"Eyes of Amber" is a science fiction short story by American writer Joan D. Vinge. It was first published as the cover story for the June 1977 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact .
"Eyes of Amber" is a science fiction short story by American writer Joan D. Vinge. It was first published as the cover story for the June 1977 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact .
When bandit queen T'uupieh — a native of Titan — discovers a human space probe, she thinks it is a supernatural entity, and brings it with her to serve as an advisor. The humans monitoring the probe must decide whether to interfere with her culture by dissuading her from committing atrocities, or sell videos of her atrocities in order to fund their continued research.
"Eyes of Amber" won the 1978 Hugo Award for Best Novelette; [1] Vinge subsequently reported learning that bookies had offered 40-to-1 odds against her winning. [2]
A review in Foundation drew attention to the contrast between the quasi-medieval society on Titan and the "advanced technology of the (probe's) control room", [3] while at Black Gate , Steven H. Silver noted that the story is predicated upon cultural imperialism. [4]
James Nicoll has observed that T'uupieh's species is "not very alien", [5] and "resemble(s) 1940s Leigh Brackett aliens rather than anything scientifically plausible"; [6] similarly, Mike Ashley has described it as a "rationalized planetary romance". [7]
Vernor Steffen Vinge was an American science fiction author and professor. He taught mathematics and computer science at San Diego State University. He was the first wide-scale popularizer of the technological singularity concept and among the first authors to present a fictional "cyberspace". He won the Hugo Award for his novels A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), A Deepness in the Sky (1999), and Rainbows End (2006), and novellas Fast Times at Fairmont High (2001) and The Cookie Monster (2004).
Joan D. Vinge is an American science fiction author. She is known for her Hugo Award–winning novel The Snow Queen and its sequels, her series about the telepath named Cat, and her Heaven's Chronicles books. She also is the author of The Random House Book of Greek Myths (1999).
A Deepness in the Sky is a science fiction novel by American writer Vernor Vinge. Published in 1999, the novel is a loose prequel to his earlier novel A Fire Upon the Deep (1992). The title is coined by one of the story's main characters in a debate, in a reference to the hibernating habits of his species and to the vastness of space.
Shawna Lee McCarthy is an American science fiction and fantasy editor and literary agent.
The Snow Queen is a 1980 science fiction novel by American writer Joan D. Vinge. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1981, and was also nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1981.
James Davis Nicoll is a Canadian freelance game and speculative fiction reviewer, former security guard and role-playing game store owner, and five-time Hugo nominee, who also works as a first reader for the Science Fiction Book Club. As a Usenet personality, Nicoll is known for writing a widely quoted epigram on the English language, as well as for his accounts of suffering a high number of accidents, which he has narrated over the years in Usenet groups like rec.arts.sf.written and rec.arts.sf.fandom. He is now a blogger on Dreamwidth and Facebook, and an occasional columnist on Tor.com. In 2014, he started his website, jamesdavisnicoll.com, dedicated to his book reviews of works old and new; and later added Young People Read Old SFF, where his panel of younger readers read pre-1980 science fiction and fantasy, and Nicoll and his collaborators report on the younger readers' reactions.
The Hugo Winners was a series of books which collected science fiction and fantasy stories that won a Hugo Award for Short Story, Novelette or Novella at the World Science Fiction Convention between 1955 and 1982. Each volume was edited by American writer Isaac Asimov, who wrote the introduction and a short essay about each author featured in the book. Through these essays, Asimov reveals personal anecdotes, which authors he's jealous of, and how other writers winning awards ahead of him made him angry. Additionally, he discusses his political beliefs, friendships, and his affinity for writers of "hard science fiction". The first two volumes were collected by Doubleday into a single book, which lacks a publishing date and ISBN.
Glass and Amber is a 1987 collection of short stories and essays by American science fiction and fantasy author C. J. Cherryh. The book was published by NESFA Press to commemorate Cherryh’s appearance as the Guest of Honor at Boskone 24, a science fiction convention. Only 1,000 copies were printed, and each is individually numbered on the copyright page. The first 250 numbered copies were autographed by Cherryh and sold in slipcases. Some of these were also signed by Barclay Shaw, the cover artist.
The Witling is a 1976 science fiction novel by American writer Vernor Vinge, about the planet Giri, whose humanoid inhabitants, the Azhiri, are able to teleport. This ability varies from person to person: those without the talent at all are called witlings and are the lowest class of person in Azhiri society.
Black holes, objects whose gravity is so strong that nothing—including light—can escape them, have been depicted in fiction since at least the pulp era of science fiction, before the term black hole was coined. A common portrayal at the time was of black holes as hazards to spacefarers, a motif that has also recurred in later works. The concept of black holes became popular in science and fiction alike in the 1960s. Authors quickly seized upon the relativistic effect of gravitational time dilation, whereby time passes more slowly closer to a black hole due to its immense gravitational field. Black holes also became a popular means of space travel in science fiction, especially when the notion of wormholes emerged as a relatively plausible way to achieve faster-than-light travel. In this concept, a black hole is connected to its theoretical opposite, a so-called white hole, and as such acts as a gateway to another point in space which might be very distant from the point of entry. More exotically, the point of emergence is occasionally portrayed as another point in time—thus enabling time travel—or even an entirely different universe.
The 36th World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), also known as IguanaCon II, was held on 30 August–4 September 1978 at the Hyatt Regency Phoenix, Adams House, Phoenix Convention Center, and Phoenix Symphony Hall in Phoenix, Arizona, United States. Despite the name, this was the first "IguanaCon".
The 1978 Annual World's Best SF is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha, the seventh volume in a series of nineteen. It was first published in paperback by DAW Books in May 1978, followed by a hardcover edition issued in August of the same year by the same publisher as a selection of the Science Fiction Book Club. For the hardcover edition the original cover art of Jack Gaughan was replaced by a new cover painting by Richard Powers. The paperback edition was reissued by DAW in 1983 under the variant title Wollheim's World's Best SF: Series Seven, this time with cover art by Graham Wildridge. A British hardcover edition was published by Dennis Dobson in May 1980 under the variant title The World's Best SF 5.
"Tin Soldier" is a 17,500-word science fiction novella by American writer Joan D. Vinge, her first published work.
"The Pi Man" is a science fiction short story by American writer Alfred Bester. It was first published in Fantasy and Science Fiction, in 1959. Bester subsequently revised it extensively for his 1976 collection Star Light, Star Bright, changing the characters' names, "develop(ing) minor scenes", modifying the typographical "word pictures", and deleting several "stale references to beatnik culture".
"Letter to a Phoenix" is a science fiction short story by American writer Fredric Brown, first published in the August 1949 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. It takes the form of an open letter to humanity from a 180,000-year-old man, attempting to convey a fundamental fact about humanity he has learned in the course of observing the rise and fall of multiple civilizations.
Eyes of Amber and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Joan D. Vinge, published in 1979.
"In the Western Tradition" is a science fiction short story by Phyllis Eisenstein. It was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, in March 1981.
More Women of Wonder: Science Fiction Novelettes by Women About Women is an anthology of five novelettes and two short stories edited by Pamela Sargent. It was published in 1976. The collection reprints work by female science fiction authors originally published from 1935 to 1974, arranged in chronological order.
The New Women of Wonder: Recent Science Fiction Stories by Women About Women is an anthology of short stories, novelettes, novellas, and a poem edited by Pamela Sargent. The collection reprinted work by contemporary female science fiction authors, originally published from 1967 to 1977. It was published in 1978.
Women of Wonder, The Classic Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s is an anthology of short stories, novelettes, and novellas edited by Pamela Sargent. It was published in 1995, along a companion volume, Women of Wonder, The Contemporary Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1970s to the Present.
Eyes of Amber title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database