"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". [1]
Peter Marko's superhuman abilities of pattern recognition have allowed him to make a fortune in forex arbitrage; however, they also compel him to balance out the behaviors of the rest of the world by constantly performing seemingly-random acts of good and evil. This draws him into conflict, first with his secretary, and then with the FBI.
"The Pi Man" was a finalist for the 1960 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. [2]
Kirkus Reviews considered it to be a "chilling masterpiece", [3] and John Hertz has lauded it as "coruscating, gripping, (and) strange". [4]
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction has posited that Marko's abilities were the basis for the similar abilities of the protagonist in Bester's 1981 novel The Deceivers , [5] while James Nicoll has noted that the story would work just as well if one assumes that Marko's "justifications for atrocity are insane delusions". [6]
David N. Samuelson, writing in Science Fiction Studies , analyzed the story as hard science fiction, and observed that it is based on "mathematical oddities" and "lacks a clear empirical base". [7]
Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell's Islands of Space in the November issue of Astounding Science Fiction. The complementary term soft science fiction, formed by analogy to hard science fiction, first appeared in the late 1970s. The term is formed by analogy to the popular distinction between the "hard" (natural) and "soft" (social) sciences, although there are examples generally considered as "hard" science fiction such as Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, built on mathematical sociology. Science fiction critic Gary Westfahl argues that neither term is part of a rigorous taxonomy; instead they are approximate ways of characterizing stories that reviewers and commentators have found useful.
Alfred Bester was an American science fiction author, TV and radio scriptwriter, magazine editor and scriptwriter for comics. He is best remembered for his science fiction, including The Demolished Man, winner of the inaugural Hugo Award in 1953.
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published in Boston from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by a French-Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break into the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L. Gold, who rapidly made Galaxy the leading science fiction magazine of its time, focusing on stories about social issues rather than technology.
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (SFE) is an English language reference work on science fiction, first published in 1979. It has won the Hugo, Locus and British SF Awards. Two print editions appeared in 1979 and 1993. A third, continuously revised, edition was published online from 2011; a change of web host was announced as the launch of a fourth edition in 2021.
David Rowland Langford is a British author, editor, and critic, largely active within the science fiction field. He publishes the science fiction fanzine and newsletter Ansible and holds the all-time record for most Hugo Awards, with a total of 29 wins.
"The Nine Billion Names of God" is a 1953 science fiction short story by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. The story was among the stories selected in 1970 by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the best science fiction short stories published before the creation of the Nebula Awards. It was reprinted in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964.
The Wind's Twelve Quarters is a collection of short stories by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, named after a line from A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad, and first published by Harper & Row in 1975. A retrospective of Le Guin's short stories, it collects 17 previously published pieces of speculative fiction. Four of these were the germs of novels she was to write later, and a few others shared connections to Le Guin novels. At least four stories are set in the Hainish Universe, and two others in Earthsea. Many stories share themes and motifs, including time and utopia: certain images and characters also recur, including isolated scholars or explorers seeking knowledge in a hostile world.
Peter Douglas Nicholls was an Australian literary scholar and critic. He was the creator and a co-editor of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction with John Clute.
Patricia Anne McKillip was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. She wrote predominantly standalone fantasy novels and has been called "one of the most accomplished prose stylists in the fantasy genre". Her work won many awards, including the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2008.
"Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death" is a short story by James Tiptree, Jr., a pen name used by American writer Alice Sheldon. The novella won a Nebula Award for Best Short Story in 1974. It first appeared in the anthology The Alien Condition, edited by Stephen Goldin, published by Ballantine Books in April 1973.
Locus: The Magazine of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Field, founded in 1968, is an American magazine published monthly in Oakland, California. It is the news organ and trade journal for the English-language science fiction and fantasy fields. It also publishes comprehensive listings of all new books published in the genres. The magazine also presents the annual Locus Awards. Locus Online was launched in April 1997, as a semi-autonomous web version of Locus Magazine.
"Exhalation" is a science fiction short story by American writer Ted Chiang, about the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It was first published in 2008 in the anthology Eclipse 2: New Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Jonathan Strahan. In 2019, the story was included in the collection of short stories Exhalation: Stories.
Nora Keita Jemisin is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. Her fiction includes a wide range of themes, notably cultural conflict and oppression. Her debut novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and the subsequent books in her Inheritance Trilogy received critical acclaim. She has won several awards for her work, including the Locus Award. The three books of her Broken Earth series made her the first author to win the Hugo Award for Best Novel in three consecutive years, as well as the first to win for all three novels in a trilogy. She won a fourth Hugo Award, for Best Novelette, in 2020 for Emergency Skin. Jemisin was a recipient of the MacArthur Fellows Program Genius Grant in 2020.
Nebula Award Stories 11 is an anthology of science fiction short works edited by Ursula K. Le Guin. It was first published in the United Kingdom in hardcover by Gollancz in November 1976. The first American edition was published in hardcover by Harper & Row in February 1977. Paperback editions followed from Corgi in the U.K. in July 1978, and Bantam Books in the U.S. in August 1978. The American editions bore the variant title Nebula Award Stories Eleven.
The Ultimax Man is a 1978 science fiction novel by Keith Laumer. An expansion of the short story "The Wonderful Secret", it was first published by St. Martin's Press.
"The Fire When It Comes" is a fantasy short story by American writer Parke Godwin. It was first published in the January 1981 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
The Best Policy is a science fiction short story by Randall Garrett about honesty. It was first published in Astounding Science Fiction, in 1957.
"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.
The Calculating Stars is a science fiction novel by American writer Mary Robinette Kowal. The book was published by Tor Books on July 3, 2018. It is the first book in the "Lady Astronaut" series and is a prequel to the 2012 short story "The Lady Astronaut of Mars".
Women of Wonder, the Contemporary Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1970s to the 1990s 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 Classic Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s.