Miracles and Conundrums of the Secondary Planets (2015) is the fourth collection of short stories by American author Jacob M. Appel. The collection won the Mid-Atlantic Book Award for Fiction in 2016. [1]
Among the stories in the collection, "Phoebe with Impending Frost," which had previously appeared in The Southwest Review , won the 2009 McGinnis-Ritchie Award for Fiction and "Shell Game with Organs" won the 1998 Boston Review Short Fiction Prize. [2]
In the San Diego Book Review, Hubert O'Hearn described the collection as "delightful, smart and above all witty." Justin Goodman at Boston Accent Lit wrote of the collection, "What is uniquely compelling about Miracles and Conundrums is the pervasive sense of uncertainty that resonates throughout with the power of an agoraphobic’s first half-step out the house." [3] Jason Hess at New Pages wrote of the stories: "They sometimes feature bizarre, fantastic details—a man grapples with the real possibility of his mistresses’ impending resurrection, a global cold snap rattles our understanding of global warming—but these features never distract from the human stories at the center of every tale." [4] The book received a star from Kirkus Reviews, which described it as "a fine collection of memorable stories with a delicately surreal edge." Another reviewer, Jacqueline Grima at Humanity Hallows, wrote, "Jacob M Appel has a very special gift for storytelling, both his characters and their settings possessing a magical quality that brings them to life on the page. Exploring different lifetimes, parallel universes and, even, other planets, in Miracles and Conundrums of the Secondary Planets, Appel successfully pulls his reader into each and every one of his worlds, his characters and the dilemmas they face lingering long after their stories are finished."
Dune is a 1965 epic science fiction novel by American author Frank Herbert, originally published as two separate serials in Analog magazine. It tied with Roger Zelazny's This Immortal for the Hugo Award in 1966 and it won the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel. It is the first installment of the Dune Chronicles. In 2003, it was described as the world's best-selling science fiction novel.
The Pirate Planet is the second serial of the 16th season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 30 September to 21 October 1978. It forms the second serial of the Key to Time story arc. It was written by Douglas Adams and features some of his humour.
Owen Chamberlain was an American physicist who shared with Emilio Segrè the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the antiproton, a sub-atomic antiparticle.
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story is a 2004 sports comedy film written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber and starring Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller. The film follows a group of unlikely misfits who enter a Las Vegas dodgeball tournament in the hopes of winning $50,000 to save their cherished local gym from being taken over by corporate health fitness chain Globo Gym.
Bernice Surprise Summerfield is a fictional character created by author Paul Cornell as a new companion of the Seventh Doctor in Virgin Publishing's range of original full-length Doctor Who novels, the New Adventures. The New Adventures were authorised novels carrying on from where the Doctor Who television series had left off, and Summerfield was introduced in Cornell's novel Love and War in 1992.
Donald Barthelme was an American short story writer and novelist known for his playful, postmodernist style of short fiction. Barthelme also worked as a newspaper reporter for the Houston Post, was managing editor of Location magazine, director of the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston (1961–1962), co-founder of Fiction, and a professor at various universities. He also was one of the original founders of the University of Houston Creative Writing Program.
Denis Hale Johnson was an American novelist, short-story writer, and poet. He is perhaps best known for his debut short story collection, Jesus' Son (1992). His most successful novel, Tree of Smoke (2007), won the National Book Award for Fiction. Johnson was twice shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Altogether, Johnson was the author of nine novels, one novella, two books of short stories, three collections of poetry, two collections of plays, and one book of reportage. His final work, a book of short stories titled The Largesse of the Sea Maiden, was published posthumously in 2018.
Fantastic Planet is a 1973 French-language experimental independent adult animated science fiction art film, directed by René Laloux and written by Laloux and Roland Topor, the latter of whom also completed the film's production design. The film was animated at Jiří Trnka Studio in Prague. The film was an international co-production between companies from France and Czechoslovakia. The allegorical story, about humans living on a strange planet dominated by giant humanoid aliens who consider them animals, is based on the 1957 novel Oms en série by French writer Stefan Wul.
The Doug Wright Awards for Canadian Cartooning are literary awards handed out annually since 2005 during the Toronto Comic Arts Festival to Canadian cartoonists honouring excellence in comics and graphic novels published in English. The awards are named in honour of Canadian cartoonist Doug Wright. Winners are selected by a jury of Canadians who have made significant contributions to national culture, based on shortlisted selections provided by a nominating committee of five experts in the comics field. The Wrights are handed out in three main categories, "Best Book", "The Spotlight Award", and, since 2008, the "Pigskin Peters Award" for non-narrative or experimental works. In 2020, the organizers added "The Egghead", an award for best kids’ book for readers under twelve. In addition to the awards, since 2005 the organizers annually induct at least one cartoonist into the Giants of the North: The Canadian Cartoonist Hall Fame.
Head Games is an original novel written by Steve Lyons and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Seventh Doctor, Bernice, Chris, Roz, Mel and Ace.
Jacob M. Appel is an American author, poet, bioethicist, physician, lawyer and social critic. He is best known for his short stories, his work as a playwright, and his writing in the fields of reproductive ethics, organ donation, neuroethics, and euthanasia. Appel's novel The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up won the Dundee International Book Prize in 2012. He is the director of Ethics Education in Psychiatry and a professor of psychiatry and medical education at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and he practices emergency psychiatry at the adjoining Mount Sinai Health System. Appel is the subject of the 2019 documentary film Jacob by director Jon Stahl.
The William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition is one of America's leading literary competitions and has been presenting awards in fiction, nonfiction and poetry since 1993. The competition is named after the Faulkner Society’s namesake, novelist William Faulkner, and William Wisdom of New Orleans, a literary scholar known for his collection of William Faulkner memorabilia. The event is sponsored by the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society of New Orleans. The contest draws celebrity literary judges, and regular participants have included John Biguenet, Stuart Dybek and Bret Lott.
The Returned is the debut novel by American author Jason Mott, published in 2013. It is centered on the return of dead people to the living world and their impact on the daily lives of the people around them. The TV adaptation Resurrection was produced by ABC Studios and aired on March 9, 2014.
Scouting for the Reaper (2014) is the first collection of short stories by American author Jacob M. Appel. It won the Hudson Prize in 2012 and was published by Black Lawrence Press. Writing Today named it the best debut collection of 2014.
Star Rangers, also known as The Last Planet, is a science fiction novel by the American author Andre Norton. The novel was published on August 20, 1953, by Harcourt, Brace & Company. This is one of Norton's Central Control books, which lay out the history of a galactic empire through events suggested by Norton's understanding of Terran history.
Cassian Jeron Andor, born Kassa, is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise, primarily portrayed by actor Diego Luna. Introduced in the feature film Rogue One (2016) as a supporting character, he is the protagonist of the ongoing prequel television series Andor (2022–present).
Coulrophobia & Fata Morgana (2016) is the fifth collection of short stories by American author Jacob M. Appel. Like his previous collection, Miracles and Conundrums of the Secondary Planets, it was published by Black Lawrence. Coulrophobia & Fata Morgana was released in September 2016.
The Topless Widow of Herkimer Street (2016) is the sixth collection of short stories and ninth work of fiction by American author Jacob M. Appel. It was published by Howling Bird Press. The collection won the Howling Bird Prize for Fiction in 2016. The story was also awarded the Minnesota Book Award for 2016.
Kris Bertin is a Canadian writer, whose debut short story collection Bad Things Happen won the 2017 Danuta Gleed Literary Award and the 2017 ReLit Award for Short Fiction.
Arwen Elys Dayton is an American author of science fiction, fantasy and speculative fiction. The author of seven published works, she is best known for her award-winning novel Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful and for her Seeker trilogy. Her 2012 novel Resurrection was an Amazon.com Kindle best seller, reaching #1 and #2 on national and international sales charts. The rights to her 2015 novel Seeker were purchased by Columbia Pictures in 2013. Her 2018 novel, Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful, was cited by Tom Shippey of The Wall Street Journal as one of the best science fiction novels of 2018. She is married to tech entrepreneur Sky Dayton and lives in Oregon's Willamette Valley.