Archive for the ‘literature’ tag
literacy web fiction
Close your eyes and imagine you’re on a beach straight out of one of those rum adverts. You’re in a tropical paradise surrounded by sun, sea and sand. You stretch out on your towel, liberally applying suntan lotion and reach into your bag for a good read. Out comes something the shape and size of a hardback, but instead of pages it has a screen.
You idly page through the scores of novels you downloaded from the Net before you came on holiday. And you idly rub your shoulder, reflecting on all the weight you didn’t have to lug through the airport because you weren’t carrying 20 different books. You select John Grisham’s latest lawyer tale, roll over on your front and begin to read. Five minutes later, thoroughly bored by legal blandness, you flip over to some Scottish swearing courtesy of Irvine Welsh. That’s better. Not so much a page turner as a real screen scroller…
This is the reading utopia promised by the en masse arrival of ebooks, heralded as the greatest revolution since the advent of the paperback. Most online book sellers enable you to download books or periodicals from the Net for a fee. They offer illuminated screens for night time reading and the ability to bookmark pages, make notes in the margin and search the complete text. No more pencil scribbles or dog-eared pages. Most are in Abobe’s PDF (Acrobat) format.
Already some of you will be squirming in your seats. Reading novels off a screen? Ridiculous. Who’d want to take a glorified laptop to the beach or in bed with them when they want a good read? The idea of reading a novel by Dickens from a screen is mad.
Maybe. But there’s a distinct method in the madness of the ebook manufacturers. The reason why they have emerged, is the ever increasing prevalence of the Net. Reading has become sexy again, thanks to the Web which, despite all the whiz-bang grooviness of animations and streaming audio, still remains a medium primarily of text and pictures.
People who complain about children not reading books forget that they’re spending an increasing amount of time online, reading Web pages, sending email and using search engines, all of which develop literacy. Thanks to the Net, more and more people are becoming used to the idea of reading from a screen, and computer monitors have come on in leaps and bounds in the last few years.
As such, the arrival of the ebook is the natural extension of this secret love affair with the screen. It’s easy to see why the ebook manufacturers are initially targeting students, academics and business people as their main audiences.
There’s also a distinct similarity between paperless books and the MP3 music format. Both technologies revolve around a different perspective of books and records. While we’re currently used to the idea of a record or book containing a particular chunk of information, technology is changing this.
The ebook and MP3 are moving towards the concept of the book and music player as simply containers for content, whether it’s literary or musical. You buy the device, then plug in only the titles or tracks you want.
Save trees, hug an ebook.
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Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Pulped Fiction & Paperless Books
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Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web (Vintage Original) $2.00 “What are you working on?”“An anthology of blogs.”“I didn’t know you had a blog.”“I don’t. It’s an anthology of other people’s blogs.” “How do you find good blogs?”“I read. I surf. I look at blog contests. I follow links. I ask people about the blogs they like.” “Is a good blog hard to find?”“Yes. Very.”A Book of Blogs? WTF!!Sarah Boxer, a former New York Ti… |
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Cyberspaces Of Their Own: Female Fandoms Online (Digital Formations, V. 25) $26.95 Cyberspaces of Their Own interrogates the social and spatial relations of the rapidly expanding virtual terrain of media fandom. For the first time, issues of identity, community and space are brought together in this in-depth ethnographic study of two female internet communities. Members are fans of the American television series The X- Files and the Canadian series Due South. Forging links betwe… |
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Oxford Literacy Web Non-Fiction Year 5 Guided Reading Cards-Communications: Web Guided Reading These time-saving laminated cards provide teaching ideas for using Year 5 Web Non-Fiction Communication books for guided reading in the Literacy Hour. They highlight key teaching points and learning objectives at text, sentence, and word level, and give strategies for teaching guided reading using the series. The full NLS range is covered and assessment suggestions are given…. |
short fiction an
January 1985 marks the beginning of America’s love affair with Ender Wiggin. It was that month that Ender’s Game was published, becoming an instant blockbuster, and “probably the most popular science fiction novel published in the last twenty years” (John Kessel). The child prodigy and ultimate savior of the earth, Ender Wiggin, had appeared seven years earlier in a short story published in the science fiction magazine Analog. Writer Orson Scott Card had spent much of his young life working in print, but had only set to writing science fiction when his meager salary as copy editor at a small press failed to pay a debt incurred from a failed business attempt. His magazine article won instant attention, and Orson Scott Card won the 1978 John C. Campbell Award for best new writer at the World Science Fiction Convention. But little Ender was destined for bigger things.
Orson Scott Card saw potential in his young protagonist and instantly set to work developing the short fiction into a longer work. Already he had two novels in mind, Ender’s Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead, published the following year in 1986. Card made history by winning both the prestigious Nebula and Hugo Awards in both consecutive years. No other author has managed this feat to date (2006.) Since that time, Ender’s Game has been translated into sixteen languages, and spawned two series.
The first series includes Ender’s Game (1985), Speaker for the Dead (1986), Xenocide (1991), Children of the Mind (1996), and First Meetings (2002). The saga follows Ender as he grows into adulthood and deals with the moral and ethical issues presented in his childhood.
The second series starts with a parallel telling of the original Ender’s Game, but from the eyes of Bean. Titled Ender’s Shadow (1999), it is the first of the Shadow Series, followed by Shadow of the Hegemon (2001), Shadow Puppets (2002), and Shadow of the Giant (2005).
Ender’s Game has been called “the science fiction novel for people who don’t think they like science fiction.” Truly it appeals to a vast audience. It is on the list of top books for college-bound students, and has been adopted as required reading in numerous secondary schools and university classes. Card explains that the focus on the human story as it unravels, rather than the science fiction elements, is what gives the novel power among its readers. Essentially, Card says, readers must relate and care deeply about the characters. Beyond that, he admits that the use of computer networks and the “mind game” are features in the book that appeal to many readers.
Ender claimed the spotlight again in the late 1990s when rumor caught wind that a film was slated. Indeed, Warner Brothers announced in 2002 its plans to produce the film. Director Wolfgang Peterson, known for his most recent films Poseidon, Troy and The Perfect Storm, is joined by screenwriter David Benieff (Troy). The movie is expected to hit the theaters in 2008. After winning the top prizes offered in science fiction literature, one wonders what is still in store for Ender Wiggen.
About the Author:
About the Author
Francesca Black has always enjoyed Science Fiction and she manages the content at: Science Fiction Corner http://www.science-fiction-corner.com
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – The Ender Saga: a Noteworthy Science Fiction Series
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Norton Anthology of Short Fiction … |
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Indigo Ocean Dreams: 4 Children’s Stories Designed to Decrease Stress, Anger and Anxiety while Increasing Self-Esteem and Self-Awareness $8.74 Indigo Ocean Dreams is a 60 minute audio/CD designed to entertain your child in an ocean setting while introducing them to four research-based, stress management techniques. Each story integrates either progressive muscular relaxation, visualizations, breathing, and affirmations (positive statements). Children follow their sea friends along as they use progressive muscular relaxation and breathing… |
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Infinity’s Child $14.98 The makers of Planetary Traveler return with another wordless voyage through computer-generated worlds. Infinity’s Child, however, leaves behind the recognizable if digitally realized landscapes from that first effort; this time, the images border upon the abstract. A brief voice-over at the opening informs us that the Phleig explorers from Planetary Traveler have tracked down one of their spacecr… |
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Planetary Traveler $14.98 … |
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Short Circuit $2.78 When a lightning bolt strikes a top secret experimental military robot, it comes to life and escapes to the home of a woman who tries to keep it from… |
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Mars Attacks! [Blu-ray] $18.99 It’s enlightening to view Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! as his twisted satire of the blockbuster film Independence Day, which was released earlier the same year, although the movies were in production simultaneously. Burton’s eye-popping, schlock tribute to 1950s UFO movies actually plays better on video than it did in theaters. The idea of invading aliens ray gunning the big-name movie stars in the … |
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9 $7.99 On a bleak, post-apocalyptic Earth, nine rag dolls brought to life by a scientist hold the keys to creating a new future…. |
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Mystery Science Theater 3000 – Shorts Vol. 2 [VHS] $9.98 … |
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Blair Witch Project/Curse Of The Blair Witch [VHS] $0.85 The Blair Witch Project Anyone who has even the slightest trouble with insomnia after seeing a horror movie should stay away from The Blair Witch Project–this film will creep under your skin and stay there for days. Credit for the effectiveness of this mock documentary goes to filmmakers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, who armed three actors (Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, and Josh Leonard… |
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Mystery Science Theater 3000 – Shorts [VHS] $9.98 … |
fiction audiobooks on
First a little about me. I drive a truck for a living, picking up and delivering refrigerated freight all over the lower 48 states. Driving 8 to 11 hour per day gets very tedious. It is not boring as there is always some thing or some one getting crazy to keep you on your toes. I own well over 150 audio books, mostly Graphic Audio format. The Graphic Audio format I refer to is basically every thing that a move has except the picture. That is to say they include sound effects.
Ok, now for the book, Rogue Angel number 1 Destiny. The heroine in this book is Annja Creed an archaeologist and researcher for a TV show Chasing History Monsters. Through a twist of fate she finds herself heir to Joan of Arc’s mystic sword. She finds herself involved in countless adventures involving ancient treasures all over the globe.
Even though this series of books, currently up to #14, is action adventure. The author keeps a historic base through out the stories. The stories are fiction with enough reality to be believable. The author keeps you guessing what is going to happen next. The historic references are real, sometimes mythology although some would say that is historic also.
This is not a super hero type book, as Annja is not sure she believes that the sword she now has is real or not.
The main character has the same daily problems as everyone else. She lives in a loft apartment in New York City, and lives on a budget like normal people do. Her boyfriend is a NYC cop, he is unaware of her ability with Joan of Arc’s sword.
A simple drivers review of audio books I like and a day to day diary of my travels/job. I drive in all of the lower 48 states. I have been married for 38 years to a wonderful East Texas girl. We live in East Texas, the company I work for is in Mississippi. I am a Vietnam vet. I served 7 years in the Army (First Calvary Division 1/7 Calvary). I am what Rednecks call a Jack of all Trades but a Master of none.
http://www.travelingaudio.blogspot.com
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The History of English Literature (Naxos AudioBooks Histories series) $16.37 Perry Keenlyside tells the remarkable story of the world’s richest literary resource. The book covers the story-telling, the poetry, the growth of the novel and the great histories and essays which have informed the language and the imagination wherever English is spoken…. |
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Winter’s Heart (The Wheel of Time, Book 9) $69.95 Is Robert Jordan still doing the Light’s work? Even loyal fans have to wonder. (And if you’re not a fan yet, you’ll have to read the previous 6,789 pages in this bestselling series to understand what all the fuss is about.) Everyone’s in agreement on the Wheel of Time’s first four or five volumes: They’re topnotch, where-have-you-been-all-my-life epic fantasy, the best in anybody’s memo… |
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War and Peace (Abridged 4 CDs) $15.05 Tim Pigott-Smith reads Tolstoy’s War and Peace. There are four audio CD’s in a plastic case…. |
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Over 600 Audiobooks on 8 DVD’s from Www.DVDAudiobooks.com … |
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Best of Jack London $29.95 BEST OF JACK LONDON (AUDIOBOOK) (AUDIO BOOK)… |
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The Rembrandt Affair (Gabriel Allon) $14.00 Determined to sever his ties with the Office, Gabriel Allon has retreated to the windswept cliffs of Cornwall with his beautiful Venetian-born wife, Chiara. But once again his seclusion is interrupted by a visitor from his tangled past: the endearingly eccentric London art dealer Julian Isherwood. As usual, Isherwood has a problem. And it is one only Gabriel can solve.In the ancient English city o… |
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The Screwtape Letters: First Ever Full-cast Dramatization of the Diabolical Classic (Radio Theatre) $23.14 From the award-winning audio drama team that brought you Radio Theatreâs Amazing Grace and The Chronicles of Narnia. In his enduringly popular masterpiece The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis re-imagines Hell as a gruesome bureaucracy. With spiritual insight and wry wit, Lewis suggests that demons, laboring in a vast enterprise, have horribly recognizable human attributes: competition, greed, a… |
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Great American Stories: Ten Unabridged Classics $17.97 These ten classic stories from four of America’s greatest authors of the 19th and early 20th century were selected for their literary importance as well as their dramatic oral qualities. The stories include Mark Twains “The One-Million Pound Bank Note,” “A Visit to Niagara,” and “A Mysterious Visit;” Stephen Cranes “The Blue Hotel;” Ambrose Bierces “The Eyes of the Panther;” and Jack London… |
fiction books 19
In our third installment in our series, of Top 100 Books in Science Fiction & Fantasy we take a look at some of our favourite books in the dystopic/post-apocalyptic sub-genre.
On the Beach by Nevil Shute
Nevil Shute’s classic novel is set a year after World War III has devastated most of the world. The inhabitants of the Southern hemisphere live out their lives, waiting for the inevitable air currents that will bring radiation poisoning. Meanwhile, a US submarine now under Australian naval command, is sent out to uncover a Morse code signal coming from the States.
The Postman by David Brin
Avoid the Kevin Costner movie at all costs and check out the anti-survivalist novel that the movie was based on. In this story, a drifter stumbles upon a postal worker’s uniform and puts it on (having lost all but the clothes he was sleeping in). The uniform of the postal worker becomes a symbol of restoration to a society that has destroyed itself.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
With a movie in the works, readers will want to get started right away with this novel. Interestingly, many point out how it’s not actually science fiction per se. Unlike many post-apocalyptic stories, it lacks the zombies and other features seen in post-apocalyptic scifi. Instead it offers a more human story, as it follows a father and son as they travel south to warmer weather, some years after a cataclysm devastates the Earth, kicking up dust clouds and dramatically changing Earth’s weather patterns.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Huxley’s novel was originally conceived as a parody on a utopian novel written by H.G. Wells, Men like Gods. In this novel, society is controlled by The World State. Reproduction is done purely through high tech birthing centers and people are birthed into caste systems. Individualism is shunned, while a group mentality, along with habitual drug use and meaningless sex is encouraged.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The story of a world where firemen are used to set fire to books and in which intellectualism is feared may be Ray Bradbury’s most significant novel. The irony of course is that the novel is misinterpreted by many as being a reaction to censorship when in fact it was Bradbury’s reaction to a world where, increasingly, television factoids are replacing true knowledge found in books and libraries. Wow, he must love the internet…
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
George Orwell’s 1949 classic totalitarian state has formed the basis of many other dystopic stories. Without Orwell’s novel we wouldn’t have terms such as Big Brother, Thought Police and doublethink- concepts that are integral to 1984 and frankly make me very glad that Orwell got it wrong – mostly.
Children of Men by PD James
This dystopic novel set in 2021 depicts a world where mankind is facing the end, not through nuclear war or the melting of the ice caps, but through male infertility. With a lack of future comes a lack of caring in politics and all other areas of life, allowing private armies and state police to take over while citizens in the UK are forced to learn husbandry skills in case they become the last people alive. In all of this though, there is the glimmer of hope with talk of a pregnant woman.
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
A Time Traveller builds a time machine and travels to the year A.D. 802.70 to find humans are still around in the form of Eloi. All around him, buildings seem to be empty, with no new construction, and the Eloi have no knowledge of agriculture, though they feast on fruit, in an apparent Utopia. The Eloi is a society that has no use for knowledge or even curiosity. Worse, the Eloi are being “taken care of” by a tribe of cannibal humanoids who toil underground to feed the Eloi, much in the same way mankind feeds cows to fatten them up for the slaughterhouse.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Though Atwood has claimed that this book is not science fiction, having won the Arthur C. Clark award, we at IGP beg to differ. Atwood’s tale portrays a totalitarian, theocratic state where women are subjugated and placed according to a caste system with “wives” at the top and ending with “jezebels,” and fertility is prized above all else.
Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
George R Stewart’s innovative tale in which the majority of mankind succumbs to a fatal disease is a masterpiece. The first half of his novel focuses on the way that the natural world changes and responds without humanity there. The second half of the novel addresses what can happen when there are so few humans left. Natural selection in Earth Abides has gotten rid of humans that aren’t focused primarily on survival, leading to a lack of learnedness.
Shiromi Arserio is editor of the website the Inter-Galaxy Portal: http://www.igp-scifi.com
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Lilium II by Katie Pertiet. Size 8.00 inches width by 19.93 inches height. High Quality Art Poster Print Lilium II by Katie Pertiet.Total Size : 8.00 inches width by 20.00 inches height.This is the Highest Quality Art Print Reproduction of the Original Work. Fully Authorized by the Artist. OnlineWall is the worlds best quality art print, poster and framing store with over 25 years custom framing experience our quality of art prints cannot be beat …. |
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Lilium II by Katie Pertiet. CANVAS ROLLED. 8.00 inches width by 19.93 inches height. Highest Quality Art Poster Print Lilium II by Katie Pertiet.Total Size : 8.00 inches width by 20.00 inches height.This is the Highest Quality Art Print Reproduction of the Original Work. Fully Authorized by the Artist.Differing from traditional paper art prints, a canvas transfer has a lifespan as long as any original painting or work of art. They can easily be dusted and cleaned with a damp cloth, giving years of use and enjoyme… |
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Lilium II by Katie Pertiet. CANVAS with 1 1/2 inch bars. 8.00 inches width by 19.93 inches height. Highest Quality Art Poster Print Lilium II by Katie Pertiet.Total Size : 8.00 inches width by 20.00 inches height.This is the Highest Quality Art Print Reproduction of the Original Work. Fully Authorized by the Artist.Transfer Stretched on Canvas with 1 1/2 Inch Deep Bars with either Museum Wrap or Gallery Wrap. Canvas Transfer with the museum wrap method (image goes to the edge of the surface, plain white sides) or the gallery w… |
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Enemy Mine [VHS] $2.48 Lizard-like Draconian Louis Gossett Jr. and his mortal enemy, earthling Dennis Quaid, crash-land on a hostile planet during a brutal space battle. Forced to rely on one another for survival, they overcome their differences and become fast friends. You can almost hear them break into an off-key version of “It’s a Small World.” German director Wolfgang Petersen, so brutally honest with his film Das … |
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X-Men [VHS] $0.01 In a time when race and religion don’t separate people, but extra powers and mutated characteristics do, two longtime friends, Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) part ways, only to become rivals over the issue of how much patience they should have with “normal” people. Living lives that scare most humans lacking the “X-factor” (a special power such as telekinesis… |
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Star Trek III – The Search for Spock [VHS] $1.99 You didn’t think Mr. Spock was really dead, did you? When Spock’s casket landed on the surface of the Genesis planet at the end of Star Trek II, we had already been told that Genesis had the power to bring “life from lifelessness.” So it’s no surprise that this energetic but somewhat hokey sequel gives Spock a new lease on life, beginning with his rebirth and rapid growth as the Genesis planet lit… |
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Star Trek The Next Generation – The Complete Fourth Season $39.75 Season 4 of Star Trek: The Next Generation seemed like the year of family. After quickly resolving the breathtaking cliffhanger of “The Best of Both Worlds,” the show took pains to show some of what the Federation was fighting for. We meet Picard’s brother, Data’s father, Tasha’s sister, and Worf’s adoptive human parents, plus an old flame with a surprise son in tow. The Klingon heritage subplot t… |
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The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 1 (Bloodlust / Catalina Caper / The Creeping Terror / Skydivers) $35.90 This four-disc set, bundled together in an appropriately cheesy but charming package that sports pop-up-book-styled artwork, compiles four episodes of the Peabody Award-winning comedy series. The “experiments” in question (Bloodlust, Catalina Caper, The Creeping Terror, and The Skydivers) aren’t necessarily MST3K’s finest hours–they don’t hold a candle to the show’s takes on The Magic Sword, The … |
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Terminator 3 – Rise of the Machines (2-Disc Widescreen Edition) $3.68 JOHN CONNOR IS NOW IN HIS 20′S, AND A FEMALE TERMINATOR, CALLED T-X OR TERMINATRIX, IS AFTER HIM. ANOTHER T-101 IS SENT BACKTHROUGH TIME TO PROTECT JOHN ONCE AGAIN ON THE VERGE OF THE RISEOF THE MACHINES…. |
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Chekhov Stories 1 $18.00 Chekhov Stories 1 is an audio book release of selected Chekhov short stories read by Max Bollinger in English (Unabridged). This production offers unique dramatisation of Chekhov’s best works by a Russian born performer, now a British actor fluent in both Russian and English languages. ISBN 9780956116543.ReviewsFor those who already love Chekhov’s stories, this CD will delight and demand repeated… |