Culture Science Fiction

New York Times, Wired, Atlantic Monthly, Discover bestselling author Steven Kotler has written extensively about those pivotal moments when science fiction became science fact...and fundamentally reshaped the world. Now he gathers the best of his best, updated and expanded upon, to guide listeners on a mind-bending tour of the far frontier, and how these advances are radically transforming our lives.

Before their experiments, inventions, and discoveries that changed the world, the world’s most celebrated scientists had regular-kid problems just like you. Stephen Hawking hated school and preferred to spend his free time building model airplanes, inventing board games, and even building his own computer. Jane Goodall got in trouble for bringing worms and snails into her house. And Neil deGrasse Tyson had to start a dog-walking business to save up money to buy a telescope.

Arthur's Seat had never sought a galactic role. A relatively new colony world, a mere 300 years old, the planet was always isolated from the galactic mainstream. But with the Empire crumbling after the fall of Earth and other planets taking advantage of the chaos to make their own bids for power, Arthur's Seat suddenly finds itself playing host to tens of thousands of unwanted immigrants, refugees who have been kicked off countless other worlds.

Danny Hook is a directionless twenty-something-year-old fresh out of therapy. Dealing with his disappointed family and dead-end career, he's sure things couldn't get much worse, until a drink-driving accident leaves his best friend Nudge dead. Danny also discovers he can see ghosts - but only when he's drunk. Saddled with a best friend who can't leave his side, they must figure out what's going on and why Nudge can't cross over. Can Danny negotiate family life, therapy and a ghost that refuses to fade into the background before time runs out?

When smart-aleck, down-on-his-luck bounty hunter Anderson Gunn snags his next job, he’s just happy to get the gig. The target he’s chasing may be wanted for murder, but his bills aren’t going to pay themselves. As it turns out, he probably should've been more selective. When he tracks down Cameron Kovak, the wanted man turns out to be no man at all. Gunn finds himself face to face with a tentacled creature out of Ridley Scott’s worst nightmare - a baby Cthulhu, wearing his target's skin like a onesie. And that's just the start of it.

The science we do, the movies we watch, and the culture we consume is the stuff of fiction that became fact, the future imagined in our past - the future we now inhabit. The Science of Science Fiction is the story of how science fiction shaped our world. No longer a subculture, science fiction has moved into the mainstream with the advent of the information age it helped realize. Explore how science fiction has driven science.

Why are many readers drawn to stories that texture ethnic experiences and identities other than their own? How do authors such as Salman Rushdie and Maxine Hong Kingston, or filmmakers in Bollywood or Mexico City produce complex fiction that satisfies audiences worldwide? In Analyzing World Fiction, 15 renowned luminaries use tools of narratology and insights from cognitive science and neurobiology to provide answers to these questions and more.

In Finding Truth in Fiction, two media psychologists reveal that there's much more to our desire to seek out stories in film, TV, and books than simple diversion - fiction can help us find truth in our real lives. Whether you consider yourself a fan of popular media or whether you find yourself thinking of a particular fictional scene for inspiration, you are not alone. Though some assume that interest in a fictional world is a sign of psychological trouble, the authors enthusiastically disagree.

When Sybella accompanies the duchess to France, she expects trouble, but she isn’t expecting a deadly trap. Surrounded by enemies both known and unknown, Sybella searches for the undercover assassins from the convent of St. Mortain who were placed in the French court years ago. Genevieve has been undercover for so many years, she no longer knows who she is or for what she’s supposed to be fighting. When she discovers a hidden prisoner who may be of importance, she takes matters into her own hands.

Why couldn’t Alan be cool like people in the ‘70s? After breaking up with his girlfriend Sheila and unsatisfyingly teaching English in South Korea, he befriends an alien grad student, Coff, who lets him time-travel to swingin’ 1967 England to live out his retro-boogie fantasy. But now 70 years old in Edmonton, Canada, Alan takes a chance in meeting Sheila again to confess his past. That causes problems in time that Coff will need more than Fleetwood Mac and fuzzy dice to fix.

Traveling through time is not for everyone, and it's definitely not Susan and Freddy's idea of a fun ride. Their adventurous granddaughter Sylvia, though, would be happy just to do something new for a change already, anything! Travel back in time to medieval London with the Willifred family on a heart-warming adventure of history, excitement, humor, and love. Meet the real heroes of the medieval era, some who you may not have heard about, and some you might know well! Watch history come to life in this action-packed saga.

Victor and Diana find themselves in Sirius A, babysitiing a secret delivery to Shinko labs. When a freak accident turns what should have been a humdrum journey into a bloody fight for survival.

Locked out of her bank accounts and kicked out of her apartment, Alice doesn’t think that her life could get any worse. Until it does. A hacker bent on Alice’s capture will stop at nothing before she is stopped. Soon, men in suits are chasing her through the streets of New York who are several steps ahead. Miscreants from every corner of the city attempt to stop Alice’s quest to liberate original music.

Cet enregistrement réunit une dizaine de contes d'origines très diverses (Grèce, Mésopotamie, Pawnees du Nebraska, Égypte, Chine etc.) qui offrent, chacun de manière très différente, une vision poétique et fantastique de la genèse du monde ou de l'univers. Chaque conte est précédé d'une très brève introduction par un astronome qui définit scientifiquement et très simplement pour des enfants le phénomène ou l'élément central de l'histoire (voie lactée, tâches solaires, étoiles doubles etc.)

When the gates first opened on Latolan some 800 years ago, the only thing the first explorers found were the drunken ruins of a civilization at least 1,000 years dead. Since then, The District has taken advantage of the relative neutrality to make the world the home of its headquarters and most of its government funded projects including, among other things, the Grand Tomar Library. Two worldviews butt heads when a worlds-renowned anthropologist returns with a few interesting new takes on the human condition.