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Rocannon's World
''Rocannon's World'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, her literary debut. Published in 1966, it appeared as an Ace Double, with an opening entitled "Semley's Necklace" that first appeared as the stand-alone story, "The Dowry of Angyar", in ''Amazing Stories'' in September 1964. The novel is one of several of Le Guin's works taking place in the same universe and with relationships of characters and history, works that have been termed the Hainish Cycle (a term rejected by the author herself). Its story presents many elements of heroic fantasy. The novel's protagonist, "League of All Worlds" ethnographer Gaveral Rocannon, returns to planet Fomalhaut II after its quarantine to lead a further advanced survey of its "higher intelligence life forms" (hilfs). As the novel opens, a rebel faction of the League violently attacks his ship, taking the lives of all of his colleagues—and, in presaging invasion, endangers the future of the planet's sentien ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ursula K
Ursula commonly refers to: * Ursula (name), feminine name (and a list of people and fictional characters with the name) * Ursula (''The Little Mermaid''), a fictional character who appears in ''The Little Mermaid'' (1989) * Saint Ursula, a legendary Christian saint Ursula may also refer to: * ''Ursula'' (album), an album by American jazz pianist Mal Waldron * Ursula (crater), a crater on Titania, a moon of Uranus *Ursula (detention center) Ursula is the colloquial name for the Central Processing Center, the largest U.S. Customs and Border Protection detention center for undocumented immigrants. The facility is a retrofitted warehouse that can hold more than 1,000 people. It was ope ..., processing facility for unaccompanied minors in McAllen, Texas * Ursula Channel, body of water in British Columbia, Canada * 375 Ursula, a large main-belt asteroid * HMS ''Ursula'', a destroyer and two submarines that served with the Royal Navy * Tropical Storm Ursula (other), a typhoon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Time Dilation
Time dilation is the difference in elapsed time as measured by two clocks, either because of a relative velocity between them (special relativity), or a difference in gravitational potential between their locations (general relativity). When unspecified, "time dilation" usually refers to the effect due to velocity. The dilation compares "wristwatch" clock readings between events measured in different inertial frames and is not observed by visual comparison of clocks across moving frames. These predictions of the theory of relativity have been repeatedly confirmed by experiment, and they are of practical concern, for instance in the operation of satellite navigation systems such as GPS and Galileo. Invisibility Time dilation is a relationship between clock readings. Visually observed clock readings involve delays due to the propagation speed of light from the clock to the observer. Thus there is no direct way to observe time dilation. As an example of time dilation, two expe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Routledge
Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioral science, behavioural science, education, law, and social science. The company publishes approximately 1,800 journals and 5,000 new books each year and their backlist encompasses over 140,000 titles. Routledge is claimed to be the largest global academic publisher within humanities and social sciences. In 1998, Routledge became a subdivision and Imprint (trade name), imprint of its former rival, Taylor & Francis, Taylor & Francis Group (T&F), as a result of a £90-million acquisition deal from Cinven, a venture capital group which had purchased it two years previously for £25 million. Following the merger of Informa and T&F in 2004, Routledge became a publishing unit and major imprint within the Informa "academic publishing ... [...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, whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg (born January 15, 1935) is a prolific American science fiction author and editor. He is a multiple winner of both Hugo Award, Hugo and Nebula Awards, a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, and a SFWA Grand Master, Grand Master of SF since 2004. Especially noted Silverberg works include the novella ''Nightwings (novella), Nightwings'' (1969) and the novels ''Downward to the Earth'' (1970), ''The World Inside'' (1971), ''Dying Inside'' (1972), and ''Lord Valentine's Castle'' (1980; the first of the Majipoor series). Silverberg has attended every Hugo Award ceremony since the inaugural event in 1953. Biography Early life Silverberg was born on January 15, 1935, to Jew, Jewish parents in Brooklyn, New York. A voracious reader since childhood, he began submitting stories to science fiction magazines during his early teenage years. He received a BA in English Literature from Columbia University, in 1956. While at Columbia he wrote the juvenile ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthropocentrism
Anthropocentrism ( ) is the belief that human beings are the central or most important entity on the planet. The term can be used interchangeably with humanocentrism, and some refer to the concept as human supremacy or human exceptionalism. From an anthropocentric perspective, humankind is seen as separate from nature and superior to it, and other entities (animals, plants, minerals, etc.) are viewed as resources for humans to use. It is possible to distinguish between at least three types of anthropocentrism: perceptual anthropocentrism (which "characterizes paradigms informed by sense-data from human sensory organs"); descriptive anthropocentrism (which "characterizes paradigms that begin from, center upon, or are ordered around ''Homo sapiens'' / ‘the human'"); and normative anthropocentrism (which "characterizes paradigms that make assumptions or assertions about the superiority of ''Homo sapiens'', its capacities, the primacy of its values, rits position in the universe" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Other (philosophy)
In philosophy, the Other is a fundamental concept referring to anyone or anything perceived as distinct or different from oneself. This distinction is crucial for understanding how individuals construct their own identities, as the encounter with "otherness" helps define the boundaries of the "self."''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'' (1995) p. 673. In Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, the Other plays a particularly important role in this self-formation, acting as a kind of mirror against which the self is reflected and understood. The Other is not simply a neutral observer but an active participant in shaping the individual's self-image. This includes the idea of the "Constitutive Other," which refers to the internal relationship between a person's essential nature (personality) and their physical embodiment (body), reflecting the interplay of internal differences within the self. Beyond this individual level, the concept of "the Other" extends to broader social ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High Fantasy
High fantasy, or epic fantasy, is a subgenre of fantasy defined by the epic nature of its setting or by the epic stature of its characters, themes, or plot. Brian Stableford, ''The A to Z of Fantasy Literature'', (p. 198), Scarecrow Press, Plymouth. 2005. High fantasy is usually set in an alternative, fictional ("secondary") world, rather than the "real" or "primary" world. This secondary world is usually internally consistent, but its rules differ from those of the primary world. By contrast, low fantasy is characterized by being set on Earth, the primary or real world, or a rational and familiar fictional world with the inclusion of magical elements. Characteristics The term "high fantasy" was coined by Lloyd Alexander in a 1971 essay, "High Fantasy and Heroic Romance", which was originally given at the New England Round Table of Children's Librarians in October 1969. "High fantasy" often serves as a broad term to include a number of different flavors of the fantasy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trope (literature)
A literary trope is an artistic effect realized with figurative language – word, phrase, image – such as a rhetorical figure. In editorial practice, a ''trope'' is "a substitution of a word or phrase by a less literal word or phrase". Semantic change has expanded the definition of the literary term ''trope'' to also describe a writer's usage of commonly recurring or overused literary techniques and rhetorical devices (characters and situations), motifs, and clichés in a work of creative literature. Origins The term ''trope'' derives from the Greek (), 'a turn, a change', related to the root of the verb (), 'to turn, to direct, to alter, to change'; this means that the term is used metaphorically to denote, among other things, metaphorical language. Tropes and their classification were an important field in classical rhetoric. The study of tropes has been taken up again in modern criticism, especially in deconstruction. Tropological criticism (not to be confused with t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behaviour, while cultural anthropology studies cultural meaning, including norms and values. The term sociocultural anthropology is commonly used today. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life. Biological anthropology, Biological (or physical) anthropology studies the biology and evolution of Human evolution, humans and their close primate relatives. Archaeology, often referred to as the "anthropology of the past," explores human activity by examining physical remains. In North America and Asia, it is generally regarded as a branch of anthropology, whereas in Europe, it is considered either an independent discipline or classified under related fields like history and palaeontology. Etymology The abstract noun ''wikt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Wave Science Fiction
The New Wave was a science fiction style of the 1960s and 1970s, characterized by a great degree of experimentation with the form and content of stories, greater imitation of the styles of non-science fiction literature, and an emphasis on the psychological and social sciences as opposed to the physical sciences. New Wave authors often considered themselves as part of the modernist tradition of fiction, and the New Wave was conceived as a deliberate change from the traditions of the science fiction characteristic of pulp magazines, which many of the writers involved considered irrelevant or unambitious. The most prominent source of New Wave science fiction was the British magazine '' New Worlds'', edited by Michael Moorcock, who became editor during 1964. In the United States, Harlan Ellison's 1967 anthology '' Dangerous Visions'' is often considered as the best early representation of the genre. Worldwide, Ursula K. Le Guin, Stanisław Lem, J. G. Ballard, Samuel R. Delany, R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faster-than-light
Faster-than-light (superluminal or supercausal) travel and communication are the conjectural propagation of matter or information faster than the speed of light in vacuum (). The special theory of relativity implies that only particles with zero rest mass (i.e., photons) may travel ''at'' the speed of light, and that nothing may travel faster. Particles whose speed exceeds that of light ( tachyons) have been hypothesized, but their existence would violate causality and would imply time travel. The scientific consensus is that they do not exist. According to all observations and current scientific theories, matter travels at slower-than-light (subluminal) speed with respect to the locally distorted spacetime region. Speculative faster-than-light concepts include the Alcubierre drive, Krasnikov tubes, traversable wormholes, and quantum tunneling. Some of these proposals find loopholes around general relativity, such as by expanding or contracting space to make the object ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
