Breakfast of Champions
Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday is a 1973 novel by the American author Kurt Vonnegut. Set in the fictional town of Midland City, it is the story of "two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast." One of these men, Dwayne Hoover, is a normal-looking but deeply deranged Pontiac dealer and Burger Chef franchise owner who becomes obsessed with the writings of the other man, Kilgore Trout, taking them for literal truth. Trout, a largely unknown pulp science fiction writer who has appeared in several other Vonnegut novels, looks like a crazy old man but is in fact relatively sane.
The 100 Best Books of All Time
Many publishers have lists of 100 best books, defined by their own criteria. This article enumerates some lists of "100 best" books for which there are fuller articles. Among them, Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels (Xanadu, 1985) and Modern Fantasy: The 100 Best Novels (Grafton, 1988) are collections of 100 short essays by a single author, David Pringle, with moderately long critical introductory chapters also by Pringle. For publisher Xanadu, Science Fiction was the first of four "100 Best" books published from 1985 to 1988. The sequels covered crime & mystery, horror, and fantasy.
How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later
First, before I begin to bore you with the usual sort of things science fiction writers say in speeches, let me bring you official greetings from Disneyland. I consider myself a spokesperson for Disneyland because I live just a few miles from it — and, as if that were not enough, I once had the honour of being interviewed there by Paris TV. For several weeks after the interview, I was really ill and confined to bed. I think it was the whirling teacups that did it. Elizabeth Antebi, who was the producer of the film, wanted to have me whirling around in one of the giant teacups while discussing the rise of fascism with Norman Spinrad... an old friend of mine who writes excellent science fiction.
Animal Farm
Animal Farm is an allegorical and dystopian novel by George Orwell, published in England on 17 August 1945. According to Orwell, the book reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalin era in the Soviet Union.[1] Orwell, a democratic socialist,[2] was an outspoken critic of Joseph Stalin and, especially after experiences with the NKVD and the Spanish Civil War, he was actively opposed to the controversial ideology of Stalinism.[3] The Soviet Union, he believed, had become a brutal dictatorship, built upon a cult of personality and enforced by a reign of terror. In a letter to Yvonne Davet, Orwell described Animal Farm as a satirical tale against Stalin "un conte satirique contre Staline", and in his essay "Why I Write" (1946), he wrote that Animal Farm was the first book in which he had tried, with full consciousness of what he was doing, "to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole".
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë (/ˈbrɒnti/; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels are English literature standards. She wrote Jane Eyre under the pen name Currer Bell. Early life and education[edit]
ARG_Discuss Info Page
About ARG_Discuss Alternate Reality Games use "real life" as the platform. There is no barrier between players' lives and players' gaming, and so inherently no barriers to entry for non-gamers to participate. The mass-market is welcomed into a game where every life-skill helps, not just touch-typing and mastery of the shoulder-buttons. Anyone can join the list, all you need is an interest in ARGs - e.g. their potential, the design and development processes, etc. Potential ARG developers are especially welcome, as are players interested in the theory and practical challenges of running an ARG.
George Orwell
English author and journalist Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950),[1] better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic, whose work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism.[2][3] Life Early years Blair family home at Shiplake, Oxfordshire
War and Peace
War and Peace (Pre-reform Russian: «Война и миръ», Voyna i mir) is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in 1869. The work is epic in scale and is regarded as one of the most important works of world literature.[1][2][3] It is considered as Tolstoy's finest literary achievement, along with his other major prose work, Anna Karenina (1873–1877). War and Peace delineates in graphic detail events surrounding the French invasion of Russia, and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society, as seen through the eyes of five Russian aristocratic families. Portions of an earlier version of the novel, then known as The Year 1805,[4] were serialized in the magazine The Russian Messenger between 1865 and 1867. The novel was first published in its entirety in 1869.[5] Newsweek in 2009 ranked it first in its list of the Top 100 Books. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 20 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.[7]
The Master and Margarita
The Master and Margarita (Russian: «Ма́стер и Маргари́та») is a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, written between 1928 and 1940 but unpublished in book form until 1967. It is woven around a visit by the Devil to the fervently atheistic Soviet Union. Many critics consider it to be one of the best novels of the 20th century, and the foremost of Soviet satires. In part, it is angled against a suffocatingly bureaucratic social order.
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, is a novel written by English author Mary Shelley about eccentric scientist Victor Frankenstein, who creates a grotesque creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty. The first edition was published anonymously in London in 1818. Shelley's name appears on the second edition, published in France in 1823. Shelley had travelled through Europe in 1814, journeying along the river Rhine in Germany with a stop in Gernsheim which is just 17 km (10 mi) away from Frankenstein Castle, where two centuries before an alchemist was engaged in experiments.[1][2][3] Later, she traveled in the region of Geneva (Switzerland)—where much of the story takes place—and the topics of galvanism and other similar occult ideas were themes of conversation among her companions, particularly her lover and future husband, Percy Shelley.
Mikhail Bulgakov
Mikhaíl Afanasyevich Bulgakov (Russian: Михаи́л Афана́сьевич Булга́ков, pronounced [mʲɪxɐˈiɫ ɐfɐˈnasʲjɪvʲɪt͡ɕ bʊɫˈɡakəf]; May 15 [O.S. May 3] 1891 – March 10, 1940) was a Soviet writer and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century.[1] He is best known for his novel The Master and Margarita, which has been called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century.[3] Life and work[edit] Early life[edit] Mikhail Bulgakov was born on May 15, 1891, in Kiev, at that time in the Russian Empire.
