Book picks similar to
Science Fiction: The Illustrated Encyclopedia by John Clute
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The Three-Body Problem
Liu Cixin - 2006
An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.
Doctor Who: A History of the Universe in 100 Objects
Steve Tribe - 2012
From ancient urns and medieval flasks to sonic screwdrivers and glass Daleks, these 100 objects tell the story of the entire universe, and the most important man in it: the Doctor. Each item has a unique tale of its own, whether it's a fob watch at the onset of the Great War or a carrot growing on the first human colony on Mars. Taken together, they tell of empires rising and falling, wars won and lost, and planets destroyed and reborn. Within these pages lie hidden histories of Time Lords and Daleks, the legend of the Loch Ness Monster, the plot to steal the Mona Lisa and the story of Shakespeare's lost play. You'll find illustrated guides to invisible creatures, the secret origins of the internet, and how to speak Mechonoid. "A History of the Universe in 100 Objects" is an indispensible guide to the most important items that have ever existed, or that are yet to exist.
Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner
Paul M. Sammon - 1996
Dick's brilliant and troubling SF novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, still rules as the most visually dense, thematically challenging, and influential SF film ever made. Future Noir is the story of that triumph.The making of Blade Runner was a seven-year odyssey that would test the stamina and the imagination of writers, producers, special effects wizards, and the most innovative art directors and set designers in the industry.A fascinating look at the ever-shifting interface between commerce and the art that is modern Hollywood, Future Noir is the intense, intimate, anything-but-glamerous inside account of how the work of SF's most uncompromising author was transformed into a critical sensation, a commercial success, and a cult classic.
The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction
Edward JamesHelen Merrick - 2003
It is literature which draws on popular culture, and engages in speculation about science, history, and all varieties of social relations. This volume brings together essays by scholars and practitioners of science fiction, which look at the genre from different angles. It examines science fiction from Thomas More to the present day; and introduces important critical approaches (including Marxism, postmodernism, feminism and queer theory).
AHistory: An Unauthorized History of the Doctor Who Universe
Lance Parkin - 2006
In short, this book indexes virtually every "Doctor Who" event worth noting - starting at the beginning of time and running through to the universe's end. This guide is the vastly updated and revised successor to Parkin's hugely acclaimed "A History of the Universe" (1996), and contains more than double the material of the original. All told, "AHistory" incorporates: More than four decades of the "Doctor Who" TV show, including the 2007 series starring David Tennant; all original "Doctor Who" novels up through "Wooden Heart"; all "Doctor Who" novellas from Telos and all "Doctor Who" audios from Big Finish up through "The Wishing Beast." This Second Edition of "AHistory" also includes all Torchwood episodes and novels, plus the "Doctor Who Magazine" comic strip that's been running since 1979.
Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture
Ytasha L. Womack - 2013
From the sci-fi literature of Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler, and N. K. Jemisin to the musical cosmos of Sun Ra, George Clinton, and the Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am, to the visual and multimedia artists inspired by African Dogon myths and Egyptian deities, the book’s topics range from the “alien” experience of blacks in America to the “wake up” cry that peppers sci-fi literature, sermons, and activism. With a twofold aim to entertain and enlighten, Afrofuturists strive to break down racial, ethnic, and social limitations to empower and free individuals to be themselves.
Time Travel: A History
James Gleick - 2016
Gleick's story begins at the turn of the twentieth century with the young H. G. Wells writing and rewriting the fantastic tale that became his first book, an international sensation, The Time Machine. A host of forces were converging to transmute the human understanding of time, some philosophical and some technological the electric telegraph, the steam railroad, the discovery of buried civilizations, and the perfection of clocks. Gleick tracks the evolution of time travel as an idea in the culture from Marcel Proust to Doctor Who, from Woody Allen to Jorge Luis Borges. He explores the inevitable looping paradoxes and examines the porous boundary between pulp fiction and modern physics. Finally, he delves into a temporal shift that is unsettling our own moment: the instantaneous wired world, with its all-consuming present and vanishing future.
How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy
Orson Scott Card - 1990
Your readers are curious and want you to take them beyond ""The Fields We Know,"" to help them explore the infinite boundaries of the worlds you create.Here, science fiction great Orson Scott Card shares his expertise in these genres. You'll learn:- What is and isn't science fiction and fantasy, and by whose standards -- and where your work fits in.- How to build, populate, and dramatize a credible, inviting world your readers will want to explore.- How to use the MICE quotient -- milieu, idea, character, event -- to structure a successful story.- Where the markets are and how to reach them to get published.The knowledge and skills you gain through this book will help you effectively lead your readers into the strangeness you create -- one tantalizing step at a time.
Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It
Lynne M. ThomasJody Lynn Nye - 2010
These essays will delight male and female readers alike by delving into the extraordinary aspects of being a female Doctor Who enthusiast. Essays include Carole E. Barrowman discussing what it was like to grow up with her brother John (including the fact that he's still afraid of shop-window dummies), columnist Jackie Jenkins providing a Bridget Jones' Diary-style memoir of working on Doctor Who Magazine, novelist Lloyd Rose analyzing Rose's changes between the ninth and tenth Doctors and much more. Other contributors include Elizabeth Bear (Jenny Casey), Lisa Bowerman (Bernice Summerfield), Mary Robinette Kowal (Shades of Milk and Honey), Jody Lynn Nye (Mythology series), Kate Orman (Seeing I), and Catherynne M. Valente (The Orphan's Tales). Also featured is a comic from the Torchwood Babiez creators, plus interviews with Doctor Who companions India Fisher (Charley) and Sophie Aldred (Ace).
In the Balance
Harry Turtledove - 1994
Machines soared through the air, churned through the seas, crawled across the surface, pushing ever forward, carrying death. Earth was engaged in titanic struggle. Germany, Russia, France, China, Japan: the maps were changing day by day. The hostilities spread in ever-widening ripples of destruction: Britain, Italy, Africa...The fate of the world hung in the balance. Then the real enemy came. Out of the dark of night, out of the soft glow of dawn, out of the clear blue sky came an invasion force the likes of which Earth had never known - and worldwar was truly joined. The invaders were inhuman and they were unstoppable. Their technology was far beyond our reach, and their goal was simple. Fleetlord Atvar had arrived to claim Earth for the Empire. Never before had Earth's people been more divided. Never had the need for unity been greater. And grudgingly, inexpertly, humanity took up the challenge. In this epic novel of alternate history, Harry Turtledove takes us around the globe. We roll with German panzers; watch the coast of Britain with the RAF; and welcome alien-liberators to the Warsaw ghetto. In tiny planes we skim the vast Russian steppe, and we push the envelope of technology in secret labs at the University of Chicago. Turtledove's saga covers all the Earth, and beyond, as mankind - in all its folly and glory - faces the ultimate threat; and a turning point in history shows us a past that never was and a future that could yet come to be...
The Castle of the Otter
Gene Wolfe - 1982
It includes Urth humor and a lexicon of the words he used (every one of which is/was an actual word used at one time--a well known trait of Gene.) A must have, though a hard find, for any Gene Wolfe fan. And if you're not a fan, go be one, okay? It's way worth it.
Signs and Portents
Jane Killick - 1997
Michael Straczynski brought his ambitious vision to the screen.Then launch into a comprehensive overview of the groundbreaking premiere season, including in-depth, episode-by-episode summaries of all of the first twenty-two shows--from the pilot, "The Gathering," through the climactic season finale, "Chrysalis"--with analysis by author and B5 expert Jane Killick.Veteran viewers or first-time fans, relive the adventure--or find out what you've been missing--with the complete companions to Babylon 5!
Where No One Has Gone Before: A History in Pictures (Star Trek: All)
J.M. Dillard - 1994
These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise Her five-year mission: To explore strange, new worlds; To seek out new life and new civilizations; To boldly go where no man has gone before..."These words, first spoken on television on September 8, 1966, gave the world its first glimpse of Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future. Since that day nearly thirty years ago, Star Trek has become the most incredible collaborative effort ever seen in motion pictures, television, and publishing -- a phenomenon that has inspired seven movies, four television series, and a line of bestselling books. Star Trek's popularity is astounding; nearly fifty percent of the American public identify themselves as Star Trek fans.To celebrate Star Trek's heroic future vision for humanity, Pocket Books is pleased to present the updated, full-color, illustrated history of the Star Trek phenomenon: "Where No One Has Gone Before; A History in Pictures". From the genesis of The Original Series to the short-lived animated series, to the aborted second television series in the late 1970s, to Star Trek's resurgence in the movies and an incredible three more hit television shows, this is the complete Star Trek story -- an epic tale that now spans thirty years.With more than thirty pages of new material, "Where No One Has Gone Before" is the ultimate collector's edition and features personal accounts, anecdotes, and full-color photographs from the actors, fans, and backstage professionals who helped make the show so incredibly popular.The entertaining and informative text provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the world of Star Trek and includes essays by the master of science fiction and science fact, the late Dr. Isaac Asimov. The photo selection is the result of an exhaustive, national search for the best in Star Trek photography."Where No One Has Gone Before" is a book for all Star Trek fans, from the most loyal enthusiast to the causal viewer -- anyone who has marveled at adventures that continue to transport us all to the final frontier.
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
Charles Yu - 2010
. . through quantum space–time. Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. That’s where Charles Yu, time travel technician—part counselor, part gadget repair man—steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he’s not taking client calls or consoling his boss, Phil, who could really use an upgrade, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a one-hour cycle of time, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, and Ed, a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, in order to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory. He learns that the key may be found in a book he got from his future self. It’s called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and he’s the author. And somewhere inside it is the information that could help him—in fact it may even save his life.
The World of Star Trek
David Gerrold - 1984
Writer David Gerrold was on the set, watching it all happen: the feuds, the fun, the love - the magic that is still Star Trek. With over 50 pages of photos from your favorite episodes, and stills from all three movies!