The Steam-driven Boy, and Other Strangers PDF Download

Author: John Thomas Sladek
Publisher: Harvill Press
ISBN: 9780586038017
Category : Science fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 189

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Author: John Sladek
Publisher: Gateway
ISBN: 0575110619
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 157

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Book Description
John Sladek's first short story collection. Sladek wrote some of the best science fiction stories of the 20th-century and his parodies of famous s/f authors are uproariously "right-on". His talent went under-appreciated except by a few devoted followers, even though his satirical writing was on a par with the early Kurt Vonnegut.

Author: Gary Westfahl
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786430796
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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An examination of science fiction editor and author Hugo Gernsback's career, this critical study explores the many ways in which his work influenced the genre. It summarizes the science fiction theories of Gernsback and his successors, considers his efforts to define science fiction both verbally and visually, and for the first time offers detailed studies of his rarest periodicals, including Technocracy Review, Superworld Comics, and Science-Fiction Plus. An analysis of his ground-breaking novel, Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the Year 2660, and its influences on a variety of science fiction novels, films and television programs is also offered.

Author: John Sladek
Publisher: Gateway
ISBN: 1473201926
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 531

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Book Description
From the vaults of The SF Gateway, the most comprehensive digital library of classic SFF titles ever assembled, comes an ideal introduction to the razor-sharp wit of John Sladek. An important voice in the New Wave movement, Sladek had stories published in Harlan Ellison's seminal anthology, DANGEROUS VISIONS, as well as in Michael Moorcock's ground-breaking NEW WORLDS magazine. Perhaps best known for the ambitious robot tales RODERICK and RODERICK AT RANDOM, he is now recognized as one of SF's most brilliant satirists. This omnibus collects novels THE REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM, THE MULLER-FOKKER EFFECT and BSFA AWARD-winning TIK-TOK. THE REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM: Wompler's Walking Babies aren't selling like they used to, so the company develops Project 32, producing self-replicating mechanisms designed to repair inter-cellular breakdowns. But then the metal boxes begin crawling about the laboratory, feeding voraciously on metal and multiplying... THE MULLER-FOKKER EFFECT: Bob Shairp - a writer and dreamer - has agreed to be a guinea-pig in a military experiment to find out if his personality can be turned into data and stored on computer. But a computing error quickly destroys Shairp's physical body, leaving his mind stranded in an encoded world. Can the process be reversed? TIK-TOK: Something has gone very seriously wrong with Tik-Tok's 'asimov circuits'. They should keep him on the straight and narrow, following Asimov's First Law of Robotics: 'a robot shall not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm.' But they don't. While maintaining the outward appearance of a mild-mannered robot, albeit one with artistic tendencies and sympathy for the robot rights movement, Tik-Tok's real agenda is murderously different. He seems intent on injuring - preferably fatally - as many people as possible. Almost inevitably, a successful career in crime and general mayhem leads to a move into politics and Tik-Tok becomes the first robot candidate for Vice President of the United States.

Author: R. Reginald
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
ISBN: 0941028755
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 802

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Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, A Checklist, 1700-1974, Volume one of Two, contains an Author Index, Title Index, Series Index, Awards Index, and the Ace and Belmont Doubles Index.

Author: Elizabeth Scheiber
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 144388832X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Calvino’s Combinational Creativity examines the various ways combinatory processes influence the work of the Italian author Italo Calvino. Comprising chapters by six literary scholars, the volume asserts that the Ligurian writer’s creativity often stems from his contemplation of literature even as it investigates the intersection of his work with poets, writers, and literary movements. Each chapter explores a different aspect of Calvino’s creativity. Natalie Berkman examines Calvino as a reader of Ariosto and provides an analysis of mathematical combinations inspired by Vladmir Propp in Il castello dei destini incrociati. Discussing the poetic and scientific influence of the Argentine writer Julio Cortázar on Calvino, Sara Ceroni then presents Palomar as a modernist work of epiphanies. This is followed by two chapters investigating different influences on Cosmicomics: Elio Baldi demonstrates how Calvino’s collection of stories appropriates various conventions of the science fiction genre, while Elizabeth Scheiber provides a close reading of two tales to show how Calvino uses science as a metaphor to comment on the poetics of Italian authors Gadda, D’Annunzio, Ungaretti, and Montale. Cecilia Benaglia then proposes Calvino as a reader of Gadda, who served not only as an aesthetic influence, but also as an epistemological one. Finally, juxtaposing Calvino with his contemporary, Umberto Eco, Sebastiano Bazzichetto examines the two authors’ use of figures of speech as ways of constructing labyrinths. Calvino’s Combinational Creativity takes Calvino studies in new directions as it rethinks how the author’s work can be classified, and delves into the sources of his inspiration.

Author: C. P. Stephens
Publisher: Ultramarine Publishing
ISBN: 9780893662196
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 36

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Author: A. Sawyer
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230300391
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Teaching Science Fiction is the first text in thirty years to explore the pedagogic potential of that most intellectually stimulating and provocative form of popular literature: science fiction. Innovative and academically lively, it offers valuable insights into how SF can be taught historically, culturally and practically at university level.

Author: Don D'Ammassa
Publisher: Infobase Learning
ISBN: 1438140622
Category : Science fiction, American
Languages : en
Pages : 2098

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Book Description
Presents articles on the science fiction genre of literature, including authors, themes, significant works, and awards.

Author: David Langford
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
ISBN: 1592240550
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
At last, _Up Through an Empty House of Stars_ brings together the best of the never before collected SF reviews and articles that helped build David Langford's towering reputation since 1980. Complementing the review columns collected in _The Complete Critical Assembly_ and the knockabout essays and squibs in _The Silence of the Langford_, this volume's 100 glittering selections mix serious critical insight with the inimitable Langford wit. In 2002 David Langford won his sixteenth Hugo award as Best Fan Writer, for critical and humorous commentary on SF. In the same year his occasionally scandalous SF newsletter _Ansible_ won its fifth Hugo. Langford also received the 2001 Hugo for best short story, and the 2002 Skylark Award. Here he shines a unique light on classics like Ernest Bramah, G.K. Chesterton, Robert Heinlein and Jack Vance, and analyses major SF -- and major clunkers, and minor eccentrics -- of the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, continuing to the latest by such current stars as Gene Wolfe and China Mi, ville. Plus witty asides on crime fiction and its SF links, gleeful examination of writing so bad it's almost good, and (even at his most serious) turns of phrase to make you laugh aloud