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The Tryouts
"The Tryouts" is a science fiction short story by American writer Barry B. Longyear. It was first published in ''Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine'' in 1978. Plot summary On Momus, a primitive planet with no mass communications technology, news and information is disseminated by itinerant members of the Newstellers Guild. One night, a group of travellers sit around a campfire and a Master Newsteller, Boosthit, accompanied by his apprentice, tells a story. The tale he spins tells of Lord Ashley Allenby, an ambassador from a neighbouring quadrant of inhabited planets, whose mission is to warn the planetary government of an impending invasion. Allenby's ship is damaged and he has to put down his lifeboat in a desert, not knowing his location. He learns from a traveller that all information, even directions to the nearest town, has a value and must be bargained for. In the town of Tarzak, he also learns that the planet has no capital and no central government. He falls in with a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, extraterrestrial life, sentient artificial intelligence, cybernetics, certain forms of immortality (like mind uploading), and the singularity. Science fiction predicted several existing inventions, such as the atomic bomb, robots, and borazon, whose names entirely match their fictional predecessors. In addition, science fiction might serve as an outlet to facilitate future scientific and technological innovations. Science fiction can trace its roots to ancient mythology. It is also related to fantasy, horror, and superhero fiction and contains many subgenres. Its exact definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Science fiction, in literature, film, television, and other media, has beco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barry B
Barry may refer to: People and fictional characters * Barry (name), including lists of people with the given name, nickname or surname, as well as fictional characters with the given name * Dancing Barry, stage name of Barry Richards (born c. 1950), former dancer at National Basketball Association games Places Canada *Barry Lake, Quebec *Barry Islands, Nunavut United Kingdom * Barry, Angus, Scotland, a village ** Barry Mill, a watermill * Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, a town ** Barry Island, a seaside resort ** Barry Railway Company ** Barry railway station United States * Barry, Illinois, a city * Barry, Minnesota, a city * Barry, Texas, a city * Barry County, Michigan * Barry County, Missouri * Barry Township (other), in several states * Fort Barry, Marin County, California, a former US Army installation Elsewhere * Barry Island (Debenham Islands), Antarctica * Barry, New South Wales, Australia, a village * Barry, Hautes-Pyrénées, France, a commune Arts and en ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine
''Asimov's Science Fiction'' is an American science fiction magazine which publishes science fiction and fantasy named after science fiction author Isaac Asimov. It is currently published by Penny Publications. From January 2017, the publication frequency is bimonthly (six issues per year). Circulation in 2012 was 22,593, as reported in the annual ''Locus Magazine survey. History ''Asimov's Science Fiction'' began life as the digest-sized ''Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine'' (or ''IASFM'' for short) in 1977. Joel Davis of Davis Publications approached Asimov to lend his name to a new science fiction magazine, after the fashion of ''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine'' or ''Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine''. Asimov refused to act as editor, but served instead as editorial director, writing editorials and replying to reader mail until his death in 1992. At Asimov's request George Scithers, the first editor, negotiated an acquisitions contract with the Science Fiction Writ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Planet
A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is neither a star nor its remnant. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis, which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to create a young protostar orbited by a protoplanetary disk. Planets grow in this disk by the gradual accumulation of material driven by gravity, a process called accretion. The Solar System has at least eight planets: the terrestrial planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, and the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. These planets each rotate around an axis tilted with respect to its orbital pole. All of them possess an atmosphere, although that of Mercury is tenuous, and some share such features as ice caps, seasons, volcanism, hurricanes, tectonics, and even hydrology. Apart from Venus and Mars, the Solar System planets generate magnetic fields, and all except Venus and Mercury have natural satellites. The giant planets bear plan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes depended on grants of letters patent from a monarch or other ruler to enforce the flow of trade to their self-employed members, and to retain ownership of tools and the supply of materials, but were mostly regulated by the city government. A lasting legacy of traditional guilds are the guildhalls constructed and used as guild meeting-places. Guild members found guilty of cheating the public would be fined or banned from the guild. Typically the key "privilege" was that only guild members were allowed to sell their goods or practice their skill within the city. There might be controls on minimum or maximum prices, hours of trading, numbers of apprentices, and many other things. These rules reduced free competition, but sometimes mainta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apprentice
Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a license to practice in a regulated occupation. Most of their training is done while working for an employer who helps the apprentices learn their trade or profession, in exchange for their continued labor for an agreed period after they have achieved measurable competencies. Apprenticeship lengths vary significantly across sectors, professions, roles and cultures. In some cases, people who successfully complete an apprenticeship can reach the "journeyman" or professional certification level of competence. In other cases, they can be offered a permanent job at the company that provided the placement. Although the formal boundaries and terminology of the apprentice/journeyman/master system often do not extend outside guilds and trade unions, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ambassador
An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sovereign or appointed for a special and often temporary diplomatic assignment. The word is also used informally for people who are known, without national appointment, to represent certain professions, activities, and fields of endeavor, such as sales. An ambassador is the ranking government representative stationed in a foreign capital or country. The host country typically allows the ambassador control of specific territory called an embassy, whose territory, staff, and vehicles are generally afforded diplomatic immunity in the host country. Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, an ambassador has the highest diplomatic rank. Countries may choose to maintain diplomatic relations at a lower level by appointing a chargé d'aff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lifeboat (rescue)
A rescue lifeboat is a boat rescue craft which is used to attend a vessel in distress, or its survivors, to rescue crew and passengers. It can be hand pulled, sail powered or powered by an engine. Lifeboats may be rigid, inflatable or rigid-inflatable combination-hulled vessels. Overview There are generally three types of boat, in-land (used on lakes and rivers), in-shore (used closer to shore) and off-shore (into deeper waters and further out to sea). A rescue lifeboat is a boat designed with specialised features for searching for, rescuing and saving the lives of people in peril at sea or in estuaries. In the United Kingdom and Ireland rescue lifeboats are typically vessels crewed by volunteers, intended for quick dispatch, launch and transit to reach a ship or individuals in trouble at sea. Off-shore boats are referred to as 'All-weather' and generally have a range of 150–250 nautical miles. Characteristics such as capability to withstand heavy weather, fuel capacity, navi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Desert
A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the land surface of the Earth is arid or semi-arid. This includes much of the polar regions, where little precipitation occurs, and which are sometimes called polar deserts or "cold deserts". Deserts can be classified by the amount of precipitation that falls, by the temperature that prevails, by the causes of desertification or by their geographical location. Deserts are formed by weathering processes as large variations in temperature between day and night put strains on the rocks, which consequently break in pieces. Although rain seldom occurs in deserts, there are occasional downpours that can result in flash floods. Rain falling on hot rocks can cause them to shatter, and the resulting fragments and rubble strewn over the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Punch Line
A punch line (a. k. a. punch-line or punchline) concludes a joke; it is intended to make people laugh. It is the third and final part of the typical joke structure. It follows the introductory framing of the joke and the narrative which sets up for the punch line. In a broader sense, "punch line" can also refer to the unexpected and funny conclusion of any performance, situation or story. Etymology The origin of the term is unknown. Even though the comedic formula using the classic "set-up, premise, punch line" format was well-established in Vaudeville by the beginning of the 20th century, the actual term "punch line" is first documented in the 1920s; the Merriam-Webster dictionary pegs the first use in 1921. Linguistic analysis A linguistic interpretation of the mechanics of the punch line response is posited by Victor Raskin in his script-based semantic theory of humor. Humor is evoked when a trigger, contained in the punch line, causes the audience to abruptly shift its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction Short Stories
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for scientific reasoning is tens of thousands of years old. The earliest written records in the history of science come from Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3000 to 1200 BCE. Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages, but was preserved in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age and later by the efforts of Byzantine Greek scholars who brought Greek man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Works Originally Published In Asimov's Science Fiction
Works may refer to: People * Caddy Works (1896–1982), American college sports coach * Samuel Works (c. 1781–1868), New York politician Albums * '' ''Works'' (Pink Floyd album)'', a Pink Floyd album from 1983 * ''Works'', a Gary Burton album from 1972 * ''Works'', a Status Quo album from 1983 * ''Works'', a John Abercrombie album from 1991 * ''Works'', a Pat Metheny album from 1994 * ''Works'', an Alan Parson Project album from 2002 * ''Works Volume 1'', a 1977 Emerson, Lake & Palmer album * ''Works Volume 2'', a 1977 Emerson, Lake & Palmer album * '' The Works'', a 1984 Queen album Other uses * Microsoft Works, a collection of office productivity programs created by Microsoft * IBM Works, an office suite for the IBM OS/2 operating system * Mount Works, Victoria Land, Antarctica See also * The Works (other) * Work (other) Work may refer to: * Work (human activity), intentional activity people perform to support themselves, others, or the community ** ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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