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International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day
International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day is a commemoration declared by author Jo Walton, held on April 23 and first celebrated in 2007, in response to remarks made by Howard V. Hendrix stating that he was opposed "to the increasing presence in our organization the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America of webscabs, who post their creations on the net for free". The purpose of the day, according to Walton, was to encourage writers to post "professional quality" works for free on the internet. The name of the day originates from the assertion by Hendrix that the " webscabs" are "converting the noble calling of Writer into the life of Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch." Many notable authors contributed to International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day 2007, including Chaz Brenchley, Steven Brust, Emma Bull, Debra Doyle, Diane Duane, Naomi Kritzer, Jay Lake, David Langford, Sharon Lee, Beth Meacham, Steve Miller, Andrew Plotkin, Robert Reed, Will Shetterly, Sherwood S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Jo Walton
Jo Walton (born 1964) is a Welsh-Canadian fantasy and science fiction writer and poet. She is best known for the fantasy novel '' Among Others'', which won the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 2012, and '' Tooth and Claw'', a Victorian-era novel with dragons which won the World Fantasy Award in 2004. Other works by Walton include the ''Small Change'' series, in which she blends alternate history with the cozy mystery genre, comprising '' Farthing'', '' Ha'penny'' and '' Half a Crown''. Her fantasy novel '' Lifelode'' won the 2010 Mythopoeic Award, and her alternate history '' My Real Children'' received the 2015 Tiptree Award. Walton is also known for her non-fiction, including book reviews and SF commentary in the magazine '' Tor.com''. A collection of her articles were published in ''What Makes This Book So Great'' (2014), which won the Locus Award for Best Non-Fiction. Background Walton was born in 1964 in Aberdare, a town in the Cynon Valley of Wales. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Andrew Plotkin
Andrew Plotkin (born May 15, 1970), also known as Zarf, is an American programmer and writer. He is a central figure in the modern interactive fiction (IF) community. Having both written a number of award-winning games and developed a range of new file formats, interpreters, and other utilities for the design, production, and running of IF games, Plotkin is widely recognised for both his creative and his technical contributions to the homebrew IF scene. Interactive fiction Plotkin was one of the earliest writers to use Graham Nelson's Inform development system, and one of the first since Infocom's heyday to explore the boundaries of interactive fiction as an artistic medium. Many later authors cite him as a primary influence. He has won many awards within the community, and is frequently interviewed for magazine articles about interactive fiction. Plotkin has also made major technical contributions to the interactive fiction medium, designing the Blorb archive format, the Glk I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
April Observances
April is the fourth month of the year in the Gregorian and Julian calendars. Its length is 30 days. April is commonly associated with the season of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is the seasonal equivalent to October in the Northern Hemisphere and vice versa. History The Romans gave this month the Latin name '' Aprilis''"April" in '' Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 1, p. 497. but the derivation of this name is uncertain. The traditional etymology is from the verb ''aperire'', "to open", in allusion to its being the season when trees and flowers begin to "open", which is supported by comparison with the modern Greek use of άνοιξη (''ánixi'') (opening) for spring. Since some of the Roman months were named in honor of divinities, and as April was sacred to the goddess Venus, her Veneralia being held on the first day, it has been suggested that Aprilis was originally her ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Science Fiction Literature
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life. The genre often explores human responses to the consequences of projected or imagined scientific advances. Science fiction is related to fantasy (together abbreviated SF&F), horror, and superhero fiction, and it contains many subgenres. The genre's precise definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Major subgenres include ''hard'' science fiction, which emphasizes scientific accuracy, and ''soft'' science fiction, which focuses on social sciences. Other notable subgenres are cyberpunk, which explores the interface between technology and society, and climate fiction, which addresses environmental issues. Precedents for scie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Science Fiction Organizations
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which study the physical world, and the social sciences, which study individuals and societies. While referred to as the formal sciences, the study of logic, mathematics, and theoretical computer science are typically regarded as separate because they rely on deductive reasoning instead of the scientific method as their main methodology. Meanwhile, applied sciences are disciplines that use scientific knowledge for practical purposes, such as engineering and medicine. The history of science spans the majority of the historical record, with the earliest identifiable predecessors to modern science dating to the Bronze Age in Egypt and Mesopotamia (). Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped the Greek natural philo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Martha Wells
Martha Wells (born September 1, 1964) is an American writer of speculative fiction. She has published a number of science fiction and fantasy novels, young adult novels, media tie-ins, short stories, and nonfiction essays on SF/F subjects; her novels have been translated into twelve languages. Wells is praised for the complex, realistically detailed societies she creates; this is often credited to her academic background in anthropology. She has won four Hugo Awards, two Nebula Awards and three Locus Awards for her science fiction series '' The Murderbot Diaries''. Wells is also known for her fantasy series '' Ile-Rien'' and ''The Books of the Raksura.'' Life Martha Wells was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and has a B.A. in Anthropology from Texas A&M University. She lives in College Station, Texas, with her husband. She was involved in SF/F fandom in college and was chairman of AggieCon 17. In May 2023, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Career As an aspiring writer Wells att ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Lawrence Watt-Evans (born 1954) is one of the pseudonyms of American science fiction and fantasy author Lawrence Watt Evans (another pseudonym, used primarily for science fiction, is Nathan Archer). Biography Born in Arlington, Massachusetts, as the fourth of six children, he made his first attempts at professional writing when he was eight. After graduating from Bedford High School in Bedford, Massachusetts, he attended Princeton University but left without a degree. By the rules of Princeton, he could not reapply for a year, during which he began to seriously try to sell his writing, but he sold nothing significant until ''The Lure of the Basilisk'' in 1979 (published 1980); he began then writing full-time. Despite having sold a short story and several articles under his real name, he initially submitted his first novel under a pseudonym. It was the editor of that novel, Lester del Rey, who first demanded for him to use his real name, and del Rey added the hyphen to create th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Catherynne M
Catherynne Morgan Valente (born May 5, 1979) is an American fiction writer, poet, and literary critic. For her speculative fiction novels she has won the annual James Tiptree, Jr. Award, Andre Norton Award, and Mythopoeic Award. Her short fiction has appeared in ''Clarkesworld Magazine'', the anthologies '' Salon Fantastique'' and ''Paper Cities'', and numerous "Year's Best" volumes. Her critical work has appeared in the ''International Journal of the Humanities'' as well as other essay collections. Career Valente's 2009 book ''Palimpsest'' won the Lambda Award for LGBT Science Fiction, Fantasy, or Horror. Her two-volume series ''The Orphan's Tales'' won the 2008 Mythopoeic Award, and its first volume, ''The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden'', won the 2006 James Tiptree Jr. Award and was nominated for the 2007 World Fantasy Award. In 2012, Valente won three Locus Awards: Best Novelette (''White Lines on a Green Field''), Best Novella (''Silently and Very Fast'') and Best ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Charles Stross
Charles David George "Charlie" Stross (born 18 October 1964) is a British writer of science fiction and fantasy. Stross specialises in hard science fiction and space opera. Between 1994 and 2004, he was also an active writer for the magazine '' Computer Shopper'' and was responsible for its monthly Linux column. He stopped writing for the magazine to devote more time to novels. However, he continues to publish freelance articles on the Internet. Early life and education Stross was born in Leeds, England. He showed an early interest in writing and wrote his first science fiction story at age 12. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in Pharmacy in 1986 and qualified as a pharmacist in 1987. In 1989, he enrolled at University of Bradford for a post-graduate degree in computer science. In 1990, he went to work as a technical author and programmer. In 2000, he began working as a writer full-time, as a technical writer at first, but then became successful as a fiction writer. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ryk Spoor
Ryk E. Spoor is an American science fiction and fantasy author, who also writes research grant proposals for a technology firm. He published his first novel, ''Digital Knight'', in 2003, and has gone on to publish over a dozen more novels, often in collaboration with author Eric Flint on their ''Boundary'' series. He is nicknamed "seawasp" or "Sea Wasp", an online handle he has been using since 1977 in venues such as LiveJournal, Dreamwidth and Usenet. Reception of his published works ''Digital Knight'' (2003) reached number 10 on ''Locus Magazine'' Bestsellers for paperbacks for the month of January 2004. A reviewer for the ''Shiny Book Review'' called Spoor's first published work "fun, fast read about things that go bump in the night" and "a fine debut novel that does just about everything right". In reviewing the novel ''Grand Central Arena'', the reviewer for the ''Shiny Book Review'' called the book "an intelligently written space opera with a great deal to recommend it" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Sherwood Smith
Sherwood Smith (born May 29, 1951) is an American fantasy and science fiction writer for young adults and adults. Smith is a Nebula Award finalist and a longtime writing group organizer and participant. Smith's works include the YA novel '' Crown Duel''. Smith also collaborated with Dave Trowbridge in writing the '' Exordium'' series and with Andre Norton in writing two of the books in the '' Solar Queen'' universe. In 2001, her short story " Mom and Dad at the Home Front" was a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story. Smith's children's books have made it on many library Best Books lists. Her '' Wren's War'' was an Anne Spencer Lindbergh Honor Book, and it and '' The Spy Princess'' were Mythopoeic Fantasy Award finalists. Smith was formerly an officer of the Mythopoeic Society under her birth name, Christine Ione Smith, but prefers "Sherwood" both personally and professionally. Biography Sherwood Smith was born May 28, 1951, in Glendale, California. On her ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
