Davy is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer Edgar Pangborn, nominated for the 1965 Hugo Award. It is set in the Northeastern United States some centuries after an atomic war ended high-technology civilization, with some scenes on an unnamed Atlantic island.
The novel is a bildungsroman, following its title character, Davy (who grew up a ward of the state and thus has no last name) as he grows to manhood in a pseudo-medieval society dominated by a Church that actively suppresses technology, banning "anything that may contain atoms."
Davy begins as an indentured servant in an inn, but escapes, and most of the novel is concerned with his adventures. The book is written as though Davy himself were writing his memoirs, with footnotes by people who knew him. Eventually he becomes involved with a group of liberal, freethinking people forming around a reforming young ruler (a hereditary "President") who tries to defy the dominant "Holy Murkan Church" - to be eventually overthrown by the reactionaries, the dissidents fleeing into the ocean and setting up a community on an island (apparently in the Azores).
The novel's post-apocalyptic setting was also used in the novel The Company of Glory (1975) (set several centuries earlier). The fall of old technological culture and the rise of the religion of "Abraham" is narrated in the 1954 story "The Music Master of Babylon". [1] Numerous other short stories are set in that world. including those collected in Still I Persist in Wondering (1978)
Algis Budrys gave Davy a mixed review in Galaxy Science Fiction , saying that while he enjoyed the novel and respected Pangborn, the book "achieves its marvelous effects by talking tough while following faithfully along a line of beloved cliches ... of the self-confident Establishment tickling itself". Budrys concluded that although Pangborn "had done a rare and wonderful thing in making his protagonist "a believable, impressive, vivid and memorable character", the novel became innocuous, "totally acceptable entertainment around characters and events which would actually have made the audience run in panic ... just the perfect cheap thrill". [2]
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is a 1964 science fiction novel by American writer Philip K. Dick. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1965. Like many of Dick's novels, it utilizes an array of science fiction concepts and explores the ambiguous slippage between reality and unreality. It is one of Dick's first works to explore religious themes.
Poul William Anderson was an American fantasy and science fiction author who was active from the 1940s until his death in 2001. Anderson also wrote historical novels. He won the Hugo Award seven times and the Nebula Award three times, and was nominated many more times for each award.
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The Big Time is a short science fiction novel by American writer Fritz Leiber. Awarded the Hugo Award for Best Novel or Novelette in 1958, The Big Time was published originally in two parts in Galaxy Magazine's March and April 1958 issues, illustrated by Virgil Finlay. It was subsequently reprinted in book form several times. The Big Time is a story involving only a few characters, but with a vast, cosmic backstory.
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Pavane is an alternative history science fiction fix-up novel by British writer Keith Roberts, first published by Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd in 1968. Most of the original stories were published in Impulse. An additional story, "The White Boat", was added in later editions.
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The Golden Age of Science Fiction, often identified in the United States as the years 1938–1946, was a period in which a number of foundational works of science fiction literature appeared. In the history of science fiction, the Golden Age follows the "pulp era" of the 1920s and 1930s, and precedes New Wave science fiction of the 1960s and 1970s. The 1950s are, in this scheme, a transitional period. Robert Silverberg, who came of age then, saw the 1950s as the true Golden Age.
Edgar Pangborn was an American writer of mystery, historical, and science fiction.
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Rogue Moon is a short science fiction novel by Lithuanian-American writer Algis Budrys, published in 1960. It was a 1961 Hugo Award nominee. A substantially shortened version of the novel was originally published in F&SF; this novella-length story was included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two, edited by Ben Bova. It was adapted into a radio drama by Yuri Rasovsky in 1979.
"By the Waters of Babylon" is a post-apocalyptic short story by American writer Stephen Vincent Benét, first published July 31, 1937, in The Saturday Evening Post as "The Place of the Gods". It was republished in 1943 The Pocket Book of Science Fiction, and was adapted in 1971 into a one-act play by Brainerd Duffield.
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Masters of the Maze is a science fiction novel by American writer Avram Davidson, originally published in 1965 by Pyramid Books with a cover by John Schoenherr. The first UK edition, the only hardcover to date, was issued by White Lion in 1974. An American paperback reprint followed from Manor Books in 1976. Ebook editions appeared in 2012, from both Prologue Books and SF Gateway.