Download or read book The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein written by Farah Mendlesohn and published by Unbound Publishing. This book was released on 2019-03-07 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert A. Heinlein began publishing in the 1940s at the dawn of the Golden Age of science fiction, and today he is considered one of the genre's 'big three' alongside Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. His short stories were instrumental in developing its structure and rhetoric, while novels such as Stranger in a Strange Land and Starship Troopers demonstrated that such writing could be a vehicle for political argument. Heinlein’s influence remains strong, but his legacy is fiercely contested. His vision of the future was sometimes radical, sometimes deeply conservative, and arguments have flared up recently about which faction has the most significant claim on his ideas. In this major critical study, Hugo Award-winner Farah Mendlesohn carries out a close reading of Heinlein’s work, including unpublished stories, essays, and speeches. It sets out not to interpret a single book, but to think through the arguments Heinlein made over a lifetime about the nature of science fiction, about American politics, and about himself.
Download or read book The Notebooks of Lazarus Long written by Robert Anson Heinlein and published by Baen Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an illustrated, hand-lettered edition of maxims, Lazarus Long, the oldest living member of the human race, shares his wit and wisdom culled from his twenty-four-century odyssey through space and time.
Download or read book The Pursuit of the Pankera written by Robert A. Heinlein and published by CAEZIK SF & Fantasy. This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First paperback publication of the national bestseller by one of the greatest science fiction writers of all time. "An absolutely essential and 'must read' novel for the legions of Robert Heinlein fans, The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes is an extraordinary work of science fiction"--Midwest Book Review "Heinlein still offers a rollicking ride even after all these years."-- The Oklahoman The Pursuit of the Pankera is one of the most audacious experiments ever done in science fiction by the legendary author of the classic bestseller Starship Troopers. Robert A. Heinlein wrote The Number of the Beast, which was published in 1980. In the book Zeb, Deety, Hilda and Jake are ambushed by the alien "Black Hats" and barely escape with their lives on a specially configured vehicle (the Gay Deceiver) which can travel along various planes of existence, allowing them to visit parallel universes. However, unknown to most fans, Heinlein had already written a "parallel" novel about the four characters and parallel universes in 1977. He effectively wrote two parallel novels about parallel universes. The novels share the same start, but as soon as the Gay Deceiver is used to transport them to a parallel universe, each book transports them to a totally different parallel world. From that point on the plot lines diverge completely. While The Number of the Beast morphs into something very different, more representative of later Heinlein works, The Pursuit of the Pankera remains on target with a much more traditional Heinleinesque storyline and ending, reminiscent of his earlier works. The Pursuit of the Pankera was never published and there have been many competing theories as to why (including significant copyright issues in 1977). Over time the manuscript was largely forgotten but survived in fragments. A recent re-examination of these fragments, however, made it clear that put together in the right order they constituted the complete novel. And here it finally is: Robert A. Heinlein's audacious experiment. A fitting farewell from one of the most inventive science fiction writers to have ever lived: a parallel novel about parallel universes as well as a great adventure pitting the forces of good versus evil only the way Heinlein could do.
Download or read book Spin written by Robert Charles Wilson and published by Tor Books. This book was released on 2010-07-01 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of Axis and Vortex, the first Hugo Award-winning novel in the environmental apocalyptic Spin Trilogy... One night in October when he was ten years old, Tyler Dupree stood in his back yard and watched the stars go out. They all flared into brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black barrier. He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what became known as the Big Blackout. It would shape their lives. The effect is worldwide. The sun is now a featureless disk--a heat source, rather than an astronomical object. The moon is gone, but tides remain. Not only have the world's artificial satellites fallen out of orbit, their recovered remains are pitted and aged, as though they'd been in space far longer than their known lifespans. As Tyler, Jason, and Diane grow up, space probe reveals a bizarre truth: The barrier is artificial, generated by huge alien artifacts. Time is passing faster outside the barrier than inside--more than a hundred million years per day on Earth. At this rate, the death throes of the sun are only about forty years in our future. Jason, now a promising young scientist, devotes his life to working against this slow-moving apocalypse. Diane throws herself into hedonism, marrying a sinister cult leader who's forged a new religion out of the fears of the masses. Earth sends terraforming machines to Mars to let the onrush of time do its work, turning the planet green. Next they send humans...and immediately get back an emissary with thousands of years of stories to tell about the settling of Mars. Then Earth's probes reveal that an identical barrier has appeared around Mars. Jason, desperate, seeds near space with self-replicating machines that will scatter copies of themselves outward from the sun--and report back on what they find. Life on Earth is about to get much, much stranger. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Download or read book The Green Hills of Earth written by Robert A. Heinlein and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2014-12-22 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nine ships blasted off from Moon Base. Once in space, eight of them formed a globe around the smallest. They held this formation all the way to Earth. The small ship displayed the insignia of an admiral - yet there was no living thing of any sort in her. She was not even a passenger ship, but a drone, a robot ship intended for radioactive cargo. This trip she carried nothing but a lead coffin - and a Geiger counter that was never quiet.
Download or read book Magic Monsters and Make Believe Heroes written by Douglas E. Cowan and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Magic, Monsters, and Make-Believe Heroes looks at fantasy film, television, and participative culture as evidence of our ongoing need for a mythic vision—for stories larger than ourselves into which we write ourselves and through which we can become the heroes of our own story. Why do we tell and retell the same stories over and over when we know they can’t possibly be true? Contrary to popular belief, it’s not because pop culture has run out of good ideas. Rather, it is precisely because these stories are so fantastic, some resonating so deeply that we elevate them to the status of religion. Illuminating everything from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Dungeons and Dragons, and from Drunken Master to Mad Max, Douglas E. Cowan offers a modern manifesto for why and how mythology remains a vital force today.
Download or read book Outward Bound written by James P. Hogan and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2000-02-15 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 15-year-old homeless boy in 22nd-century Los Angeles gets involved in a heist-gone-sour and is sent to a grueling labor camp. He is about to lose all hope when a mysterious psychologist offers him the chance of a lifetime. Can the boy overcome one of the worst neighborhoods on Earth by proving his worth on a mission beyond the stars?
Download or read book Farmer in the Sky written by Robert A. Heinlein and published by Baen. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1. Heinlein wrote an amazing string of novels which made the New York Times best seller list and shipped over a million copies each, including Time Enough for Love, The Number of the Beast, Friday, Job: A Comedy of Justice, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, and To Sail Beyond the Sunset. 2. Over 25 million Heinlein books are in print in the U.S. alone. For over four decades, his Stranger in a Strange Land has been, not just one of the top-selling science fiction novels, but one of the top-selling novels, period. 3. Stephen King has called Heinlein “Not only America’s premier writer of speculative fiction, but the greatest writer of such fiction in the world.” And Dean Koontz agrees: “If there is any single author who defines science fiction, it is Robert Heinlein . . . there is no other writer whose work has exhilarated me as often and to such an extent as Heinlein.” 4. Advertising in Locus, more. 5. Includes teaser chapter for Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters (trade paperback, 08/09). 6. Cover by Hugo-winning artist Bob Eggleton pays homage to classics science fiction book covers. 7. Heinlein backlist discounts. The Earth is crowded and food is rationed, but a colony on Ganymede, one of the moons of Jupiter, offers an escape for teenager Bill Lermer and his family. Back on Earth, the move sounded like a grand adventure, but Bill soon realizes that life on the frontier is dangerous, and in an alien world with no safety nets, nature is cruelly unforgiving of even small mistakes. Bill’s new home is a world of unearthly wonders—and heartbreaking tragedy. He will face hardships, survive dangers, and grow up fast, meeting the challenge of opening up a new world for humanity and finding strengths within himself that he had never suspected existed. Comprehensive Teacher's Guide available.
Download or read book The Last Dark written by Stephen R. Donaldson and published by Ace. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compelled step by step to actions whose consequences they could neither see nor prevent, Thomas Covenant and Linden Avery have fought for what they love in the magical reality known only as "the Land." Now they face their final crisis. Reunited after their separate struggles, they discover in each other their true power--and yet they cannot imagine how to stop the Worm of the World's End from unmaking Time. Nevertheless they must resist the ruin of all things, giving their last strength in the service of the world's continuance.
Download or read book The Unreal and the Real Selected Stories Volume One written by Ursula K. Le Guin and published by Small Beer Press. This book was released on 2012-11-27 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praise for Ursula K. Le Guin's short story collections: "It is the author's more serious work that displays her talents best. . . . [A] classy and valuable collection."—Publishers Weekly "A master of the craft."—Neil Gaiman The Unreal and the Real is a two-volume selection of Ursula K. Le Guin's best stories. It is a much-anticipated event and there is no doubt it will delight, amuse, and provoke. Where on Earth explores Le Guin's satirical, risky, political, and experimental earthbound stories. Ursula K. Le Guin has received the PEN–Malamud and National Book Awards, among others. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Download or read book Space Opera written by Jack Vance and published by Spatterlight Press. This book was released on 1965 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rhetorics of Fantasy written by Farah Mendlesohn and published by Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-01 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sweeping study of fantasy literature offers “new and often surprising readings of works both familiar and obscure. A fine critical work” (Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts). Transcending arguments over the definition of fantasy literature, Rhetorics of Fantasy introduces a provocative new system of classification for the genre. Drawing on nearly two hundred examples of modern fantasy, author Farah Mendlesohn identifies four categories—portal-quest, immersive, intrusion, and liminal—that arise out of the relationship of the protagonist to the fantasy world. Using these sets, Mendlesohn argues that the author's stylistic decisions are then shaped by the inescapably political demands of the category in which they choose to write. Each chapter covers at least twenty books in detail, ranging from nineteenth-century fantasy and horror to some of the best works in the contemporary field. Mendlesohn discusses works by more than one hundred authors, including Lloyd Alexander, Peter Beagle, Marion Zimmer Bradley, John Crowley, Stephen R. Donaldson, Stephen King, C. S. Lewis, Gregory Maguire, Robin McKinley, China Miéville, Suniti Namjoshi, Philip Pullman, J. K. Rowling, Sheri S. Tepper, J. R. R. Tolkien, Tad Williams, and many others.
Download or read book The Colors of Space written by Marion Zimmer Bradley and published by e-artnow. This book was released on 2019-07-03 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bart Steele, the recent graduate of the Space Academy on Earth, learns that his father has been murdered but has sent him a message: "Bart, I send money and instructions by my friend. Do as he says. Don't go home, Dad." In a far future space travel is common, but the secret of traveling faster than the speed of light is jealously guarded by a non-human race, the Lhari. Lhari are the species that is color-blind in the sense that everything they see is monochromatic. The pace is relentless and Bart must extort the secret from the Lhari by going undercover as one of them.
Download or read book The Alpine Path The Story of My Career written by L. M. Montgomery and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2017-09-21 with total page 59 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This memoir offers a charming and intimate look into the life and career of one of literature's most cherished writers, Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of the Anne of Green Gables series. In this captivating narrative, Montgomery takes readers on a journey through her childhood, filled with dreams and imaginings that would later shape her literary voice. She vividly recounts her early years on Prince Edward Island, sharing the experiences and influences that sparked her love for storytelling. As Montgomery progresses from a young girl with a passion for writing to a celebrated author, she candidly describes the challenges and triumphs she faced along the way. Her inspirational road to literary success is a testament to her perseverance, creativity, and unwavering belief in her craft. Originally published as a series of autobiographical essays in the Toronto magazine Everywoman’s World from June to November in 1917, The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career not only provides valuable insights into Montgomery's personal and professional life but also serves as an encouraging tale for aspiring writers and dreamers.
Download or read book The World Beyond the Hill written by Alexei Panshin and published by Phoenix Pick. This book was released on 2010-04 with total page 676 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An unbelievably wonderful book"-Isaac Asimov *****The World Beyond the Hill is a unique book-a story about stories. It tells not only where science fiction came from and how it got that way, but what science fiction means. *** Science fiction has been the myth of modern times. The World Beyond the Hill is the tale of that myth from Frankenstein to Galactic Empire. *** By setting forth this evolving story, The World Beyond the Hill sheds light not only on what modern culture has been thinking and doing, but where we are going next and what we need to become. *** The World Beyond the Hill won a non-fiction Hugo Award in competition with books by Arthur C. Clarke, Harlan Ellison, Ursula LeGuin and Robert Heinlein
Download or read book Children s Fantasy Literature written by Michael Levy and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-16 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fantasy has been an important and much-loved part of children's literature for hundreds of years, yet relatively little has been written about it. Children's Fantasy Literature traces the development of the tradition of the children's fantastic - fictions specifically written for children and fictions appropriated by them - from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century, examining the work of Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, C. S. Lewis, Roald Dahl, J. K. Rowling and others from across the English-speaking world. The volume considers changing views on both the nature of the child and on the appropriateness of fantasy for the child reader, the role of children's fantasy literature in helping to develop the imagination, and its complex interactions with issues of class, politics and gender. The text analyses hundreds of works of fiction, placing each in its appropriate context within the tradition of fantasy literature.
Download or read book Lyon s Pride written by Anne McCaffrey and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-07-31 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Let Anne McCaffrey, storyteller extraordinare and New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author, open your mind to new worlds and new concepts: alien nations, psychic powers, telepathy and planetary systems. Perfect for fans of David Eddings, Brandon Sanderson and Douglas Adams. 'Anne McCaffrey, one of the queens of science fiction, knows exactly how to give her public what it wants' - THE TIMES 'A GREAT read' -- ***** Reader review 'Anne McCaffrey at her best' -- ***** Reader review 'Just brilliant' -- ***** Reader review 'I couldn't put it down!' -- ***** Reader review ********************************************************************************** The survival technique of the Hivers was terrifying -- and brilliant. Their huge Sphere ships surged out into space. When an appropriate planet was found, the Hivers destroyed any and every variety of indigenous life, the queens propagated, and when the new world was full, more ships were sent out. The colonization was repeated until no planet, no species, least of all Man and Mrdini, was safe. The furry and courageous Mrdini had fought the Hivers for centuries. Now Mrdini and Man combined to form the Alliance -- and Humankind had their own weapons to offer -- the power and might of the Talents who could not only communicate silently with each other, but could project cargoes, ships and themselves across the deeps of space. The four children of Damia -- Laria, Thian, Rojer and Zara -- were Primes amongst the Talents, and all their skills were desperately needed, for the Hivers' terrible Sphere ships were still thrusting through space, unfathomable, impenetrable, and carrying death in their labyrinthine depths.
