Questions tagged [authors]
An author is the original person who conceives and writes the majority of a literary work. Some authors may just conceive the idea and write with a team (of 1 or more authors); in this case the authors are listed as co-authors or the person who conceived the idea is listed as the attributing (main) author.
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Were Bilbo, Frodo, or Samwise Tolkien's self-inserts?
Were Bilbo, Frodo, or Samwise Tolkien's self-inserts? Which one(s) and why?
I would accept an answer based either on Word of God or on a reasonable analysis by a third-party.
(The question arose out ...
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What's become of the author Dan Simmons?
What's become of the author Dan Simmons? I know he suffered a head injury, but that was several years ago. His website had disappeared, and Googling hasn't turned up any info newer than 2019.
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Science fiction story where an author steals the settings from a better author's AI writing tool
I have been trying for a very long time to identify a story.
Genre: science fiction
Duration: short story
Topic: Super-Computer (AI) assisted writing
Premise: Earth authors are very popular with ...
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Doc Savage’s fighting style
What martial arts did Doc Savage use in the novels? He was portrayed as a martial artist for a pulp character created in 1933. What martial arts could he be using and how many he could have known? Did ...
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Vintage short story of school kids studying a lethal alien design [duplicate]
I am trying to remember the title and author of a classic sci-fi short story / novella involving an alien invasion. It is difficult to fight the aliens because they use images designed to disrupt ...
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What book(s) reference dates A.S. (After Shannon) and what is the in-universe explanation for its origin?
After 01:20:30 in the delightful video The Bit Player | Claude Shannon | Father of Information Theory | IEEE Information Theory Society Shannon's last graduate student and Thinking Machine's Danny ...
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Is there a backup of Ray Aldridge's site with his stories?
There used to be a website with stories by Ray Aldridge, but I lost the bookmark, so I can't find it on Wayback Machine (not that I'm sure it is there). The website had also illustrations that looked ...
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Parody names of SF writers in Damon Knight story
The Infinity magazine of February 1956 contains the short story "A Likely Story" by Damon Knight. The setup is a meeting of "The Medusa Club", ". . . loosely speaking, an ...
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Old site with the religious affiliations of most science fiction writers
A long time ago, when the Internet was young (*), I stumbled into a site that listed the religious affiliations of most science fiction authors, both contemporary and of the past, and bookmarked it: ...
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Why did Iain M. Banks use his middle initial for his science fiction writing, but go by 'Iain Banks' in other works?
In the published works of Iain Menzies Banks, we may notice that the author chose to display his name slightly differently. The culture series has him as 'Iain M. Banks', but his 'non-genre' fiction ...
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Who said, "The only way to model an infinitely complex system is with the system, itself"?
I debated whether or not to ask this question here or on History. I concluded to try it here because I'm fairly sure it was said by someone like Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Asimov, and a great many of ...
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Identify the author of an anthology, which included a story about an alien working in City Lights bookshop
I am desperate to remember a book of short stories by an author, I believe, to be a San Francisco native or transplant.
In one of the short stories he wrote about an alien working in City Lights ...
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Author of "military squad" SF podcast
I'm trying to track down an author whose audiobook podcasts I listened to around 2008.
The story was a military SF about a team of soldiers or mercenaries.
I think it was on Podiobooks.
I think he is ...
user83948
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Who was Gavin Hyde and what happened to him?
Gavin Hyde wrote three stories: The Contest (1953), Nor the Moon by Night (1958) and Sparkie's Fall (1959). All three can be found on Internet archives. In none of the magazines/books they appeared ...
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What author joked that his writing skill came from a magical amulet
About 10 years ago I read a great quote from a scifi/fantasy writer. Unfortunately I have forgotten both where I read it and who wrote it, but I would like to find it again.
The quote was, as far as I ...
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Authorship of Forgotten Realms novels
I bought a bundle of Forgotten Realms novels as ebooks from Humble Bundle and I'm a bit confused about the authorship of the books.
Take this page as an example:
According to Wikipedia, R.A. ...
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A paperback collection of letters between Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke
About 10 years ago, while browsing some Thai second-hand english bookstore, I've stumbled upon an old (70-80's, based on condition) paperback that was described as a collection of letters exchanged ...
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Looking for an author's anthology of short surreal/absurdist fiction (80s-90s)
Summary: Anthology with short story about afterlife being a giant movie theater.
I am looking for a collection of short stories of a particular author. It was published in hardcover, and I picked up ...
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Was there really an author called Allen Sharp?
"Allen Sharp" was the author of a series of multiple choice fantasy and sci fi books in the 1980's such as The Stone of Badda and The Night of the Comet. The series of books was called "Storytrails". ...
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How closely did When Worlds Collide authors pursue the physics of the catastrophic damage and planet trajectories?
After writing this comment I thought of the 1933 novel When Worlds Collide co-written by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer.
South African astronomer Sven Bronson discovers that a pair of rogue planets,...
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Any details on Dannie Plachta's bio and name pronunciation?
I've discovered an interesting sci-fi author named Dannie Plachta (read a couple of his short stories, Alien Artifact and Revival Meeting, by pure chance and found them rather charming). I would read ...
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Why did Gene Roddenberry write a letter together with three Harvard-Smithsonian astronomers about the planet Vulcan?
News of the discovery of a potentially habitable planet around the star 40 Eridani A (about 16 light-years away) is interesting for reasons including a 1991 letter described below in Sky & ...
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Can the creator of a fictional universe get their own lore wrong? [closed]
I'm uncertain if this has been asked before, or if I'm asking it on the correct exchange. If it's misplaced I apologize.
My friend (who is a self-proclaimed Warcraft lore buff) and I were watching a ...
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Who is the author "DT in Oakland"?
I asked John Varley about this directly, but he says he forgot.
In his 1986 short "The Unprocessed Word", he cites three other authors whose work in longhand and/or typewriter proves that you don't ...
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Successful author who began writing while completely disabled
I can't for the life of me remember or find the details of this, but I recall reading about an author who was disabled and completely unable to work, and began writing as a hobby, going on to become ...
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Author of a short story in a compilation or high school textbook for a Sci-Fi extra credit course
The name of the short story was/is "Sanity".
It was about a post-apocalyptic town where everyone was going clinically insane, except one guy who was made the "mayor". During a council meeting, he ...
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What is the "About the Author" blurb in Shadows of the Empire supposed to say?
In my (2012 kindle) copy of the 1996 novel Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, the brief blurb about science fiction author Steve Perry seems to have at least two misprints:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Steve ...
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Who wrote "The Monsters" short story published by Purnell?
I have a sci-fi book from the 80's: Purnell's Book of Adventures in Space (ISBN 0361044070).
Many of the stories have kept in my mind for so many years, particularly "The Monsters":
From his ...
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Bio of Donald A. Wollheim
Donald A. Wollheim was a very influential science fiction and fantasy editor. There is a wikipedia article about him, but it lacks almost any biographical information. There is nothing, for example, ...
user2490
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Has Max Brooks ever discussed the possibility of writing more zombie books?
I know that he's now busy being the world's most respected zombie expert, and I seem to remember him saying that he had already told the full story of World War Z (and I personally don't see how ...
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Looking for a novel (or author of it) where the world is a seemlingly endless vertical cliff [duplicate]
This is a long shot, but wondering if anyone can help. Trying to recall a sci-fi author. One of his books was about a world that was all vertical, people lived on this eternal cliff (I think they ...
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Who was the first Science Fiction author to have a celestial body named after them?
Who was the first Science Fiction author to be honored in real life by having a celestial body named after them?
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Pronunciation of Van Vogt
How did A. E. van Vogt pronounce his last name? Does it rhyme with joked, goat, or go? I'm looking for an authoritative answer, preferably a direct quotation from Van Vogt himself or a personal ...
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Is there a way to get in touch with Barry Hughart? [closed]
... author of Bridge of Birds?
A friend of mine would like to enquiry about the possibility to translate the three novels in a foreign language, and what the terms would be for this.
I have tried to ...
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Did Paul Richards (author of "The Unblessed") write anything else?
The book "The Unblessed" deals with the African spider demon Anansi. It is based on a true legend from the Congo and I thought the book was fantastic and fascinating.
Did the author (Paul ...
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Do authors ever create conflicting canon to irk fussy fans? [closed]
I know that this site is the haven for anyone who loves to dig deep into their favorite Sci-Fi and Fantasy.
Even for a new visitor, from scrolling through this site shows that there's an awful lot ...
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Has anyone else written about Terry Pratchett's other worlds? [closed]
Prior to writing about the Discworld, Terry Pratchett wrote about the worlds of Strata, and Carpet People and later the Bromeliad Trilogy (Truckers, Diggers, Wings).
These settings have not seen as ...
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Looking for any biographical info on Terence Haile, author of Space Train
We're looking for biographical information about Terence Haile, the author of the science-fiction book "The Space Train". It's a very bad book, but we are trying to clear the copyright to turn it into ...
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Best way to stay informed on an author without much of a web presence?
I am a Ted Chiang fan and I find it quite frustrating that he has no website, no Twitter account, no Facebook account etc.
What is the best way to stay in touch with the man and his work short of ...
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Who *really* wrote the Rama sequels?
The Rama sequels, starting with Rama II and on, are co-authored by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee.
I'm wondering if there are any sources (e.g., interviews) discussing Clarke's impact or ...
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What influence did H.P. Lovecraft have on science fiction?
The main focus of Lovecraft's works are indeed... aliens. Lots and lots of aliens. Some visited Earth and lived on it. Some battled between themselves. Some built cities. Some destroyed cities. Some ...
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