Wonder's Child: My Life in Science Fiction PDF Download

Author: Russell A. Snopek
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 141162730X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Here's a retro science fiction novel that baby boomers will appreciate. If your childhood dream was to pilot a rocket ship, live on the moon, or travel to the stars, this is the sci-fi adventure for you!In 1966 my teenage friends and I were enthralled by the prospect of space travel. I envisioned building a personal spacecraft, lunar outpost, and an asteroid starship. This didn't seem like a stretch to me, any more than a time-traveling UFO landing in my back yard did! One fateful night I had the opportunity to see the future, and it was everything that I imagined. My now-grown friends had found the means to achieve our dreams-although, not quite the way I predicted, after all, life has a way of exacting its toll. Luckily, I arrived in time to witness the completion of our greatest scientific endeavor. Join me now for a good old-fashioned, outer space adventure with the awe and mystery that you haven't experienced since you were, well...a kid!

Author: Jack Williamson
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0575112115
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Science fiction legend Jack Williamson's classic autobiography is much more than the story of a single man's life and work; it is an amazing look at the entire 20th century from the perspective of a man on a "long search for endurable compromise with society." Born in 1908, Williamson often felt at odds with the world around him and began writing science fiction as a method of escape. His tentative entrance into the field - his first story was published in 1928 in Hugo Gernsbach's legendary Amazing Stories - soon transformed him from a pulp writer into one of the Grand Masters of science fiction.

Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0575121874
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
Arthur C. Clarke acquired his first science fiction magazine - a copy of Astounding Stories - in 1930, when he was 13. Immediately he became an avid reader and collector: and, soon enough, a would-be-writer. The rest is history. Now, in Astounding Days, he looks back over those impressed by him, discussing their scientific howlers, and their remarkable proportion of predictive bulls-eyes - and writing of his early life and career. Written with relaxed good humour, Astounding Days is full of fascinating comment and anecdote.

Author: Isaac Asimov
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0307573532
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 609

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Book Description
Arguably the greatest science fiction writer who ever lived, Isaac Asimov also possessed one of the most brilliant and original minds of our time. His accessible style and far-reaching interests in subjects ranging from science to humor to history earned him the nickname “the Great Explainer.” I. Asimov is his personal story—vivid, open, and honest—as only Asimov himself could tell it. Here is the story of the paradoxical genius who wrote of travel to the stars yet refused to fly in airplanes; who imagined alien universes and vast galactic civilizations while staying home to write; who compulsively authored more than 470 books yet still found the time to share his ideas with some of the great minds of our century. Here are his wide-ranging thoughts and sharp-eyed observations on everything from religion to politics, love and divorce, friendship and Hollywood, fame and mortality. Here, too, is a riveting behind-the-scenes look at the varied personalities—Campbell, Ellison, Heinlein, Clarke, del Rey, Silverberg, and others—who along with Asimov helped shape science fiction. As unique and irrepressible as the man himself, I. Asimov is the candid memoir of an incomparable talent who entertained readers for nearly half a century and whose work will surely endure into the future he so vividly envisioned.

Author: S. M. Stirling
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101043911
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description
S. M. Stirling presents his first Novel of the Change, the start of the New York Times bestselling postapocalyptic saga set in a world where all technology has been rendered useless. The Change occurred when an electrical storm centered over the island of Nantucket produced a blinding white flash that rendered all electronic devices and fuels inoperable—and plunged the world into a dark age humanity was unprepared to face... Michael Pound was flying over Idaho en route to the holiday home of his passengers when the plane’s engines inexplicably died, forcing a less than perfect landing in the wilderness. And as Michael leads his charges to safety, he begins to realize that the engine failure was not an isolated incident. Juniper McKenzie was singing and playing guitar in a pub when her small Oregon town was thrust into darkness. Now, taking refuge in her family’s cabin with her daughter and a growing circle of friends, Juniper is determined to create a farming community to benefit the survivors of this crisis. But even as people band together to help one another, others are building armies for conquest...

Author: Xavier Dollo
Publisher: Humanoids, Inc.
ISBN: 164337947X
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Journey through time and space with this graphic novel history of the science fiction genre.

Author: Julius Schwartz
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
ISBN: 9780380810512
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Before there was Superman or Batman, before Ray Bradbury or Harlan Ellison ever picked up a pen, before there were science-fiction fans and conventions, there was Julius Schwartz -- a man who would have an indelible effect on all this and more. One of the inventors of science-fiction fandom in the thirties and publisher of the first SF "fanzine" (one of its early subscribers was Superman's cocreator Jerry Siegel), Julius Schwartz became the world's first SF specialty literary agent while still in his teens. During the "Golden Age" of science fiction, he represented a distinguished roster of authors, including H. P. Lovecraft, Alfred Bester, Robert Bloch, and Ray Bradbury. But that was only the first chapter in Schwartzs amazing career, for he is also one of the most influential editors in comic-book history. Besides working on both the Superman and Batman character she created much of the mythology we now take for granted. Schwartz was also responsible for revitalizing nearly every important DC Comics character, highlighted by the mighty Justice League of America, in what has since become known as comics' beloved "Silver Age." Over more than forty years, Schwartz captained such blazing talents of the comics industry as Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Curt Swan, Neal Adams, Denny O'Neil, Alan Moore, and many others. Here, in "Julie's" own words, is a behind-the-scenes look at a life spent having fun and making sure readers did, too -- the incredible story of a true hero of American pop culture.

Author: Randall Frakes
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1683835905
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
This companion to the AMC’s mini-series features the full interviews plus essays by sci-fi insiders and rare concept art from Cameron’s archives. For the show, James Cameron personally interviewed six of the biggest names in science fiction filmmaking—Guillermo del Toro, George Lucas, Christopher Nolan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ridley Scott, and Steven Spielberg—to get their perspectives on the importance of the genre. This book reproduces the interviews in full as the greatest minds in the genre discuss key topics including alien life, time travel, outer space, dark futures, monsters, and intelligent machines. An in-depth interview with Cameron is also featured, plus essays by experts in the science fiction field on the main themes covered in the show. Illustrated with rare and previously unseen concept art from Cameron’s personal archives, plus imagery from iconic sci-fi movies, TV shows, and books, James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction offers a sweeping examination of a genre that continues to ask questions, push limits, and thrill audiences around the world.

Author: Phil Lesh
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
ISBN: 0316027812
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
The legendary bass player tells the full, true story of his years with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead in this "insightful and entertaining" (Austin Chronicle) memoir of life in the greatest improvisational band in American history. In a book "as graceful and sublime as a box of rain" (New York Times Book Review), the beloved bassist tells the stories behind the songs, tours, and jams in the Grateful Dead's long, strange trip from the 1960s to the death of Jerry Garcia in 1995 and beyond. From Ken Kesey's "acid tests" to the Summer of Love to bestselling albums and worldwide tours, the Dead's story has never been told as honestly or as memorably as in this remarkable memoir. "A fun ride...Even for the most well-read Deadhead, there's enough between the covers to make Searching for the Sound worth a look." —Associated Press

Author: Robert McCrum
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307363694
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1998. "To all concerned, this book is meant to send a ghostly signal across the dark universe of ill-health that says 'you are not alone.'" - Robert McCrum On July 29, 1995, Robert McCrum, 42, married only ten weeks, suffered a paralyzing stroke. Overnight, his life shifted irrevocably. But this admired novelist and former editorial director of the London publishing house Faber and Faber decided to chronicle what became a remarkable journey "into that mysterious, unexplored territory, the neighbourly world of the unwell," as well as a deeply moving love story.