Cyberpunk http://www.feedbooks.com/list/26 Cyberpunk is a science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life". It is also a musical subgenre of metal. The name is derived from cybernetics and punk and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk" published in 1983, though the style was popularized well before its publication by editor Gardner Dozois. It features advanced science such as information technology and cybernetics, coupled with a degree of breakdown or a radical change in the social order. According to Lawrence Person: "Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body." Cyberpunk music often features heavy bass, bass drums, and synthesized sound effects. It is considered a subgenre of metal or EBM (electronic body music). Lyrics tend to lean toward the obscene, but usually include a message of some meaning that fits in with the classic punk. These meanings are often modernized and anti-establisment messages are not quite as common as in regular punk music. Cyberpunk plots often center on a conflict among hackers, artificial intelligences, and mega corporations. They tend to be set in a near-future Earth, rather than the far future settings or galactic vistas found in novels like Isaac Asimov's Foundation or Frank Herbert's Dune. The settings are usually post-industrial dystopias, but tend to be marked by extraordinary cultural ferment and the use of technology in ways never anticipated by its creators ("the street finds its own uses for things"). Much of the genre's atmosphere echoes film noir, and written works in the genre often use techniques from detective fiction. Primary exponents of the cyberpunk field include William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Pat Cadigan, Rudy Rucker and John Shirley. Postmodernist investigation of cyberpunk became a fashionable topic in academic circles, and the genre reached Hollywood to become one of cinema's staple science-fiction styles. Many influential films such as Blade Runner, Hackers (film), the Matrix trilogy or the more recent adaptation of Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly can be seen as prominent examples of the cyberpunk style and theme. Computer games, board games and role-playing games (such as Shadowrun or Cyberpunk 2020) often feature storylines that are heavily influenced by cyberpunk writing and movies. Beginning in the early 1990s, some trends in fashion and music were also labeled as cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is also featured prominently in anime, Ghost in the Shell being the most notable. As a wider variety of writers began to work with cyberpunk concepts, new-subgenres of science fiction emerged, playing off the cyberpunk label, and focusing on technology and its social effects in different ways. Examples include steampunk (cyberpunk themes in the early industrial age), pioneered by Tim Powers, K. W. Jeter, and James Blaylock, and biopunk (cyberpunk themes dominated by biotechnology, including Paul Di Filippo’s half-serious ribofunk). In addition, some people consider works such as Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age to be postcyberpunk. Some of the more popular cyberpunk bands include Angelspit, ASP, Chiasm, Combichrist, Das Ich, Seraphim Shock, Suicide Commando, and Zombie Girl. Source: Wikipedia 15 13 Locus Awards http://www.feedbooks.com/list/141 The Locus Awards were established in 1971 and are presented to winners of Locus Magazine's annual readers' poll. Currently, the Locus Awards are presented at an annual banquet. Unusually, the publishers of winning works are honored with a certificate. The first Locus Award was given in 1971 for works published in 1970. Source: Wikipedia 5 6 Movies http://www.feedbooks.com/list/373 A list of books that were turned into movies. 14 63 Great Books of the Western World http://www.feedbooks.com/list/296 This list is based on The Great Books of the Western World, edited by Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler. From Wikipedia: It came about as the result of a discussion among American academics and educators, starting in the 1920s and 1930s and begun by Prof. John Erskine of Columbia University, about how to improve the higher education system by returning it to the western liberal arts tradition of broad cross-disciplinary learning. These academics and educators included Robert Hutchins, Mortimer Adler, Stringfellow Barr, Scott Buchanan, and Alexander Meiklejohn. The view among them was that the emphasis on narrow specialization in American colleges had harmed the quality of higher education by failing to expose students to the important products of Western civilization and thought. Great Books started out as a list of 100 essential primary source texts considered to constitute the Western Canon. 25 85 Apocalypse/Post-Apocalypse http://www.feedbooks.com/list/64 Apocalyptic fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction (or, in some cases, the more general category speculative fiction) that is concerned with the end of civilization through nuclear war, plague, or some other general disaster. Post-apocalyptic fiction is set in a world or civilization after such a disaster. The time frame may be immediately after the catastrophe, focusing on the travails or psychology of survivors, or considerably later, often including the theme that the existence of pre-catastrophe civilization has been forgotten (or mythologized). Post-apocalyptic stories often take place in an agrarian, non-technological future world, or a world where only scattered elements of technology remain. There is a considerable degree of blurring between this form of science fiction and that which deals with false utopias or dystopic societies. A work of apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic fiction might also be called a ruined Earth story, or dying Earth if the apocalypse is sufficiently dire. The genres gained in popularity after World War II, when the possibility of global annihilation by nuclear weapons entered the public consciousness. However, recognizable apocalyptic novels existed at least since the first quarter of the 19th century, when Mary Shelley's The Last Man was published. Additionally, the subgenres draw on a body of apocalyptic literature, tropes, and interpretations that are millennia old. Source: Wikipedia 6 21 Art’s Appreciation Tom Doyle http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2756 en 2004 Short Fiction Science Fiction A delightfully paranoid, anti-consumerist dystopia - so step inside, but please ignore the ads. Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2756.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2756.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2756.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2756.mobi Futurismic http://www.feedbooks.com/list/177 "Futurismic is a free science fiction webzine specialising in the fact and fiction of the near future - the ever-shifting line where today becomes tomorrow. We publish original short stories by up-and-coming science fiction writers, as well as providing a blog that watches for science fictional news stories, and non-fiction columns on subjects as diverse as literary criticism, transhumanism and the philosophy of design. Come and imagine tomorrow, today." URL: http://www.futurismic.com/category/fiction/ 6 36 Free Culture Lawrence Lessig http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2750 urn:isbn:0143034650 en 2006 Non-Fiction Essay Lawrence Lessig, “the most important thinker on intellectual property in the Internet era” (The New Yorker), masterfully argues that never before in human history has the power to control creative progress been so concentrated in the hands of the powerful few, the so-called Big Media. Never before have the cultural powers- that-be been able to exert such control over what we can and can’t do with the culture around us. Our society defends free markets and free speech; why then does it permit such top-down control? To lose our long tradition of free culture, Lawrence Lessig shows us, is to lose our freedom to create, our freedom to build, and, ultimately, our freedom to imagine. Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2750.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2750.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2750.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2750.mobi Irène Delse http://www.feedbooks.com/list/32 Nouvelles de SF, fantasy et fantastique publiées sous licence Creative Commons 2 12 High School Reading http://www.feedbooks.com/list/204 A list of books that are commonly found on reading lists for US high school English classes. 24 66 About Writing http://www.feedbooks.com/list/194 A collection of books of interest to writers, describing writing techniques, processes et al. 2 2 China and Japan http://www.feedbooks.com/list/184 Classic literature from, or about, China and Japan. 4 6 Kelly, James Patrick 1951 en 8 15930 James Patrick Kelly (born 1951 in Mineola, New York) is a Hugo- and Nebula-award winning American science fiction author who began publishing in the 1970s and remains to this day an important figure in the SF field. Kelly made his first fiction sale in 1975, and has since been a major force in the science fiction field. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Notre Dame in 1972, with a B.A. in English Literature. After graduating college, he worked as a full-time proposal writer until 1977. He attended the science fiction workshop, Clarion, twice; once in 1974 and again in 1976. Throughout the 1980s, he and friend John Kessel became involved in the humanist/cyberpunk debate. While Kessel and Kelly were both humanists, Kelly also wrote several cyberpunk-like stories, such as "The Prisoner of Chillon" (1985) and "Rat" (1986). His story "Solstice" (1985) was published in Bruce Sterling's seminal anthology MirrorShades: The Cyberpunk Anthology. Kelly has been awarded several of science fiction's highest honors. He won the Hugo Award for his novelette "Think Like a Dinosaur" (1995) and again for his novelette "10^16 to 1" (1999). His 2005 novella, "Burn," won the 2006 Nebula Award. Other stories by him have won the Asimov's Reader's Poll and the SF Chronicle Award. He is frequently on the final ballot for the Nebula Award, the Locus Poll Award and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. He frequently teaches and participates in science fiction workshops, such as Clarion and The Sycamore Hill Writer's Workshop. He has served on the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts since 1998 and chaired the council in 2004. He is a frequent contributor to Asimov's Science Fiction, and for the past several years has contributed a non-fiction column to Asimov's, "On the Net." He has had a story in the June issue of Asimov's for the past twenty years. Most recently, his stand-alone novella, Burn, published by Tachyon Publications, won the 2006 Nebula Award for Best Novella. Source: Wikipedia 1984 George Orwell http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1166 urn:isbn:0452262933 en 1949 Novels Science Fiction Politics Nineteen Eighty-Four (also titled 1984), by George Orwell (the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair), is a 1949 English novel about life under a futuristic totalitarian regime in the year 1984. It tells the story of Winston Smith, a functionary at the Ministry of Truth, whose work consists of editing historical accounts to fit the government's policies. The book has major significance for its vision of an all-knowing government which uses pervasive and constant surveillance of the populace, insidious and blatant propaganda, and brutal control over its citizens. The book had a substantial impact both in literature and on the perception of public surveillance, inspiring such terms as 'Big Brother' and 'Orwellian'. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+50. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1166.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1166.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1166.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1166.mobi Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom Cory Doctorow http://www.feedbooks.com/book/194 urn:isbn:076530953X en 2003 Novels Science Fiction Jules is a young man barely a century old. He's lived long enough to see the cure for death and the end of scarcity, to learn ten languages and compose three symphonies...and to realize his boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World.Disney World! The greatest artistic achievement of the long-ago twentieth century. Now in the keeping of a network of "ad-hocs" who keep the classic attractions running as they always have, enhanced with only the smallest high-tech touches.Now, though, the "ad hocs" are under attack. A new group has taken over the Hall of the Presidents, and is replacing its venerable audioanimatronics with new, immersive direct-to-brain interfaces that give guests the illusion of being Washington, Lincoln, and all the others. For Jules, this is an attack on the artistic purity of Disney World itself. Worse: it appears this new group has had Jules killed. This upsets him. (It's only his fourth death and revival, after all.) Now it's war.... Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or check the copyright status in your country. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/194.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/194.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/194.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/194.mobi Sanin Mikhail Petrovich Artsybashev http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2177 urn:isbn:0801485592 en 1907 Novels The hero of Artsybashev's novel exhibits a set of new values to be contrasted with the morality of the older Russian intelligentsia. Sanin is an attractive, clever, powerful, life-loving man who is, at the same time, an amoral and carnal animal, bored both by politics and by religion. During the novel he lusts after his own sister, but defends her when she is betrayed by an arrogant officer; he deflowers an innocent-but-willing virgin; and encourages a Jewish friend to end his self-doubts by committing suicide. Sanin's extreme individualism greatly appealed to young people in Russia during the twilight years of the Romanov regime. "Saninism" was marked by sensualism, self-gratification, and self-destruction--and gained in credibility in an atmosphere of moral and spiritual despondency. This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70 and in the USA. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2177.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2177.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2177.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2177.mobi Le Procès Franz Kafka http://www.feedbooks.com/book/396 urn:isbn:2253150150 fr 1925 Novels This work is available for countries where copyright is Life+70. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/396.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/396.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/396.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/396.mobi The Monk Matthew Lewis http://www.feedbooks.com/book/331 urn:isbn:0192833944 en 1796 Novels Romance Sexuality Gothic The Monk is remembered for being one of the more lurid and "transgressive" of Gothic novels. It is also the first book to feature a priest as the villain. The story concerns Ambrosio - a pious, well-respected monk in Spain - and his violent downfall. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/331.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/331.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/331.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/331.mobi Voyage autour de ma chambre Xavier de Maistre http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1503 urn:isbn:2842054768 fr 1794 Essay Travel http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1503.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1503.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1503.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1503.mobi Les Diaboliques Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1342 urn:isbn:207030275X fr 1874 Short Fiction Collections Les Diaboliques est un recueil de six nouvelles de Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, paru en novembre 1874 à Paris chez l'éditeur Dentu. Le projet de ce recueil de nouvelles devait s'intituler à l'origine Ricochets de conversation. Il fallut cependant près de vingt-cinq ans à Barbey pour le voir paraître puisqu'il y travaillait déjà en 1850 lorsqu'il fit paraître Le dessous de cartes d'une partie de whist dans le journal La Mode dans un feuilleton en trois parties, La Revue des Deux Mondes l'ayant refusé. Barbey revint en Normandie à la faveur des événements de la Commune et l'acheva en 1873. http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1342.png http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1342.pdf http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1342.epub http://www.feedbooks.com/book/1342.mobi