The Holy Grail is a treasure that serves as an important motif in Arthurian literature. Various traditions describe the Holy Grail as a cup, dish, or stone with miraculous healing powers, sometimes providing eternal youth or sustenance in infinite abundance, often guarded in the custody of the Fisher King and located in the hidden Grail castle. By analogy, any elusive object or goal of great significance may be perceived as a "holy grail" by those seeking such.
Robots and Empire is a science fiction novel by the American author Isaac Asimov, published by Doubleday Books in 1985. It is part of Asimov's Robot series, which consists of many short stories and five novels.
Elijah "Lije" Baley is a fictional character in Isaac Asimov's Robot series. He is the main character of the novels The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun and The Robots of Dawn, and of the short story "Mirror Image." He is seen in flashbacks several times and talked about frequently in Robots and Empire, which is set roughly 160 years after his death. He is further mentioned in passing in "Foundation and Earth" as a "Culture Hero". Besides Asimov's works he appears in the Foundation's Friends story "Strip-Runner" by Pamela Sargent, and "Isaac Asimov's 'The Caves of Steel'" poem by Randall Garrett.
The Positronic Man is a 1992 novel by American writers Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, based on Asimov's 1976 novelette "The Bicentennial Man".
"Black Friar of the Flame" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the Spring 1942 issue of Planet Stories and reprinted in the collection The Early Asimov (1972). "Black Friar of the Flame" was the thirteenth story written by Asimov, and was among his least favorite, though this was due more to the multiple rewrites and rejections the story suffered than to its admittedly modest intrinsic merits.
Phoenix in Obsidian is a science fantasy novel by Michael Moorcock. First published in 1970, it is the second book in a series that follows the adventures of the Eternal Champion as he is flung from one existence to another. The first book in the series, The Eternal Champion, told the story of John Daker, an average 20th-century man who suddenly found himself incarnated as Erekosë, a legendary hero of Earth in the distant past. He had been called to lead humanity against its Eldren foes, but ended up taking the Eldren's side. Phoenix in Obsidian continues the story, which is concluded in The Dragon in the Sword. The trilogy is part of a larger cycle about the Eternal Champion as defender of the Multiverse.
Cities in Flight is a four-volume series of science fiction novels and short stories by American writer James Blish, originally published between 1950 and 1962, which were first known collectively as the "Okie" novels. The series features entire cities that are able to fly through space using an anti-gravity device, the spindizzy. The stories cover roughly two thousand years, from the very near future to the end of the universe. One story, "Earthman, Come Home", won a Retro Hugo Award in 2004 for Best Novelette. Since 1970, the primary edition has been the omnibus volume first published in paperback by Avon Books. Over the years James Blish made many changes to these stories in response to points raised in letters from readers.
Percy Jackson & the Olympians is a fantasy novel series by American author Rick Riordan. The first book series in his Camp Half-Blood Chronicles, the novels are set in a world with the Greek gods in the 21st century. The series follows the protagonist, Percy Jackson, a young demigod who must prevent the Titans, led by Kronos, from destroying the world.
"Recessional" is a poem by Rudyard Kipling. It was composed for the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, in 1897.
A fix-up is a novel created from several short fiction stories that may or may not have been initially related or previously published. The stories may be edited for consistency, and sometimes new connecting material, such as a frame story or other interstitial narration, is written for the new work. The term was coined by the science fiction writer A. E. van Vogt, who published several fix-ups of his own, including The Voyage of the Space Beagle, but the practice exists outside of science fiction. The use of the term in science fiction criticism was popularised by the first (1979) edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, edited by Peter Nicholls, which credited van Vogt with the term’s creation. The name “fix-up” comes from the changes that the author needs to make in the original texts, to make them fit together as though they were a novel. Foreshadowing of events from the later stories may be jammed into an early chapter of the fix-up, and character development may be interleaved throughout the book. Contradictions and inconsistencies between episodes are usually worked out.
The Children of Húrin is an epic fantasy novel which forms the completion of a tale by J. R. R. Tolkien. He wrote the original version of the story in the late 1910s, revising it several times later, but did not complete it before his death in 1973. His son, Christopher Tolkien, edited the manuscripts to form a consistent narrative, and published it in 2007 as an independent work. The book is illustrated by Alan Lee. The story is one of the three "Great Tales" set in the First Age of Tolkien's Middle-earth, the other two being Beren and Lúthien and The Fall of Gondolin.
The Viagens Interplanetarias series is a sequence of science fiction stories by L. Sprague de Camp, begun in the late 1940s and written under the influence of contemporary space opera and sword and planet stories, particularly Edgar Rice Burroughs's Martian novels. Set in the future in the 21st and 22nd centuries, the series is named for the quasi-public Terran agency portrayed as monopolizing interstellar travel, the Brazilian-dominated Viagens Interplanetarias. It is also known as the Krishna series, as the majority of the stories belong to a sequence set on a fictional planet of that name. While de Camp started out as a science fiction writer and his early reputation was based on his short stories in the genre, the Viagens tales represent his only extended science fiction series.
Kingdoms of the Wall is a 1992 science fiction novel by American writer Robert Silverberg. It is set on a faraway planet inhabited by an alien race and in an undefined future. Its subject is the perpetual communal quest for knowledge in the face of hardship and wonders, which through the revelation of an unexpected and devastating truth results in the deconstruction and slaying of gods.
The Mouse That Roared is a 1959 British satirical comedy film on a Ban The Bomb theme, based on Leonard Wibberley's novel The Mouse That Roared (1955). It stars Peter Sellers in three roles: Duchess Gloriana XII; Count Rupert Mountjoy, the Prime Minister; and Tully Bascomb, the military leader; and co-stars Jean Seberg. The film was directed by Jack Arnold, and the screenplay was written by Roger MacDougall and Stanley Mann.
Psalm 50, a Psalm of Asaph, is the 50th psalm from the Book of Psalms in the Bible, beginning in English in the King James Version: "The mighty God, even the LORD, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof." In the slightly different numbering system used in the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate translations of the Bible, this psalm is Psalm 49. The opening words in Latin are Deus deorum, Dominus, locutus est / et vocavit terram a solis ortu usque ad occasum. The psalm is a prophetic imagining of God's judgment on the Israelites.
Science Fiction Adventures was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1956 to 1958 by Irwin Stein's Royal Publications as a companion to Infinity Science Fiction, which had been launched in 1955. Larry Shaw was the editor for all 12 issues. Science Fiction Adventures focused on longer fiction than appeared in Infinity; these were often labeled as novels, though they were rarely longer than 20,000 words. Shaw declared in his first editorial that he wanted to bring back a "sense of wonder", and he printed straightforward action-adventure stories. Two other magazines of the period, Imagination and Imaginative Tales, had similar editorial approaches, but science fiction historian Mike Ashley considers that Science Fiction Adventures contained the best fiction of the three. Robert Silverberg was a prolific contributor, under his own name and under the pseudonym "Calvin M. Knox", and he also collaborated with Randall Garrett on two stories in the first issue, under two different pseudonyms. Other well-known writers occasionally appeared, including Harlan Ellison, Cyril M. Kornbluth, Algis Budrys, and Harry Harrison. Ed Emshwiller contributed cover art for nine of the twelve issues, and one of the other three was among John Schoenherr's earliest sales.
This is an incomplete list of works by American space opera and science fiction author Frederik Pohl, including co-authored works.
