Author | Robert Charles Wilson |
---|---|
Cover artist | Jim Burns |
Language | English |
Genre | Science fiction |
Publisher | Tor Books |
Publication date | August 2, 2003 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
Pages | 399 |
ISBN | 0-765-30262-4 |
OCLC | 51969172 |
813/.54 21 | |
LC Class | PR9199.3.W4987 B59 2003 |
Blind Lake is a science fiction novel by Canadian writer Robert Charles Wilson. It was published in 2003, and won a Prix Aurora Award for Best Long Form and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel, both in 2004. [1] [2]
The novel deals with a government installation at Blind Lake, Minnesota where scientists observe sentient life on a planet 51 light-years away, using telescopes powered by Bose-Einstein condensate-based quantum computers that have advanced beyond human understanding. A sudden and unexplained facility lockdown extends into a long-term quarantine.
The Observation department, observing a civilisation on 47 Ursa Majoris E, headed by Marguerite Hauser tries to carry on with the work of studying the alien life while taking care of her socially-challenged daughter Tess, warding off her ex-husband Ray, and deciding how she feels about houseguest and disgraced journalist Chris. Hauser and her fellow scientists observe everyday life in a city of lobster-like aliens, they cannot contact the aliens in any way and do not understand their language.
Then, without warning, a military cordon is imposed on the Blind Lake site. All communication with the outside world is cut off. Food and other vital supplies are delivered by remote control. The scientists, nevertheless, go on with their research. The ending provides an inconceivable surprise, as it turns out, the alien on 47 Ursa Majoris E has been aware that it has been watched and has in turn been observing the humans at Bind Lake.
Speaker for the Dead is a 1986 science fiction novel by American writer Orson Scott Card, an indirect sequel to the 1985 novel Ender's Game. The book takes place around the year 5270, some 3,000 years after the events in Ender's Game. However because of relativistic space travel at near-light speed Ender himself is only about 35 years old.
The Fountains of Paradise is a 1979 science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. Set in the 22nd century, it describes the construction of a space elevator. This "orbital tower" is a giant structure rising from the ground and linking with a satellite in geostationary orbit at the height of approximately 36,000 kilometres. Such a structure would be used to raise payloads to orbit without the expense of using rockets. The novel won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel.
Robert Charles Wilson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.
Robert James Sawyer is a Canadian and American science fiction writer. He has had 25 novels published and his short fiction has appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Amazing Stories, On Spec, Nature, and numerous anthologies. He has won many writing awards, including the best-novel Nebula Award (1995), the best-novel Hugo Award (2003), the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (2006), the Robert A. Heinlein Award (2017), and more Aurora Awards than anyone else in history.
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Ash is a fictional character in the film Alien (1979) portrayed by actor Ian Holm who, while known in the UK as a stage actor, was at the time unknown to American audiences. Ash serves as the secondary antagonist of the first film. The character is the science officer of the Nostromo, who breaks quarantine by allowing Kane, a member of the crew, back on board after he has been infected by an alien life form. It is later discovered that Ash is not human as he appears, but a Hyperdyne Systems 120-A/2 android, a sleeper agent who is acting upon secret orders to bring back the alien lifeform and considers the crew and cargo to be expendable.
The anthropologist Leon E. Stover says of science fiction's relationship to anthropology: "Anthropological science fiction enjoys the philosophical luxury of providing answers to the question "What is man?" while anthropology the science is still learning how to frame it". The editors of a collection of anthropological SF stories observed:
Anthropology is the science of man. It tells the story from ape-man to spaceman, attempting to describe in detail all the epochs of this continuing history. Writers of fiction, and in particular science fiction, peer over the anthropologists' shoulders as the discoveries are made, then utilize the material in fictional works. Where the scientist must speculate reservedly from known fact and make a small leap into the unknown, the writer is free to soar high on the wings of fancy.
Clifford Donald Simak was an American science fiction writer. He won three Hugo Awards and one Nebula Award. The Science Fiction Writers of America made him its third SFWA Grand Master, and the Horror Writers Association made him one of three inaugural winners of the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement. He is associated with the pastoral science fiction subgenre.
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The Stone Sky is a 2017 science fantasy novel by American writer N. K. Jemisin. It was awarded the Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel in 2018. Reviews of the book upon its release were highly positive. It is the third volume in the Broken Earth series, following The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate, both of which also won the Hugo Award.
The Murderbot Diaries is a science fiction series by American author Martha Wells, published by Tor Books. The series is told from perspective of the titular cybernetic SecUnit, who was owned by a futuristic megacorporation. Murderbot manages to free itself from enslavement, but instead of killing its masters, it staves off boredom of security work watching media. As it spends more time with a series of caring people, it starts developing friendships and emotional connections, which it finds inconvenient.
The City In the Middle of the Night is a 2019 climate-fiction novel by Charlie Jane Anders. It is set on a tidally locked planet, where human life, surrounded by hostile alien life, is mostly divided between two archetypically different urban sites. The main story focuses on two characters whose actions take them outside of the cities.