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Willard J. Phule
Phule's Company is a series of comic military science fiction novels by Robert Asprin, beginning with '' Phule's Company'' and ending with '' Phule's Errand''. The series takes place centuries in the future, where humans and other species have come together to form the Interplanetary Alliance, a federation government of numerous planets. The Alliance's military includes not only the Space Legion, but also the Regular Army and Starfleet. The Space Legion is considered the lowest on the totem pole, and the laughingstock of the armed forces. Space Legion protocol has all persons using a pseudonym chosen upon enlistment, and commissions are purchased. It is a violation of Legion rules to release ''another'' Legion member's real name, but not to reveal one's own.Robert Asprin, Phule's Company, Ace Books. After being court-martialed for inadvertently ordering the strafing of a peace conference, Captain Jester is shipped off to command the Omega Company, a dumping ground for the Leg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comic Science Fiction
Science fiction comedy (sci-fi comedy) or comic science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy that exploits the science-fiction (SF) genre's conventions for comedic effect. Comic science fiction often mocks or satirizes standard SF conventions – such as alien invasion of Earth, interstellar travel, or futuristic technology. It can also satirize and criticize present-day society. An early example was the '' Pete Manx'' series by Henry Kuttner and Arthur K. Barnes (sometimes writing together and sometimes separately, under the house pen-name of Kelvin Kent). Published in ''Thrilling Wonder Stories'' in the late 1930s and early 1940s, the series featured a time-traveling carnival barker who uses his con-man abilities to get out of trouble. Two later series cemented Kuttner's reputation as one of the most popular early writers of comic science fiction: the ''Gallegher'' series (about a drunken inventor and his narcissistic robot) and the ''Hogben'' series ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kleptomania
Kleptomania is the inability to resist the urge to steal items, usually for reasons other than personal use or financial gain. First described in 1816, kleptomania is classified in psychiatry as an impulse control disorder. Some of the main characteristics of the disorder suggest that kleptomania could be an obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorder, but also share similarities with addictive and mood disorders. The disorder is frequently under-diagnosed and is regularly associated with other psychiatric disorders, particularly anxiety, eating disorders, alcohol and substance use. Patients with kleptomania are typically treated with therapies in other areas due to the comorbid grievances rather than issues directly related to kleptomania. Over the last 100 years, a shift from psychotherapeutic to psychopharmacological interventions for kleptomania has occurred. Pharmacological treatments using selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), mood stabilizers and opioid recepto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction Book Series
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] |
Novels By Robert Asprin
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Heck
Peter Jewell Heck (born September 4, 1941, in Chestertown, Maryland) is an American science fiction and mystery author. His books include the "Mark Twain Mysteries"—historical whodunits featuring the famous author as a detective—and four books in the "Phule's Company" series, in collaboration with Robert Asprin, best described as "F-Troop in space". He also wrote the 36th chapter of Atlanta Nights, a book meant to ruin PublishAmerica's reputation. Heck has also been an editor at Ace Books (where he edited Lynn S. Hightower and Robert J. Sawyer, among others), and created the SF newsletter ''Xignals'' and its mystery equivalent ''Crime Times'' for the Waldenbooks chain. He is also a regular reviewer for Asimov's Science Fiction and Kirkus Reviews. In 2007, Heck began working as a reporter at the Kent County News in Chestertown, MD, where he and his wife moved after a number of years in Brooklyn, NY. His work for the paper includes articles on local government and history, hea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. His energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style, combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines during a civil rights movement, transformative era in race relations, led him to both great success and Cultural impact of Elvis Presley#Danger to American culture, initial controversy. Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and relocated to Memphis, Tennessee, with his family when he was 13 years old. His music career began there in 1954, recording at Sun Records with producer Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African-American music to a wider audience. Presley, on rhythm acoustic guitar, and accompanied by lead ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Universal Translator
A universal translator is a device common to many science fiction works, especially on television. First described in Murray Leinster's 1945 novella " First Contact", the translator's purpose is to offer an instant translation of any language. As a convention, it is used to remove the problem of translating between alien languages when it is not vital to the plot. Especially in science fiction television, translating a new language in every episode when a new species is encountered would consume time normally allotted for plot development and would potentially become repetitive to the point of annoyance. Occasionally, intelligent alien races are portrayed as being able to extrapolate the rules of English from little speech and rapidly become fluent in it, making the translator unnecessary. While a ''universal'' translator seems unlikely, scientists continue to work towards similar real-world technologies involving small numbers of known languages. General As a rule, a universal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allosaur
''Allosaurus'' () is a genus of large carnosaurian theropod dinosaur that lived 155 to 145 million years ago during the Late Jurassic epoch (Kimmeridgian to late Tithonian). The name "''Allosaurus''" means "different lizard" alluding to its unique (at the time of its discovery) concave vertebrae. It is derived from the Greek (') ("different, other") and (') ("lizard / generic reptile"). The first fossil remains that could definitively be ascribed to this genus were described in 1877 by paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh. As one of the first well-known theropod dinosaurs, it has long attracted attention outside of paleontological circles. ''Allosaurus'' was a large bipedal predator. Its skull was light, robust and equipped with dozens of sharp, serrated teeth. It averaged in length for ''A. fragilis'', with the largest specimens estimated as being long. Relative to the large and powerful hindlimbs, its three-fingered forelimbs were small, and the body was balanced by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eskrima
Arnis, also known as Kali or Eskrima/Escrima, is the national martial art of the Philippines. The three are roughly interchangeable umbrella terms for the traditional martial arts of the Philippines ("Filipino Martial Arts", or FMA), which emphasize martial arts weapons, weapon-based fighting with stick fighting, sticks, knife fighting, knives, bladed weapons, and various improvised weapons, as well as "open hand" techniques without weapons. There have been campaigns for arnis to be nominated in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists, along with other Philippine martial arts. As of 2018, UNESCO has inscribed nine martial-arts–related intangible heritages. Name Arnis comes from ''arnés'', the Old Spanish for "armour" (''harness'' is an archaic English term from same root). It is said to derive from the armour costumes used in traditional ''Moros y Cristianos, Moro-moro'' stage plays, where actors fought mock battles with wooden swords. ''Arnes'' is also an archaic Spa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yakuza
, also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . The English equivalent for the term ''yakuza'' is gangster, meaning an individual involved in a Mafia-like criminal organization. The ''yakuza'' are known for their strict codes of conduct, their organized fiefdom nature and several unconventional ritual practices such as ''yubitsume'' or amputation of the left little finger. Members are often portrayed as males, wearing "sharp suits" with heavily tattooed bodies and slicked hair. This group is still regarded as being among "the most sophisticated and wealthiest criminal organizations". At their height, the ''yakuza'' maintained a large presence in the Japanese media and operated internationally. At their peak in the early 1960s, police estimated that the ''yakuza'' had a membership of more than 200,000."Police of Japan 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Military Science Fiction
Military science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction that features the use of science fiction technology, mainly weapons, for military purposes and usually principal characters who are members of a military organization involved in military activity, usually during a war; occurring sometimes on Earth in the future, or in outer space or on a different planet or planets. It exists in literature, comics, film, and video games. A detailed description of the conflict, the tactics and weapons used for it, and the role of a military service and the individual members of that military organization form the basis for a typical work of military science fiction. The stories often use features of actual past or current Earth conflicts, with countries being replaced by planets or galaxies of similar characteristics, battleships replaced by space battleships, and certain events changed so the author can extrapolate what might have occurred. Characteristics Traditional military values of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warthog
''Phacochoerus'' is a genus in the family Suidae, commonly known as warthogs (pronounced ''wart-hog''). They are pigs who live in open and semi-open habitats, even in quite arid regions, in sub-Saharan Africa. The two species were formerly considered conspecific under the scientific name ''Phacochoerus aethiopicus'', but today this is limited to the desert warthog, while the best-known and most widespread species, the common warthog (or simply warthog), is ''Phacochoerus africanus''. Skull Although covered in bristly hairs, their bodies and heads appear largely naked from a distance, with only the crest along the back, and the tufts on their cheeks and tails being obviously haired. The English name refers to their facial wattles, which are particularly distinct in males. They also have very distinct tusks, which reach a length of in the males, but are always smaller in the females.Novak, R. M. (editor) (1999). ''Walker's Mammals of the World.'' Vol. 2. 6th edition. Johns Hopk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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