Portal:Speculative fiction

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Speculative fiction is an umbrella phrase encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as related static, motion, and virtual arts.

It has been around since humans began to speak. The earliest forms of speculative fiction were likely mythological tales told around the campfire. Speculative fiction deals with the "What if?" scenarios imagined by dreamers and thinkers worldwide. Journeys to other worlds through the vast reaches of distant space; magical quests to free worlds enslaved by terrible beings; malevolent supernatural powers seeking to increase their spheres of influence across multiple dimensions and times; all of these fall into the realm of speculative fiction.

Speculative fiction as a category ranges from ancient works to cutting edge, paradigm-changing, and neotraditional works of the 21st century. It can be recognized in works whose authors' intentions or the social contexts of the versions of stories they portrayed is now known. For example, Ancient Greek dramatists such as Euripides, whose play Medea (play) seemed to have offended Athenian audiences when he fictionally speculated that shamaness Medea killed her own children instead of their being killed by other Corinthians after her departure. The play Hippolytus, narratively introduced by Aphrodite, is suspected to have displeased contemporary audiences of the day because it portrayed Phaedra as too lusty.

In historiography, what is now called speculative fiction has previously been termed "historical invention", "historical fiction," and other similar names. It is extensively noted in the literary criticism of the works of William Shakespeare when he co-locates Athenian Duke Theseus and Amazonian Queen Hippolyta, English fairy Puck, and Roman god Cupid all together in the fairyland of its Merovingian Germanic sovereign Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream. In mythography it has been termed "mythopoesis" or mythopoeia, "fictional speculation", the creative design and generation of lore, regarding such works as J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Such supernatural, alternate history, and sexuality themes continue in works produced within the modern speculative fiction genre.

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Frederik George Pohl Jr. (/pl/; November 26, 1919 – September 2, 2013) was an American science-fiction writer, editor, and fan, with a career spanning nearly 75 years—from his first published work, the 1937 poem "Elegy to a Dead Satellite: Luna", to the 2011 novel All the Lives He Led.

From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited Galaxy and its sister magazine If; the latter won three successive annual Hugo Awards as the year's best professional magazine. His 1977 novel Gateway won four "year's best novel" awards: the Hugo voted by convention participants, the Locus voted by magazine subscribers, the Nebula voted by American science-fiction writers, and the juried academic John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He won the Campbell Memorial Award again for the 1984 collection of novellas The Years of the City, one of two repeat winners during the first 40 years. For his 1979 novel Jem, Pohl won a U.S. National Book Award in the one-year category Science Fiction, and it was a finalist for three other year's best novel awards. He won four Hugo and three Nebula Awards, including receiving both for the 1977 novel Gateway. (Full article...)

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Portal is a 2007 puzzle-platform game developed and published by Valve. It was released in a bundle, The Orange Box, for Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and has been since ported to other systems, including Mac OS X, Linux, Android (via Nvidia Shield), and Nintendo Switch.

Portal consists primarily of a series of puzzles that must be solved by teleporting the player's character and simple objects using "the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device", also referred to as the "portal gun", a device that can create intra-spatial portals between two flat planes. The player-character, Chell, is challenged and taunted by an artificial intelligence named GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System) to complete each puzzle in the Aperture Science Enrichment Center using the portal gun with the promise of receiving cake when all the puzzles are completed. The Source Engine's physics system allows kinetic energy to be retained through portals, requiring creative use of portals to maneuver through the test chambers. This gameplay element is based on a similar concept from the game Narbacular Drop; many of the team members from the DigiPen Institute of Technology who worked on Narbacular Drop were hired by Valve for the creation of Portal, making it a spiritual successor to the game. (Full article...)

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Evan Harris Walker (1935-2006), The Physics of Consciousness: The Quantum Mind and the Meaning of Life (2000).
More quotes from Wikiquote: science fiction, fantasy, alternate history

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The Hunting of the Snark
The Hunting of the Snark

Plate I of Henry Holiday's original illustrations for the first edition of Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, a nonsense poem written in 1874 that tells the story of ten individuals who cross the ocean to hunt the Snark. In common with other Carroll works, the meaning of the poem has been queried and analysed in depth. It is divided into eight "fits" (a pun on the archaic fitt meaning a part of a song, and fit meaning a convulsion) and is by far Carroll's longest poem. (POTD)

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Science Fantasy, which also appeared under the titles Impulse and SF Impulse, was a British fantasy and science fiction magazine, launched in 1950 by Nova Publications as a companion to Nova's New Worlds. Walter Gillings was editor for the first two issues, and was then replaced by John Carnell, the editor of New Worlds, as a cost-saving measure. Carnell edited both magazines until Nova went out of business in early 1964. The titles were acquired by Roberts & Vinter, who hired Kyril Bonfiglioli to edit Science Fantasy; Bonfiglioli changed the title to Impulse in early 1966, but the new title led to confusion with the distributors and sales fell, though the magazine remained profitable. The title was changed again to SF Impulse for the last few issues. Science Fantasy ceased publication the following year, when Roberts & Vinter came under financial pressure after their printer went bankrupt. Gillings had an inventory of material that he had acquired while editing Fantasy, and he drew on this for Science Fantasy, as well as incorporating his own fanzine, Science Fantasy Review, into the new magazine. Once Carnell took over, Science Fantasy typically ran a long lead novelette along with several shorter stories; prominent contributors in the 1950s included John Brunner, Ken Bulmer, and Brian Aldiss, whose first novel Nonstop appeared (in an early version) in the February 1956 issue. Fantasy stories began to appear more frequently during the latter half of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s Carnell began to publish Thomas Burnett Swann's well-received historical fantasies. Carnell felt that the literary quality of Science Fantasy was always higher than that of New Worlds, and in the early 1960s his efforts were rewarded with three consecutive Hugo nominations for best magazine. Under Bonfiglioli more new writers appeared, including Keith Roberts, Brian Stableford and Josephine Saxton. In the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley, the final year of Impulse, as it was titled by that time, included some of the best material ever published in a British science fiction magazine. (Full article...)

On this day...

May 2:

Book releases

Film releases

Television series

  • 1983 - V, an American science fiction miniseries, finishes airing on NBC
  • 1987 - Starman, an American science fiction television series, finishes airing on ABC
  • 2008 - Ben 10, an American animated science fiction series, finishes airing on Cartoon Network

Births

Deaths


Possible futures

Possible events in the future as suggested by science fiction:

  • The EVE Gate, a natural wormhole leading to New Eden, collapses in 8061.
  • In the year 5,000,000,023, Humans have moved to a new planet in the galaxy M87.

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Media: Animation · Anime and manga · Comics · Films (list· Games (board · role-playing · video· Literature (magazines (pulp· novels · poetry · stories· Opera · Radio · Television (films · list · sitcoms· Theatre
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History: Films · Golden Age · New Wave · Scientific romance
Related genres: Fantasy (Science fantasy· Mystery · Horror · Slipstream · Speculative (Weird) · Superhero
Themes: Artificial intelligence · Extraterrestrials (First contact· Floating city · Hyperspace · Lost World · Planets · Politics (Libertarian · Utopia/Dystopia · World government) · Religion (Christian · ideas) · Resizing · Sex (Feminist · gender · homosexuality · reproduction· Simulated realities/Virtual worlds · Slipstream · Space warfare (weapons· Stock characters · Superpowers · Timeline (Alternate future · Future history · Parallel universes · Time travel)
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