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).
The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a science fiction novel by American writer Neal Stephenson. It is to some extent a Bildungsroman or coming-of-age story, focused on a young girl named Nell, set in a future world in which nanotechnology affects all aspects of life. The novel deals with themes of education, social class, ethnicity, and the nature of artificial intelligence. The Diamond Age was first published in 1995 by Bantam Books, as a Bantam Spectra hardcover edition. In 1996, it won both the Hugo and Locus Awards, and was shortlisted for the Nebula and other awards.
The technological singularity—or simply the singularity—is a hypothetical future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable consequences for human civilization. According to the most popular version of the singularity hypothesis, I. J. Good's intelligence explosion model of 1965, an upgradable intelligent agent could eventually enter a positive feedback loop of self-improvement cycles, each new and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing a rapid increase ("explosion") in intelligence which would ultimately result in a powerful superintelligence, qualitatively far surpassing all human intelligence.
Singularity Sky is a science fiction novel by British writer Charles Stross, published in 2003. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2004. A sequel, Iron Sunrise, was published that same year. Together the two are referred to as the Eschaton novels, after a near-godlike intelligence that exists in both.
Singularitarianism is a movement defined by the belief that a technological singularity—the creation of superintelligence—will likely happen in the medium future, and that deliberate action ought to be taken to ensure that the singularity benefits humans.
Barry Brookes Longyear is an American author who resides in New Sharon, Maine.
The Sister Fidelma mysteries are a series of historical mystery novels and short stories by Peter Tremayne about a fictional detective who is the eponymous heroine of a series. Fidelma is both a dalaigh, and Celtic nun.
The Peace War is a science fiction novel by American writer Vernor Vinge, about authoritarianism and technological progress. It was first published as a serial in Analog in 1984, and in book form shortly afterward. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1985. A sequel, Marooned in Realtime, was published in 1986. The two novels and "The Ungoverned", a related novella, are collected in Across Realtime.
A stasis or stasis field, in science fiction, is a confined area of space in which time has been stopped or the contents have been rendered motionless.
In futures studies and the history of technology, accelerating change is the observed exponential nature of the rate of technological change in recent history, which may suggest faster and more profound change in the future and may or may not be accompanied by equally profound social and cultural change.
Accelerando is a 2005 science fiction novel consisting of a series of interconnected short stories written by British author Charles Stross. As well as normal hardback and paperback editions, it was released as a free e-book under the CC BY-NC-ND license. Accelerando won the Locus Award in 2006, and was nominated for several other awards in 2005 and 2006, including the Hugo, Campbell, Clarke, and British Science Fiction Association Awards.
"The Ungoverned" is a 1985 science fiction novella by American writer Vernor Vinge, set between his novels The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime. It was first published in Far Frontiers, Volume III, first collected in True Names and Other Dangers, and later published in the 1991 edition of the omnibus Across Realtime. The novella is a direct exploration of the concept of privately funded decentralized defense in the absence of a State, as described by Gustave de Molinari in "The Production of Security".
Rainbows End is a 2006 science fiction novel by Vernor Vinge. It was awarded the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Novel. The book is set in San Diego, California, in 2025, in a variation of the fictional world Vinge explored in his 2002 Hugo-winning novella "Fast Times at Fairmont High" and 2004's "Synthetic Serendipity". Vinge had tentative plans for a sequel, picking up some of the loose threads left at the end of the novel. The many technological advances depicted in the novel suggest that the world is undergoing ever-increasing change, following the technological singularity, a recurring subject in Vinge's fiction and nonfiction writing.
Exiles to Glory is a science fiction novella by American writer Jerry Pournelle, published in 1978. It is a sequel to the stories in the collection High Justice. As with those stories, it weaves the story of pioneering individuals in space with considerations of the technical and financial challenges facing them. It was republished in an omnibus edition with High Justice in 2009 as Exile—and Glory.
Eifelheim is a science fiction novel by American author Michael Flynn, published in 2006. The story first appeared as a novella in the November 1986 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, which was a nominee for the Hugo Award for Best Novella in 1987. The full novel was similarly nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2007.
The Mystery of the Black Jungle is an exotic adventure novel written by Italian author Emilio Salgari, published in 1895. It features two of his most well-known characters, the hunter Tremal-Naik and his loyal servant Kammamuri, and introduces his most famous character, Sandokan, the Tiger of Malaysia.
Lauren Oliver is an American author of numerous young adult novels including Panic; the Delirium trilogy: Delirium, Pandemonium, and Requiem; and Before I Fall, which became a major motion picture in 2017. Panic was also turned into a series by Amazon studios. She served as creator, writer and showrunner on the project. Her novels have been translated into more than thirty languages internationally. Oliver is a 2012 E. B. White Read Aloud Award nominee for her middle-grade novel Liesl & Po, as well as author of the middle-grade fantasy novel The Spindlers.
"Home to Roost" is a Nero Wolfe mystery novella by Rex Stout, first published as "Nero Wolfe and the Communist Killer" in the January 1952 issue of The American Magazine. It first appeared in book form in the short-story collection Triple Jeopardy, published by the Viking Press in 1952. This novella and the 1949 novel The Second Confession are notable expressions of Stout's contempt for both Communism and McCarthyism.
Six Wakes is a science fiction mystery novel by Mur Lafferty. It was first published in trade paperback and ebook by Orbit Books in January 2017.
Jane Whitefield is a crime and mystery novel series written by Thomas Perry. The series features Jane Whitefield, a Native American (Seneca) who has made a career out of helping people disappear. The series is usually narrated in third-person perspective. Perry weaves Native American history, stories, theology, and cultural practices into each novel.
