N = NIVEN, Larry - Author, A-Z Blog Challenge 2016

Imagine a Ringworld**, where gravity and perspective vary from the more common sphere shaped planet. Larry Niven is the creator of such a world.

Larry Niven, Science Fiction Author, photo - PD-GNU

N = Niven, Larry, Author
Theme = Authors, AtoZ


Laurence van Cott Niven, born April 30, 1938, is now known as Larry Niven, an American science fiction writer. He writes hard science fiction using big science concepts and theoretical physics. His best known work is Ringworld (1970) for which he received numerous awards. These included the Hugo and the Nebula Awards and the Science Fiction Writers of America recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.

Niven has authored many award-winning science fiction short stories and novels, beginning in 1964. He has also written scripts for three science fiction television series, and for DC Comics character, Green Lantern. 

Many of Niven's stories comprise the Tales of Known Space - and take place in his Known Space universe, where humanity shares the several habitable star systems with over a dozen alien species. Ringworld is part of the Known Space series.

Then, there's Niven's Law:There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it. Niven has added to the first law a list of Niven's Laws, which he says describes 'how the Universe works' as far as he can tell.

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**RINGWORLD

What is a Ringworld? "A band of material, roughly a million miles wide and of the same diameter as Earth's orbit, rotating around a star." Niven was trying to envision a more efficient version of a Dyson Sphere. His most famous contribution to the SF genre comes from his novel Ringworld. It's an interesting concept. . .a dizzying one.

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Have you heard of or ever read science fiction author Larry Niven? If you don't like science fiction that much, what genre do you prefer?

Please leave a comment to let me know you were here and I'll respond.  Thanks for dropping by!

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A to Z Challenge - 2016

It's April again and time for the 2016 Blogging from A to Z challenge  This is my 4th year participating in the challenge! (Previous A to Z  posts at the top of my blog page tabs are: Art A-Z, French Faves, Paris, Etc. 

Thanks to originator Lee (Arlee Bird at Tossing It Out), and the co-hosts and co-host teams who make the challenge run smoothly. See the list of participants, and other important information at the A to Z Blog site.  The basic idea is to blog every day in April except Sundays (26 days). On April 1st, you begin with the letter A, April 2 is the letter B, and so on. Posts can be random or use a theme.

Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2016 - Badge

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References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Niven Wiki on Larry Niven


Image of Larry Niven  (top of post)
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.

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B = BRIN, David, Authors, A-Z Blog Challenge 2016

This man has been known to be Uplifting. . .

B = BRIN, David - Author, Physicist, NASA consultant

Authors AtoZ will present a mixture of genres and authors,and will include literary authors, lost generation writers, a Beat writer, journalists turned authors, and a few surprises. 


Glen David Brin, born October 6, 1950 is an American scientist and award winning science fiction author. He's received the Hugo, Locus, Campbell and Nebula Awards. One of his novels, The Postman was adapted to film, starring Kevin Costner in 1997. In nonfiction, Brin's The Transparent Society won the Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library Association and the McGannon Communication Award.

Brin helped establish the Arthur C. Clarke 'Center for Human Imagination' and serves on the advisory board of NASA's 'Innovative and Advanced Concepts' group. He has been a guest on certain tv shows such as The Universe and Alien Encounters and serves on the advisory board for the Museum of Science Fiction. Brin writes hard science fiction and uses plausible scientific or technological change as part of his plot driven stories.

Following are some of his works: The Uplift Novels (involving uplifting creature species to a sentient state)-Sundiver, Startide Rising and The Uplift War; The Uplift Trilogy (aka Uplift Storm trilogy)-Brightness Reef, Infinity's Shore, and Heaven's Reach. All these books were written between 1980 - 1998. I have read all of these novels.

Other Writing. . .

Brin has written many stand-alone novels, but the ones I've read are:  The Postman (1985), Heart of the Comet (1986), Glory Season (1993), and Kiln People (2002). The Postman was converted to film by Kevin Costner-who also played the main character.  In addition, Brin authored graphic novels, short fiction and one of the three books in the Asimov's Foundation Universe - Foundation's Triumph (1999). Which leads to the Killer B's.

David Brin, Greg Bear and Gregory Benford - the Killer B's of SciFi. Approved by the the family of Asimov, these three writers created the Second Foundation Trilogy, in an attempt to wrap up loose ends and explain gaps in the timelines. I'd recommend these three later novels to the fans of Asimov or the Foundation series.

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Have you heard of or read David Brin novels?  What do you think about dolphins piloting spaceships?

Please leave a comment to let me know you were here and I'll respond. Thanks for dropping by! Hope to see you around the A to Z list.

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A to Z Challenge - 2016

It's April again and time for the 2016 Blogging from A to Z challenge  This is my 4th year participating in the challenge! (Previous A to Z  posts at the top of my blog page tabs are: Art A-Z, French Faves, Paris, Etc. 

Thanks to originator Lee (Arlee Bird at Tossing It Out), and the co-hosts and co-host teams who make the challenge run smoothly. See the list of participants, and other important information at the A to Z Blog site.  The basic idea is to blog every day in April except Sundays (26 days). On April 1st, you begin with the letter A, April 2 is the letter B, and so on. Posts can be random or use a theme.

Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2016 - Badge

A to Z Blog Listhttp://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/a-z-challenge-sign-up-list-2016.html 

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References:

http://www.davidbrin.com/

Interesting news related to this post re Foundation series. http://davidbrin.blogspot.ca/2014/12/ascension-and-interstellar-is-boldness.html

Brin's own site

http://www.davidbrin.com/books.html 

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A = ASIMOV, Isaac - Authors, A to Z Blog Challenge 2016

THE A TO Z BLOG CHALLENGE BEGINS. . .

A science fiction writer who envisioned the future possibilities for mankind with humanoid robots and galactic empires. He wrote of the spacers who explored and settled the habitable planets in a future time. He created the Three Laws of Robotics. 

Dr. Isaac Asimov, 1965, *PD

A = Asimov, Isaac, Author and Professor
Theme: Authors, AtoZ

This theme will highlight various authors that have made an impact on writing or inspired other works, whether by style or subject matter. Hope you find a few authors you know and discover a few new ones as the challenge theme continues throughout April.

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Isaac Asimov, January 2, 1920 - April 6, 1992, was a prolific American author and a professor of Biochemistry at Boston University.  He is known for his science fiction novels, his popular science books, and for creating some new words. The Oxford English Dictionary credits his science fiction for introducing positronic, psychohistory, and robotics. 

Asimov was born in Russia and was brought to New York by his father when he was three years old. His first short story was published when he was 18, and his next work, Nightfall, appeared three years later. In 1964, the SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) voted Nightfall as the best short science fiction story of all time. 

Along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov was considered one of the 'Big Three' of science fiction writers in his lifetime. He wrote 'hard' science fiction, the most famous being the Foundation Series.  He also wrote the Galactic Empire series (set in an earlier time of the same fictional universe as the Foundation series) and the Robot series, from which I, Robot, the movie was developed.

In 1942, Asimov published the first of his Foundation stories.  These were later collected in the Foundation trilogy: Foundation-1951, Foundation and Empire-1952, and Second Foundation-1953. These novels tell of the collapse and rebirth of an interstellar empire in the future. His positronic robot stories (many collected to form I, Robot) were first published in 1950. Later, in Foundation's Edge, Asimov linked this distant future with the Robot and Spacer stories, creating a unified future history for his epic tale.  

Asimov also wrote a lot of nonfiction. He authored books on general science, physics, astronomy, mathematics, history, chemistry and William Shakespeare's writing.  He was a member and vice president of MENSA International, although he thought many were arrogant about their IQs. 

Telegraph news photo, c. 1992

Asimov sported mutton-chop whiskers later in life, wore cowboy boots and an old-style western tie called a bolo. He was eccentric and resigned to being so. He liked to say his success was due to 'a lucky break in the genetic sweepstakes'. Indeed.

In 1977, Asimov suffered a heart attack and had triple bypass surgery in December of 1983. When he died in New York City on April 6, 1992, the causes were reported as heart and kidney failure. A larger than life man had reached the end.

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Have you heard of Isaac Asimov or his Foundation series, or the Robot series of books?  Do you read or write science fiction?

Please leave a comment to let me know you were here, and I'll respond! Thanks for dropping by. Let me know if you're part of the challenge, so I can be sure to visit your blog.

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A to Z Challenge - 2016

It's April again and time for the 2016 Blogging from A to Z challenge  This is my 4th year participating in the challenge! (Previous A to Z  posts at the top of my blog page tabs are: Art A-Z, French Faves, Paris, Etc. 

Thanks to originator Lee (Arlee Bird at Tossing It Out), and the co-hosts and co-host teams who make the challenge run smoothly. See the list of participants, and other important information at the A to Z Blog site.  The basic idea is to blog every day in April except Sundays (26 days). On April 1st, you begin with the letter A, April 2 is the letter B, and so on. Posts can be random or use a theme.

Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2016 - Badge

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/a-z-challenge-sign-up-list-2016.html A to Z Blog List

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov Isaac Asimov Wiki

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/books-obituaries/10383953/Isaac-Asimov.html Telegraph article 

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MENSA = the largest and oldest high IQ society in the world

*** IMAGE:  Dr. Isaac Asimov portrait, 1965, *PD

This work is from the New York World-Telegram and Sun collection at the Library of Congress. According to the library, there are no known copyright restrictions on the use of this work.
This photograph is a work for hire created prior to 1968 by a staff photographer at New York World-Telegram & Sun. It is part of a collection donated to the Library of Congress and per the instrument of gift it is in the public domain.

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