Epic of Gilgamesh. The Last Question. The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light.
The question came about as a result of a five dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way: Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face -- miles and miles of face -- of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.
Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth's poor resources could not support the ships. The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. "Sure you are. The Last Question. The Last Question by Isaac Asimov — © 1956 The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light.
The question came about as a result of a five dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way: Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face — miles and miles of face — of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.
Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth’s poor resources could not support the ships. “It’s amazing when you think of it,” said Adell. “Sure you are. Brothers Grimm: Fairy Tales, History, Facts, and More. Olaf The Glorious by Robert Leighton - Wisdom Library. The Historical Merlin. Illustration of Merlin from Tennyson's Idylls of the King, 1898.
In legend Merlin was not only depicted as a wizard but also a bard - a poet and writer of songs. In the Dark Ages bards were accredited with the gift of prophecy. The Bodleian Library, Oxford, where The Red Book of Hergest is now preserved. Ambrosius Aurelius does have many things in common with the Merlin of later romance. Like Merlin, he united Britain in the period after Vortigern's reign: both Gildas and Bede say that he successfully halted the invasion of Britain in the last few decades of the fifth century. Surviving writings concerning Britain in the Dark Ages are found mainly in Welsh manuscripts and in the Welsh language. 10 MORE Awesome Fantasy Series That Are Not Potter or LoTR. I received a massive response to my previous post that attempted to showcase some less well-known and under-appreciated fantasy series.
Infact I received so many great comments with people recommending their favourite series that I decided to create a definitive list of great fantasy series (stay tuned for that one, it is coming in the next few weeks). But since it is a pretty big job to compile such a list (I already have well over 80 series on the list and it is still growing), I thought I would create this little list of 10 MORE under-appreciated fantasy series in the meantime. This list incorporates some of the great suggestions made by readers in the comments on my previous post. These are excellent fantasy series that I, for one, enjoyed tremendously and yet most of these still went unmentioned in the comments to my previous post, despite the fact that it received tens of thousands of visitors with people recommending dozens of great series. 10.
Gatherer of Clouds [/column] 9. 8. 10 Science Fiction Books That Changed the Course of History. SExpand Not sure if this counts as "world-changing," but dig this excerpt from Clarke's novel of 2001 (technically a novelization of his screenplay with Kubrick): When he tired of official reports and memoranda and minutes, he would plug his foolscap-sized Newspad into the ship's information circuit and scan the latest reports from Earth.
One by one he would conjure up the world's major electronic papers; he knew the codes of the more important ones by heart, and had no need to consult the list on the back of his pad. Switching to the display unit's short-term memory, he would hold the front page while he quickly searched the headlines and noted the items that interested him. Each had its own two-digit reference; when he punched that, the postage-stamp-sized rectangle would expand until it neatly filled the screen and he could read it with comfort.
Norwegian Folktales.