A Plague of Pythons is a science fiction novel by American writer Frederik Pohl. Serialized in Galaxy Science Fiction in October and December 1962, the novel was published in 1965, and an updated version was published in 1984 under the title Demon in the Skull. The title derives from the words "Domina Pythonis" used as part of an exorcism ritual performed in the first chapter to scare away the "demons" that seem to possess people in the novel.
The novel opens in a world reduced to a grim struggle for existence after a plague of madness that afflicted individuals at random. Some two years previously, every government in the world was attacked by its own military machinery, which then self-destructed. All civilian air transport was similarly destroyed, along with major cities like San Francisco. After the initial meltdown, people began claiming to be "possessed". They would commit crimes of violence, but afterward they would claim to have had no control over their actions. This leads to superstitions about demonic possession, as well as a novel legal defense.
Chandler is an electronics engineer who is on trial for rape and murder. He claims to have been possessed while committing the crime, but nobody believes him because it took place in a pharmaceuticals plant. These places, along with hospitals and other vital facilities, are believed to have some kind of immunity to the plague. Saved by an apparent episode of possession of the jury in the trial, he is instead exiled from his community with a letter "H", for "Hoaxer", branded on his forehead.
He encounters a cult who use pain to ward off the possession. The members believe that the "flame spirits" cannot abide pain, but a young woman tells Chandler that she is sure the possessors are other human beings, and that one of them is a man she rejected. Soon afterwards the entire cult is wiped out and Chandler, in a state of almost constant possession, is made to bring their sacred text, a copy of The Prophet by Khalil Gibran, to Hawaii. On the way he encounters people who, while not always possessed, do what their "execs" tell them for fear of the consequences of disobeying.
In Hawaii Chandler learns that the possessors are indeed people. They wear silver coronets which give them the power, using a new technology. Based on what the novel calls "sub-millimeter microwaves" (now known as terahertz radiation), the technology allows people wearing the coronets to locate and take over the bodies of anyone on Earth. Chandler falls under the influence of Rosalie Pan, a former Broadway star who was kidnapped by her ex-lover and eventually allowed to become one of the execs herself. She tries to seduce him into joining her by giving him a taste of the feeling of power.
At the same time, the execs are building a new transmitter on the island of Kauai. While they can go anywhere on Earth with their power, their physical bodies must remain close to the original equipment. With the new equipment they will be able to leave Hawaii and roam at will. Chandler's expertise is needed and he is proposed for election to the elite. If not, once the job is done he will be eliminated. Chandler for his part is beginning to enjoy the benefits of his situation and is a willing helper on the project.
Matters come to a head when Rosalie's lover, who is also the leader of the execs, attempts revenge on Chandler, only to die of a heart attack due to his age and physical deterioration after years of vicarious living in the bodies of others. Chandler obtains his coronet, as well as another tuned to the new equipment, the only one in existence. He disables the old equipment and uses the new coronet to wipe out the other execs, except for Rosalie. He causes them to commit suicide, one by one, until he is the only one on Earth who has the secret. He thinks that eventually he will stop using it, but decides to keep it, just for now...
SF Impulse reviewer Tom Boardman Jr. characterized the novel as "good, but not Pohl at his superlative best." [1]
Janusz Andrzej Zajdel was a Polish science fiction author, second in popularity in Poland to Stanisław Lem. His major genres were social science fiction and dystopia. His main recurring theme involved the gloomy prospects for a space environment into which mankind carried totalitarian ideas and habits: Red Space Republics, or Space Labor Camps, or both. His heroes desperately try to find meaning in the world around them.
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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.
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Algirdas Jonas "Algis" Budrys was a Lithuanian-American science fiction author, editor, and critic. He was also known under the pen names Frank Mason, Alger Rome, John A. Sentry, William Scarff, and Paul Janvier. He is known for the influential 1960 novel Rogue Moon.
John Stewart Williamson, who wrote as Jack Williamson, was an American science fiction writer, often called the "Dean of Science Fiction". He is also credited with one of the first uses of the term genetic engineering. Early in his career he sometimes used the pseudonyms Will Stewart and Nils O. Sonderlund.
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In linguistics, inalienable possession is a type of possession in which a noun is obligatorily possessed by its possessor. Nouns or nominal affixes in an inalienable possession relationship cannot exist independently or be "alienated" from their possessor. Inalienable nouns include body parts, kinship terms, and part-whole relations. Many languages reflect the distinction but vary in how they mark inalienable possession. Cross-linguistically, inalienability correlates with many morphological, syntactic, and semantic properties.
In linguistics, possession is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which in some sense possesses the referent of the other.
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Gateway is a 1977 science fiction novel by American writer Frederik Pohl. It is the opening novel in the Heechee saga, with four sequels that followed. Gateway won the 1978 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 1978 Locus Award for Best Novel, the 1977 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the 1978 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. The novel was adapted into a computer game in 1992.
Mind uploading, whole brain emulation, or substrate-independent minds, is a use of a computer or another substrate as an emulated human brain. The term "mind transfer" also refers to a hypothetical transfer of a mind from one biological brain to another. Uploaded minds and societies of minds, often in simulated realities, are recurring themes in science-fiction novels and films since the 1950s.
Wolfbane is a science fiction novel by American writers Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth, published in 1959. It was serialized in Galaxy in 1957, with illustrations by Wally Wood. In his review column for F&SF, Damon Knight selected the novel as one of the 10 best genre books of 1959.
The Carnelian Cube is a science-fantasy novel by American writers L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt. It was first published in hardcover by Gnome Press in 1948, and in paperback by Lancer Books in 1967. An E-book edition was published by Gollancz's SF Gateway imprint on September 29, 2011 as part of a general release of de Camp's works in electronic form. It has also been translated into Italian and German.
The Last Theorem is a 2008 science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl. It was first published in the United Kingdom by HarperVoyager in July 2008, and in the United States by Del Rey Books in August 2008. The book is about a young Sri Lankan mathematician who finds a short proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, while an alien invasion of Earth is in progress.
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Plague of Pythons public domain audiobook at LibriVox