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Force Field (fiction)
In speculative fiction, a force field, sometimes known as an energy shield, force shield, energy bubble or deflector shield, is a barrier made of things like energy, negative energy, dark energy, electromagnetic fields, gravitational fields, electric fields, quantum fields, plasma, particles, radiation, solid light, or pure force. It protects a person, area, or object from attacks or intrusions or even deflects energy attacks back at the attacker. This fictional technology is created as a field of energy without mass that acts as a wall, so that objects affected by the particular force relating to the field are unable to pass through the field and reach the other side, are deflected or destroyed. Actual research in the 21st century has looked into the potential to deflect radiation or cosmic rays, but also more extensive shielding. This concept has become a staple of many science-fiction works, so much so that authors frequently do not even bother to explain or justify them ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magical Shield
Magical is the adjective for Magic (other), magic. It may also refer to: * Magical (horse) (foaled 2015), Irish Thoroughbred racehorse * Magical (song), "Magical" (song), released in 1985 by John Parr * ''Magical: Disney's New Nighttime Spectacular of Magical Celebrations'', a 2009–2014 summer fireworks show at Disneyland * Magical Company, a Japanese entertainment company {{Disambig ... [...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] |
Video Games
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedback mostly commonly is shown on a video display device, such as a TV set, monitor, touchscreen, or virtual reality headset. Some computer games do not always depend on a graphics display, for example text adventure games and computer chess can be played through teletype printers. Video games are often augmented with audio feedback delivered through speakers or headphones, and sometimes with other types of feedback, including haptic technology. Video games are defined based on their platform, which include arcade video games, console games, and personal computer (PC) games. More recently, the industry has expanded onto mobile gaming through smartphones and tablet computers, virtual and augmented reality systems, and remote cloud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Not Final!
"Not Final!" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov, originally published in the October 1941 issue of '' Astounding Science Fiction'', and included in the 1972 collection ''The Early Asimov''. Its sequel, " Victory Unintentional", is a robot story. These are two of the few stories by Asimov to postulate non-human intelligences in the Solar system. Plot summary Earth colonists on Ganymede, the largest satellite of Jupiter, have discovered the existence of intelligent life on the planet's surface. They manage to establish communication with the Jovians by means of a "radio-click" code, and exchange scientific information. When the Jovians realise that the humans are not like them, they break off communication with a threat to destroy what they see as inferior beings. Scientists on Ganymede realize that no possible Jovian ship could leave the surface without utilizing force-field technology, and experimentally determine that said technology cannot be made ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Breeds There A Man
"Breeds There a Man...?" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the June 1951 issue of ''Astounding'' and was reprinted in science fiction anthologies such as '' Beachheads in Space'' (1952) and ''The Great SF Stories #13 (1951)'' (published in 1985), as well as in Asimov-only collections such as '' Through a Glass, Clearly'' (1967), '' Nightfall and Other Stories'' (1969). and ''Robot Dreams'' (1986). Plot summary Elwood Ralson, a brilliant but psychologically disturbed physicist, becomes convinced that humanity is a kind of genetics experiment being run by an alien intelligence. His behaviour becomes more erratic and suicidal as his thoughts become more entrenched in this idea, and his health fails. He draws an analogy between human progress and the growth of bacteria that suggests that humanity has been bred in certain strains for various traits (e.g. artistic ability) and that such breeding is what produced the Athens o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galactic Empire (Asimov)
The Galactic Empire is an interstellar empire featured in Isaac Asimov's ''Robot'', ''Galactic Empire'', and '' Foundation'' series. The Empire is spread across the Milky Way galaxy and consists of almost 25 million planets settled exclusively by humans. For over 12 millennia the seat of imperial authority was located on the ecumenopolis of Trantor, whose population exceeded 40 billion, until it was sacked in the year 12,328. The official symbol of the empire is the Spaceship-and-Sun. Cleon II was the last Emperor to hold significant authority. The fall of the empire, modelled on the fall of the Roman Empire, is the subject of many of Asimov's novels. Background Asimov created the fictional Galactic Empire in the early 1940s based upon the Roman Empire, as a proposal to John W. Campbell, after reading Edward Gibbon's ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'' when he was working at the Philadelphia Navy Yard with Robert Heinlein. The concept evolved through ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foundation Series
The ''Foundation'' series is a science fiction book series written by American author Isaac Asimov. First published as a series of short stories in 1942–50, and subsequently in three collections in 1951–53, for thirty years the series was a trilogy: '' Foundation''; '' Foundation and Empire''; and '' Second Foundation''. It won the one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966. Asimov began adding new volumes in 1981, with two sequels: ''Foundation's Edge'' and '' Foundation and Earth'', and two prequels: '' Prelude to Foundation'' and ''Forward the Foundation''. The premise of the stories is that, in the waning days of a future Galactic Empire, the mathematician Hari Seldon spends his life developing a theory of psychohistory, a new and effective mathematics of sociology. Using statistical laws of mass action, it can predict the future of large populations. Seldon foresees the imminent fall of the Empire, which encompasses the entire Milky Way, and a Dark Age ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isaac Asimov
yi, יצחק אזימאװ , birth_date = , birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR , spouse = , relatives = , children = 2 , death_date = , death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S. , nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (1922–1928)American (1928–1992) , occupation = Writer, professor of biochemistry , years_active = 1939–1992 , genre = Science fiction ( hard SF, social SF), mystery, popular science , subject = Popular science, science textbooks, essays, history, literary criticism , education = Columbia University ( BA, MA, PhD) , movement = Golden Age of Science Fiction , module = , signature = Isaac Asimov signature.svg Isaac Asimov ( ; 1920 – April 6, 1992) was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 book ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Night Land
''The Night Land'' is a horror/fantasy novel by English writer William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1912. As a work of fantasy it belongs to the Dying Earth subgenre. Hodgson also published a much shorter version of the novel, entitled '' The Dream of X'' (1912). Publication history ''The Night Land'' was revived in paperback by Ballantine Books, which republished the work in two parts as the 49th and 50th volumes of its Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in July 1972. H. P. Lovecraft's essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature" describes the novel as "one of the most potent pieces of macabre imagination ever written". Clark Ashton Smith wrote of it: When the book was written, the nature of the energy source that powers stars was not known: Lord Kelvin had published calculations based on the hypothesis that the energy came from the gravitational collapse of the gas cloud that had formed the sun and found that this mechanism gave the Sun a lifetime of only a few tens of m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Hope Hodgson
William Hope Hodgson (15 November 1877 – 19 April 1918) was an English author. He produced a large body of work, consisting of essays, short fiction, and novels, spanning several overlapping genres including horror, fantastic fiction, and science fiction.Alder, Emily. "Passing the Barrier or Life: Spiritualism, Psychical Research and Boundaries in William Hope Hodgson's "The Night Land"". in Ramone, Jenni and Twitchen, Gemma, eds. ''Boundaries''. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007. (pp. 120-139). Stableford, Brian, "Hodgson, William Hope", in Pringle, David ed., ''St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost & Gothic Writers''. London: St. James Press, 1998. (pp. 273-275). Hodgson used his experiences at sea to lend authentic detail to his short horror stories, many of which are set on the ocean, including his series of linked tales forming the " Sargasso Sea Stories". His novels, such as ''The House on the Borderland'' (1908) and ''The Night Land'' (1912), feature more cosmi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Elmer Smith
Edward Elmer Smith (May 2, 1890 – August 31, 1965), publishing as E. E. Smith, Ph.D. and later as E. E. "Doc" Smith, was an American food engineer (specializing in doughnut and pastry mixes) and science-fiction author, best known for the ''Lensman'' and ''Skylark'' series. He is sometimes called the father of space opera. Biography Family and education Edward Elmer Smith was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, on May 2, 1890, to Fred Jay Smith and Caroline Mills Smith, both staunch Presbyterians of British ancestry. His mother was a teacher born in Michigan in February 1855; his father was a sailor, born in Maine in January 1855 to an English father.1900 Census, House 1515, Residence 438, Family 371, 3rd Ward of Spokane County, Washington, recorded June 13, 1900, accessed via online census images at heritagequest.com They moved to Spokane, Washington, the winter after Edward Elmer was born, where Mr. Smith was working as a contractor in 1900. In 1902, the family moved to Senea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spacehounds Of IPC
''Spacehounds of IPC'' is a science fiction novel by American writer E. E. Smith. It was first published in book form in 1947 by Fantasy Press in an edition of 2,008 copies. It was the first book published by Fantasy Press. The novel was originally serialized in the August, September and October issues of the magazine ''Amazing Stories'' in 1931. Smith was disenchanted when he saw editor T. O'Conor Sloane's unauthorized changes in the story, most likely made to give equal length to each of the three parts it had been split into. The story was the first to use the term "tractor beam", a name and concept that has been adopted by many subsequent literary works of fiction and other media to the present day. Plot synopsis The Inter-Planetary Corporation's (IPC) space-liner, ''IPV Arcturus'', takes off on a routine flight to Mars. Brilliant physicist Dr. Percival (“Steve”) Stevens is aboard to validate the work of the ship's pilots in response to reports by the Check Stat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
