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Winter's King
"Winter's King" is a science fiction short story by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, originally published in the September 1969 issue of ''Orbit (anthology series), Orbit'', a fiction anthology. The story is part of the Hainish Cycle and explores topics such as the human effect of space travel at nearly the speed of light, as well as religious and political topics such as feudalism. "Winter's King" was one of four nominees for the 1970 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. Le Guin revised the story, focusing on pronoun gender, for its inclusion in her 1975 short story collection ''The Wind's Twelve Quarters''. Conception The story takes place on Gethen, the same planet shown in more detail in ''The Left Hand of Darkness''. It was in fact Le Guin's first vision of that place: The original story centred on the idea that someone could age 12 years while the rest of their world had aged sixty. (Itself one of many to address the point made by Albert Einstein: that if he could travel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
WikiProject Novels
A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is a Wikimedia movement affinity group for contributors with shared goals. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia, and exist to varying degrees within sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata, and Wikisource. They also exist in different languages, and translation of articles is a form of their collaboration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS News noted the role of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by '' Smithsonian'' for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the profile noted had "helped increase the number of female scientists on Wikipedia from around 1,600 to over 5,000". On Wikipedia Some Wikipedia WikiProjects are substantial enough to engage in cooperative activities with outside organizations relevant to the field at issue. For e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory of relativity, but he also made important contributions to the development of the theory of quantum mechanics. Relativity and quantum mechanics are the two pillars of modern physics. His mass–energy equivalence formula , which arises from relativity theory, has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation". His work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect", a pivotal step in the development of quantum theory. His intellectual achievements and originality resulted in "Einstein" becoming synonymous with "genius". In 1905, a year sometimes described as his ' ... [...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] |
1969 Short Stories
This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to London's Gatwick Airport, killing 50 of the 62 people on board and two of the home's occupants. * January 14 – An explosion aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-65), USS ''Enterprise'' near Hawaii kills 27 and injures 314. * January 19 – End of the siege of the University of Tokyo, marking the beginning of the end for the 1968–69 Japanese university protests. * January 20 – Richard Nixon is First inauguration of Richard Nixon, sworn in as the 37th President of the United States. * January 22 – Attempted assassination of Leonid Brezhnev, An assassination attempt is carried out on Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev by deserter Viktor Ilyin. One person is killed, several are injured. Leonid Brezhnev, Brezhnev es ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Androgyny
Androgyny is the possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics. Androgyny may be expressed with regard to biological sex, gender identity, or gender expression. When ''androgyny'' refers to mixed biological sex characteristics in humans, it often refers to intersex people, who are born with congenital variations that complicate assigning their sex at birth. In comparison, hermaphroditism is the possession of both male and female reproductive organs. Regarding gender identity, androgynous individuals may identify with non-binary identities. Others may identify as transgender. As a form of gender expression, androgyny has fluctuated in popularity in different cultures and throughout history. Physically, an androgynous appearance may be achieved through personal grooming, fashion, or hormone treatment. Etymology The term derives from grc, ἀνδρόγυνος, from , stem - (''anér, andro-'', meaning man) and (''gunē, gyné'', meaning woman) through the la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winter
Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Different cultures define different dates as the start of winter, and some use a definition based on weather. When it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and vice versa. In many regions, winter brings snow and freezing temperatures. The moment of winter solstice is when the Sun's elevation with respect to the North or South Pole is at its most negative value; that is, the Sun is at its farthest below the horizon as measured from the pole. The day on which this occurs has the shortest day and the longest night, with day length increasing and night length decreasing as the season progresses after the solstice. The earliest sunset and latest sunrise dates outside the polar regions differ from the date of the winte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Birthday Of The World
''The Birthday of the World and Other Stories'' is a collection of short fiction by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in March, 2002, by HarperCollins. All of the stories, except "Paradises Lost", were previously published individually elsewhere. The story which lends its name to the title of the collection was the most recent publication, in 2000. Only these two stories are not set on planets of the Ekumen. The collection was also published in London by Gollancz, an imprint of the Orion Group, in 2003. A softcover edition was published by Perennial that year. Contents *Foreword *"Coming of Age in Karhide" – 1995 in ''New Legends'' ed. G. Bear. Takes place on Gethen the planet of ''The Left Hand of Darkness'' which is part of the Ekumen. In the society of Karhide, where people are naturally hermaphroditic and only become male or female during a heat-like period called "kemmer," an adolescent matures and loses their virginity. *"The Matter of Seggri" – Spri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ansible
An ansible is a category of fictional devices or technology capable of near-instantaneous or faster-than-light communication. It can send and receive messages to and from a corresponding device over any distance or obstacle whatsoever with no delay, even between star systems. As a name for such a device, the word "ansible" first appeared in a 1966 novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. Since that time, the term has been broadly used in the works of numerous science fiction authors, across a variety of settings and continuities. A related term is ultrawave. Coinage by Ursula Le Guin Ursula K. Le Guin coined the word "ansible" in her 1966 novel ''Rocannon's World''. The word was a contraction of "answerable", as the device would allow its users to receive answers to their messages in a reasonable amount of time, even over interstellar distances. The plot device of the ansible was the basis for creating a specific kind of interstellar civilizationone where communications between far-flu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
City Of Illusions
''City of Illusions'' is a 1967 science fiction novel by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. It is set on Earth in the distant future, and is part of her Hainish Cycle. ''City of Illusions'' lays the foundation for the Hainish cycle which is a fictional universe in which the majority of Ursula K. Le Guin's science fiction novels take place. Plot introduction ''City of Illusions'' takes place on Earth, also known as Terra, in the future, twelve hundred years after an enemy named the Shing has broken up the defunct League of All Worlds and taken up residence on Earth. The indigenous inhabitants of Earth have been reduced to small communities that are widely separated, living in highly independent rural communes, or in nomadic tribes. The Shing control the human population by using various strategies of indirect manipulation, which include divide and rule, as well as deceptive telepathic mental projection, known as mind-lying. In contrast, innately truthful telepathy is known a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rip Van Winkle
"Rip Van Winkle" is a short story by the American author Washington Irving, first published in 1819. It follows a Dutch-American villager in colonial America named Rip Van Winkle who meets mysterious Dutchmen, imbibes their liquor and falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains. He awakes 20 years later to a very changed world, having missed the American Revolution. The concept is ancient, including the 70-year nap by Choni HaMeA-Gail. Irving, inspired by a conversation on nostalgia with his American expatriate brother-in-law, wrote his story while temporarily living in Birmingham, England. It was published in his collection, ''The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.'' While the story is set in New York's Catskill Mountains near where Irving later took up residence, he admitted, "When I wrote the story, I had never been on the Catskills." Plot Rip Van Winkle, a Dutch-American man with a habit of avoiding useful work, lives in a village at the foot of New York's Catskill Mount ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rocannon's World
''Rocannon's World'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, her literary debut. It was published in 1966 as an Ace Double, along with Avram Davidson's ''The Kar-Chee Reign'', following the tête-bêche format. Though it is one of Le Guin's many works set in the universe of the technological Hainish Cycle, the story itself has many elements of heroic fantasy. The hero Gaveral Rocannon encounters lords who live in castles and wield swords, and other races much like fairies and gnomes, in his travels on a backward planet. The word "ansible" for a faster-than-light communicator, was coined in the novel. The term has since been widely used in science fiction. Plot summary Semley's story The novel begins with a prologue called "Semley's Necklace", which was first published as a stand-alone story titled "The Dowry of Angyar" in ''Amazing Stories'' (September 1964). A young woman named Semley takes a space voyage from her unnamed, technologically primitiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Left Hand Of Darkness
''The Left Hand of Darkness'' is a science fiction novel by U.S. writer Ursula K. Le Guin. Published in 1969, it became immensely popular, and established Le Guin's status as a major author of science fiction. The novel is set in the fictional Hainish universe as part of the ''Hainish Cycle'', a series of novels and short stories by Le Guin, which she introduced in the 1964 short story " The Dowry of Angyar". It was fourth in sequence of writing among the Hainish novels, preceded by ''City of Illusions'', and followed by '' The Word for World Is Forest''. The novel follows the story of Genly Ai, a human native of Terra, who is sent to the planet of Gethen as an envoy of the Ekumen, a loose confederation of planets. Ai's mission is to persuade the nations of Gethen to join the Ekumen, but he is stymied by a lack of understanding of their culture. Individuals on Gethen are ''ambisexual'', with no fixed sex; this has a strong influence on the culture of the planet, and creates a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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