Three Laws of Robotics This cover of I, Robot illustrates the story "Runaround", the first to list all Three Laws of Robotics. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.[1] The original laws have been altered and elaborated on by Asimov and other authors. 0. The Three Laws, and the zeroth, have pervaded science fiction and are referred to in many books, films, and other media. History[edit] In The Rest of the Robots, published in 1964, Asimov noted that when he began writing in 1940 he felt that "one of the stock plots of science fiction was ... robots were created and destroyed their creator. Asimov attributes the Three Laws to John W. Law 1: A tool must not be unsafe to use. Alterations[edit] By Asimov[edit] First Law modified[edit]
6of3.com Last Chance to See Last Chance to See is a 1989 BBC radio documentary series and its accompanying book, written and presented by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine. In the series, Adams and Carwardine travel to various locations in the hope of encountering species on the brink of extinction. The book was published in 1990. Radio[edit] The Observer project[clarification needed] was successful, and Adams and Carwardine developed a radio series around the same concept for BBC Radio 4. Carwardine later said "We put a big map of the world on a wall, Douglas stuck a pin in everywhere he fancied going, I stuck a pin in where all the endangered animals were, and we made a journey out of every place that had two pins The journeys undertaken were to see: Book[edit] In 1990, an accompanying book was published in the UK, describing the various adventures that duo had encountered on journeys, often with a comic tone. CD ROM[edit] Television series[edit] References[edit] Further reading[edit] External links[edit]
The Meaning of Liff 1984 US edition 1990 US edition Content[edit] The book is a "dictionary of things that there aren't any words for yet".[2] Rather than inventing new words, Adams and Lloyd picked a number of existing place-names and assigned interesting meanings to them;[3] meanings that can be regarded as on the verge of social existence and are ready to become recognisable entities.[4] All the words listed are toponyms and describe common feelings and objects for which there is no current English word. The book cover usually bears the tagline "This book will change your life", either as part of its cover or as an adhesive label. Origin and publication[edit] The book was released in the UK in November 1983, in time for the Christmas market. The title of the book was chosen to be very similar to Monty Python's film, The Meaning of Life, that was being produced at the same time, after Douglas Adams called Terry Jones to ask if it would be OK. Versions[edit] See also[edit] References[edit]
Dirk Gently Dirk Gently (born Svlad Cjelli, also known as Dirk Cjelli) is a fictional character created by Douglas Adams and featured in the books Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. He is portrayed as a pudgy man who normally wears a heavy old light brown suit, red checked shirt with a green striped tie, long leather coat, red hat and thick metal-rimmed spectacles. "Dirk Gently" is not the character's real name. It is noted early on in the first book that it is a pseudonym for "Svlad Cjelli". Dirk himself states that the name has a "Scottish dagger feel" to it. Holistic detective[edit] Dirk bills himself as a "holistic detective" who makes use of "the fundamental interconnectedness of all things" to solve the whole crime, and find the whole person. Gently is psychic, though he refuses to believe in such things, insisting that he merely has a "depressingly accurate knack for making wild assumptions". Novels[edit] Adaptations and portrayals[edit]
Larry Niven Laurence van Cott Niven (/ˈnɪvən/; born April 30, 1938) is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld (1970), which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics. It also often includes elements of detective fiction and adventure stories. His fantasy includes the series The Magic Goes Away, rational fantasy dealing with magic as a non-renewable resource. Biography[edit] Niven briefly attended the California Institute of Technology and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics (with a minor in psychology) from Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, in 1962. Work[edit] Niven has also written for the DC Comics character Green Lantern including in his stories hard science fiction concepts such as universal entropy and the redshift effect. Influence[edit] Ringworld Policy involvement[edit] Other works[edit] Niven's Laws[edit] Bibliography[edit] Known Space[edit] Ringworld
Ringworld Ringworld is a 1970 science fiction novel by Larry Niven, set in his Known Space universe and considered a classic of science fiction literature. It is followed by three sequels and four prequels, and ties into numerous other books set in Known Space. Ringworld won the Nebula Award in 1970,[1] as well as both the Hugo Award and Locus Award in 1971.[2] Plot summary[edit] They first travel to the Puppeteer home world, where they learn that the expedition's goal is to explore a ringworld: an artificial ring about one million miles wide and approximately the diameter of Earth's orbit (which makes it about 600 million miles in circumference), encircling a sunlike star. None of the crew's attempts at contacting the Ringworld succeed, and their ship is disabled by its automated meteoroid-defense system. Using their flycycles (similar to antigravity motorcycles), they try to reach the rim of the ring, where they hope to find some technology that will help them. Reception[edit] Concepts[edit]
The Mote in God's Eye Overview[edit] The book describes a complex alien civilization, the Moties. The Moties are radically different (both physically and psychologically) from humanity in ways that become more clear over the course of the book. The human characters range from the typical hero-type in Captain Roderick Blaine to the much more ambiguous merchant prince and suspected traitor Horace Bury. The novel is an example of hard science fiction in that close attention is paid to scientific detail. Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle often write in this genre. A sequel to The Mote in God's Eye, titled The Gripping Hand (UK: The Moat around Murcheson's Eye), was published by the same authors almost twenty years later, in 1993. Plot summary[edit] The book is split up into four parts. The Crazy Eddie Probe[edit] In the year AD 3017, humanity is recovering slowly from an interstellar civil war that tore apart the first Empire of Man. The Crazy Eddie Point[edit] MacArthur successfully makes contact with the Moties.
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