he began submitting stories to science fiction magazines during his early teenage years. He received a BA in English Literature from Columbia University, in 1956. While at Columbia, he wrote the juvenile novel ''Revolt on Alpha C'' (1955), published by Thomas Y. Crowell with the cover notice: "A gripping story of outer space". He won his first Hugo in 1956 as the "best new writer". That year Silverberg was the author or co-author of four of the six stories in the August issue of ''Fantastic'', breaking his record set in the previ ...
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Atlantis
Atlantis ( grc, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, , island of Atlas (mythology), Atlas) is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works ''Timaeus (dialogue), Timaeus'' and ''Critias (dialogue), Critias'', wherein it represents the antagonist naval power that besieges "Ancient Athens", the Counterfactual history, pseudo-historic embodiment of Plato's ideal state in ''The Republic (Plato), The Republic''. In the story, Athens repels the Atlantean attack unlike any other nation of the Ecumene, known world, supposedly bearing witness to the superiority of Plato's concept of a state. The story concludes with Atlantis falling out of favor with the deities and submerging into the Atlantic Ocean. Despite its minor importance in Plato's work, the Atlantis story has had a considerable impact on literature. The allegorical aspect of Atlantis was taken up in utopian works of several Renaissance writers, such as Francis Bacon's ''New Atlantis'' and Th ...
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Novels By Robert Silverberg
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 historica ...
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1972 Science Fiction Novels
Year 197 ( CXCVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Magius and Rufinus (or, less frequently, year 950 '' Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 197 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * February 19 – Battle of Lugdunum: Emperor Septimius Severus defeats the self-proclaimed emperor Clodius Albinus at Lugdunum (modern Lyon). Albinus commits suicide; legionaries sack the town. * Septimius Severus returns to Rome and has about 30 of Albinus's supporters in the Senate executed. After his victory he declares himself the adopted son of the late Marcus Aurelius. * Septimius Severus forms new naval units, manning all the triremes in Italy with heavily armed troops for war in the East. His soldiers embark ...
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1972 American Novels
Year 197 ( CXCVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Magius and Rufinus (or, less frequently, year 950 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 197 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * February 19 – Battle of Lugdunum: Emperor Septimius Severus defeats the self-proclaimed emperor Clodius Albinus at Lugdunum (modern Lyon). Albinus commits suicide; legionaries sack the town. * Septimius Severus returns to Rome and has about 30 of Albinus's supporters in the Senate executed. After his victory he declares himself the adopted son of the late Marcus Aurelius. * Septimius Severus forms new naval units, manning all the triremes in Italy with heavily armed troops for war in the East. His soldiers embark on an ...
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Jeff Davis (writer)
Jeff Davis (born June 13, 1975) is an American writer and television producer. He is best known for creating the drama series ''Criminal Minds'' and ''Teen Wolf'', the latter being a reboot of the 1985 film of the same name. Early life Davis was born in Milford, Connecticut. He graduated from Vassar College with a degree in film and he then went on to receive a master's degree in screenwriting from the University of Southern California. Davis worked as a script reader, editorial assistant, writer for computer software manuals and computer support specialist in Los Angeles while struggling to sell his own writing. Career In 2003, Davis sold a script to CBS Television that eventually became the hit series ''Criminal Minds''. He served as co-executive producer during the first season of the show. In 2011, Davis began talks with MTV about a reboot of the Michael J. Fox '80s comedy ''Teen Wolf''. He says he jumped at the project due to his love of the horror genre. He notes among hi ...
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William Friedkin
William "Billy" Friedkin (born August 29, 1935)Biskind, p. 200. is an American film and television director, producer and screenwriter closely identified with the "New Hollywood" movement of the 1970s. Beginning his career in documentaries in the early 1960s, he directed the crime thriller film '' The French Connection'' (1971), which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director, and the supernatural horror film ''The Exorcist'' (1973), which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director. His other films include the drama '' The Boys in the Band'' (1970), the thriller '' Sorcerer'' (1977), the crime comedy drama ''The Brink's Job'' (1978), the crime thriller '' Cruising'' (1980), the neo-noir thriller '' To Live and Die in L.A.'' (1985), the psychological horror film '' Bug'' (2006) and the black comedy '' Killer Joe'' (2011). Early life Friedkin was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Rachael (née Green) and L ...
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Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldest film studio in the United States (behind Universal Pictures), and the sole member of the Major film studio, "Big Five" film studios located within the city limits of Los Angeles. In 1916, film producer Adolph Zukor put 24 actors and actresses under contract and honored each with a star on the logo. In 1967, the number of stars was reduced to 22 and their hidden meaning was dropped. In 2014, Paramount Pictures became the first major Hollywood studio to distribute all of its films in digital form only. The company's headquarters and studios are located at 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, California. Paramount Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America, Motion Picture Associ ...
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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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James Blish
James Benjamin Blish () was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He is best known for his ''Cities in Flight'' novels and his series of ''Star Trek'' novelizations written with his wife, J. A. Lawrence. His novel ''A Case of Conscience'' won the Hugo Award. He is credited with creating the term "gas giant" to refer to large planetary bodies. Blish was a member of the Futurians. His first published stories appeared in ''Super Science Stories'' and ''Amazing Stories''. Blish wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen name William Atheling Jr. His other pen names included Donald Laverty, John MacDougal, and Arthur Lloyd Merlyn. Life Blish was born on May 23, 1921, at East Orange, New Jersey. While in high school, Blish self-published a fanzine, called ''The Planeteer'', using a hectograph. The fanzine ran for six issues. Blish attended meetings of the Futurian Science Fiction Society in New York City during this period. Futurian members Damon Knight a ...
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Baird Searles
William Baird Searles (1934–1993) was a science fiction author and critic. He was best known for his long running review columns for the magazines '' Asimov's'' (reviewing books), '' Amazing'', and ''Fantasy & Science Fiction'' (reviewing films, television and related media). He also did occasional reviews for other publications, including ''The New York Times'', ''Publishers Weekly'', and ''The Village Voice''. He wrote several non-fiction works on the science fiction genre. Searles managed a science fiction and fantasy bookstore in New York City's Greenwich Village, the Science Fiction Shop, which is no longer in business. From about 1963 through 1971, Baird Searles was the Drama and Literature director at WBAI, a listener-sponsored Pacifica Foundation radio station in New York City. He had a beautiful and mellifluous voice for reading and narrating stories, and was an innovative producer and host. On one of his programs, "The New Symposium" broadcast in 1968, he discussed ...
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Dissociation (psychology)
Dissociation, as a concept that has been developed over time, is a wide array of experiences, ranging from a mild emotional detachment from the immediate surroundings, to a more severe disconnection from physical and emotional experiences. The major characteristic of all dissociative phenomena involves a detachment from reality, rather than a loss of reality as in psychosis. The phenomena are diagnosable under the ''DSM-5'' as a group of disorders as well as a symptom of other disorders through various diagnostic tools. Its cause is believed to be related to neurobiological mechanisms, trauma, anxiety, and psychoactive drugs. Research has further related it to suggestibility and hypnosis, and it is inversely related to mindfulness, which is a potential treatment. History French philosopher and psychologist Pierre Janet (1859–1947) is considered to be the author of the concept of dissociation. Contrary to some conceptions of dissociation, Janet did not believe that dissocia ...
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