British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke formulated three adages that are known as Clarke's three laws, of which the third law is the best known and most widely cited. They were part of his ideas in his extensive writings about the future. These so-called laws include:
- When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
- The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Harlan Jay Ellison was an American writer, known for his prolific and influential work in New Wave speculative fiction, and for his outspoken, combative personality. Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho, described Ellison as "the only living organism I know whose natural habitat is hot water".
Perkin Warbeck was a pretender to the English throne. Warbeck claimed to be Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, who was the second son of Edward IV and one of the so-called "Princes in the Tower". Richard, if he was alive, would have been the rightful claimant to the throne, assuming that his elder brother Edward V was dead, and he was legitimate – a contentious point.
Fredric Brown was an American science fiction and mystery writer. He is known for his use of humor and for his mastery of the "short short" form—stories of 1 to 3 pages, often with ingenious plotting devices and surprise endings. Humor and a somewhat postmodern outlook carried over into his novels as well. One of his stories, "Arena", is officially credited for an adaptation as an episode of the American television series Star Trek.
The Colour of Magic is a 1983 comic fantasy novel by Terry Pratchett, and is the first book of the Discworld series. The first printing of the British edition consisted of 506 copies. Pratchett has described it as "an attempt to do for the classical fantasy universe what Blazing Saddles did for Westerns."
John Henry Noyes Collier was a British-born author and screenwriter best known for his short stories, many of which appeared in The New Yorker from the 1930s to the 1950s. Most were collected in The John Collier Reader ; earlier collections include a 1951 volume, the famous Fancies and Goodnights, which won the International Fantasy Award and remains in print. Individual stories are frequently anthologized in fantasy collections. John Collier's writing has been praised by authors such as Anthony Burgess, Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, Neil Gaiman, Michael Chabon, Wyndham Lewis, and Paul Theroux. He appears to have given few interviews in his life; those include conversations with biographer Betty Richardson, Tom Milne, and Max Wilk.
"It's a Good Life" is a short story by American writer Jerome Bixby, written in 1953. In 1970, the Science Fiction Writers of America selected it for The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, as one of the 20 best short stories in science fiction published prior to the Nebula Award. The story was first published in Star Science Fiction Stories No.2. The story was adapted in 1961 into an episode of The Twilight Zone.
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is a 2001 American computer-animated adventure comic science fiction film produced by Nickelodeon Movies, O Entertainment, and DNA Productions, and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film was directed by creator John A. Davis and written by Davis and producer Steve Oedekerk, with voice talents by Debi Derryberry, Patrick Stewart, Martin Short, Rob Paulsen, and Jeffrey Garcia. The precursor to the TV show, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, which followed shortly after, Jimmy Neutron follows the title character, a schoolboy with super-genius powers who must save all the adults of the world from a race of egg-like aliens known as the Yolkians.
Frankenstein Conquers the World is a 1965 science fiction kaiju film directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. The film stars Nick Adams, Kumi Mizuno, Tadao Takashima, with Koji Furuhata as Frankenstein and Haruo Nakajima as Baragon. The screenplay is credited to Takeshi Kimura, with the story credited to Reuben Bercovitch based on a synopsis by Jerry Sohl. The film was a Japanese-American co-production; it was the first collaboration between Toho, Henry G. Saperstein Enterprises, and Benedict Productions.
Genius Jones is a comic book character from the Golden Age of Comic Books who first appeared in the DC Comics published, Adventure Comics #77. He was created by Alfred Bester and Stan Kaye.
Dancer in the Dark is a 2004 science fiction story by David Gerrold. It was the cover story in the April 2004 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction and was also selected for the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy for Teens edited by Jane Yolen and Patrick Nielsen Hayden (2005).
Malcolm Routh Jameson, commonly known as Malcolm Jameson, was an American science fiction author. An officer in the US Navy, he was active in American pulp magazines during the Golden Age of Science Fiction. His writing career began when complications of throat cancer limited his activity. According to John W. Campbell Jr., Jameson "had much to do with the development of modern [c.1945] naval ordnance."
"Time Is the Traitor" is a science fiction short story by American writer Alfred Bester, originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in September, 1953. It is included in the Bester collections The Dark Side of the Earth (1964), Star Light, Star Bright (1976) and Virtual Unrealities (1997) and has been extensively anthologized.
Flowers for Algernon is a science fiction short story and subsequent novel written by Daniel Keyes. The short story, written in 1958 and first published in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1960. The novel was published in 1966 and was joint winner of that year's Nebula Award for Best Novel.
Aladin is a 2009 Indian Hindi fantasy adventure film directed by Sujoy Ghosh. The film stars Ritesh Deshmukh, Amitabh Bachchan, Jacqueline Fernandez and Sanjay Dutt. The film performed poorly at the box office. Aladdin and His Magic Lamp was originally a cartoon, first released in France in 1970, created by Hungarian producer, script-writer and director Jean Image.
Star Light is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the October 1962 issue of Scientific American and reprinted in Asimov's 1968 collection Asimov's Mysteries.
"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".
