background preloader

The Essential Cyberpunk Reading List

The Essential Cyberpunk Reading List
Related:  Fantasy Fiction

Samuel Delany and the Past and Future of Science Fiction In 1968, Samuel Delany attended the third annual Nebula Awards, presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). At the ceremony that night, “an eminent member of the SFWA,” as Delany later put it, gave a speech about changes in science fiction, a supposed shift away from old-fashioned storytelling to “pretentious literary nonsense,” or something along those lines. At the previous Nebula Awards, the year before, Delany had won best novel for “Babel-17,” in which an invented language has the power to destroy (his book shared the award with Daniel Keyes’s “Flowers for Algernon”), and earlier on that evening in 1968, Delany had again won best novel, for “The Einstein Intersection,” which tells of an abandoned Earth colonized by aliens, who elevate the popular culture of their new planet into divine myths. Delany said he was dismayed by all this, but not surprised. Delany was born in 1942, in Harlem.

Burrows Apps Blog: How to hack Scribd to download documents for free How to download documents for free I was looking at an online document that SOMEONE ELSE UPLOADED and it was very helpful, so I wanted to download it. Scribd however, wanted to charge a daily fee of around $5 dollars to download the content, when it clearly says someone uploaded it. Here was the document that I wanted: For Public ID's(2012): *document ID* = 90924585 ID*/ or ID*/download Insert the number id in the here ^ Sometimes using the first download link is better because it creates a download button. Update(2/18/12): For Private ID's: Example URLs: Right-click > View Page Source > Save as to a document on your computer *Make sure you do this to get the entire "Generated Source" (I used Mozilla FireFox)

On the Taxonomy of Spaceships | Critical Shit Yup, spaceships again. Between Star Citizen, the new Halo, the new Star Wars, a couple of key mods for Sins of a Solar Empire that I keep up with and have done some voice work on, and Destiny, my mind has been buzzing with them. I’m a huge nerd who thinks of things in my free time like “if I were a shinigami what kind of Zanpakutō would I have?” and “I wonder if I’d rather be a ranger or a mage” and “ff I were a Jedi in the New Jedi Order, what kind of ship would I have?” And alongside that sort of inane theorycrafting and imagination comes obvious questions, like “would I want to captain a cruiser or a carrier?” But then, what exactly is the difference? There are lots of different ship classes in science fiction, and I’m not talking about the designated name for a particular frame (like Victory-class or Firefly-class). So like any good geek I did research and actually enjoyed doing it! Before we get to the meat of the topic let’s look at a bit of history. Corvette Frigate Destroyer Whew.

Download James Joyce's Ulysses_ A Study - Old Pirate Bay Type: Books Files: Size: Seeders: Leechers: Info Hash: ddae5f78c0b0396a1b01bb74f3846beb4d0bd396 Stuart Gilbert - James Joyces Ulysses: A Study (Vintage, 1955). 405 pages. Age of Robots: How Marvel Is Killing the Popcorn Movie There’s an alternate interpretation for that Hulk-slams-Loki scene in the first Avengers. I try, very hard, to believe it’s not the correct one. Because it’s an evil message, which cynics will tell you is at the heart of every comic book movie. It is: Punching is better than talking. It happens in a lot of big, commercial movies, right? There’s a guy who talks a lot, thinks, plans, tries to get somewhere by thinking. So there’s your other interpretation, the thing I think is at the core of Marvel’s contempt for people: Punching is better than talking. The audience doesn’t need dialogue or character or psychological growth. I mean: You pump this message out into the atmosphere, and then you’re surprised when the biggest fans are ready to send death threats to a director to save the Almighty Brand? It kills me that I am so bothered by this. The problems with Marvel’s storytelling will be the problems of narrative storytelling for the foreseeable future. I love stupid popcorn movies.

Adding new icons to Scrivener | Catherine Felt NOTE: If you have the newest version of Scrivener for Windows — You can do this! It’s a brand new thing for Windows Scrivener… Hope you enjoy! If you’re a visual person like me, you probably use the icons in Scrivener quite a lot. But a lot of people don’t realize that you can import your own custom icons to make your manuscript more friendly for those who rely on visual organization. Here is an example of one of my projects and the icons I use (some downloaded, some that come with the program): And now a screenshot of work I did on Saturday, a binder with totally new icons. What is a keyword, you might ask? Let me show you how. Right-click on the item you want to change the icon of. “Okay, cool,” you might be saying. Andygrunt at the Literature and Latte forums collected a great set of almost 200 icons here. Icon Archive has some great icons and is organizedFlaticon has a tremendous number of black and white icons (a lot of them used above)Free Icons! So, how do you do it? Select it and…

The 51 Best Fantasy Series Ever Written Icon Archive - Search 558,874 free icons, desktop icons, download icons, social icons, xp icons, vista icons Blog – castaliahouse.com If one is to discuss combat in RPGs, one might as well start with the medieval fantasy genre that still dominates the industry. For many games, hand-to-hand (or hand-to-tentacle, hand-to-claw, hand-to-mouth . . . ) combat is a central point of the game, hearkening back to the origin of fantasy RPGs in wargaming. This column will look at several classic weapons that might be brought to bear on foes. Just to establish a common ground, here are the weapons. Club: a lightweight piece of wood, perhaps even found lying around. Axe: A single-bitted axe on a handle that will often range from about 27” to about 33”. Spear: A shorter spear, perhaps six to eight feet long with a pointy end that goes into the other man. Sword: Something like an Oakeshott Type XVII, which is a hand-and-a-half sword with a blade that might be 34-40” or so. Mace: This would be a footman’s mace, which is basically a baton-length piece of wood or metal with a heavy, weighted end.

Want to try Scribd free for 3 months? By Juli Monroe I’ve been a fan of Scribd since they started with ebook subscriptions last year. Even though I’ve also been impressed with Kindle Unlimited, Scribd remains my subscription service of choice for now. They recently updated both their Android and iOS apps with two-columns in landscape (long overdue!) While Scribd is not the best option if you like to read on an eInk device, it’s pretty darned good if you don’t mind reading on a phone or tablet. But don’t take my word for it. Enjoy some free reading!

Lord Foul’s Bane, by Stephen R. Donaldson | Occasional Mumbling I have a feeling that Lord Foul’s Bane may come as a surprise to many readers. It’s on the ‘fantasy’ shelf, and fantastical things do occur, but this isn’t meant to be how fantasy works. At least, not these days. Some history is in order. What happened next is obvious. Plain, simple, slightly naff cover. The problem is: it’s better to forget about all that when you read Lord Foul’s Bane. In many ways, then, Donaldson is one of the most astonishing bestsellers in history. In any case, it says on the cover that Donaldson is an American Tolkien, and actually that label is much more accurate than people these days might assume. I’m actually quite proud of that observation. Of course, Donaldson rejected his family’s religion, and went on to be a liberal, skeptical conscientious-objector (and he was studying at Kent State when the shootings took place, though he was not at the demonstration himself). This, we are told (Donaldson is not big on subtlety) is the fundamental question of ethics.

Related: