Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that uses magic or other supernatural elements as a main plot element, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic and magical creatures are common. Fantasy is generally distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror by the expectation that it steers clear of scientific and macabre themes, respectively, though there is a great deal of overlap between the three, all of which are subgenres of speculative fiction.

In popular culture, the fantasy genre is predominantly of the medievalist form. In its broadest sense, however, fantasy comprises works by many writers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians, from ancient myths and legends to many recent and popular works.

Fantasy is studied in a number of disciplines including English and other language studies, cultural studies, comparative literature, history, and medieval studies. Work in this area ranges widely, from the structuralist theory of Tzvetan Todorov, which emphasizes the fantastic as a liminal space, to work on the connections (political, historical, literary) between medievalism and popular culture.

Fantasy (1938 magazine)

Fantasy was a British pulp science fiction magazine which published three issues in 1938 and 1939. The editor was T. Stanhope Sprigg; when the war started, he enlisted in the RAF and the magazine was closed down. The publisher, George Newnes Ltd, paid respectable rates, and as a result Sprigg was able to obtain some good quality material, including stories by John Wyndham, Eric Frank Russell, and John Russell Fearn.

Publication history

The first U.S. science fiction (sf) magazine, Amazing Stories, was imported into the U.K. from its launch in 1926, and other magazines from the U.S. market were also available in the U.K. from an early date. However, no British sf magazine was launched until 1934, when Pearson's launched Scoops, a weekly in tabloid format aimed at the juvenile market. Soon Haydn Dimmock, Scoops' editor, began to receive more sophisticated stories, targeted at an adult audience; he tried to change the magazine's focus to include more mature fiction but within twenty issues falling sales led Pearson's to kill the magazine. The failure of Scoops gave British publishers the impression that Britain could not support a science fiction publication.

Fantasy (Aldo Nova song)

"Fantasy" is the debut single by Canadian rock musician Aldo Nova and is his most popular work to date. Released on his eponymous debut album in 1981, the song climbed to #3 on the Mainstream rock chart, and #23 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The song was featured in a flashback sequence in the final episode of the popular television series Rob & Big. A cover version of the song, performed by Steel Panther, is the current theme song for the MTV show Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory.

VH1 listed it at #78 on its countdown for the 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 80s.

Music video

The video shows Aldo performing with his band at a concert. It is best remembered for its intro, which starts out with a man holding an electric guitar and two bodyguards holding machine guns, waiting for someone. Then comes a helicopter, landing from the sky, and Aldo comes out in a very contoured leopard-print suit, being escorted to the stage. When they encounter a locked door, which the bodyguards can't open, Aldo grabs his guitar and fires a laser into the door and it opens.

Vibes (video game)

Vibes is a rhythm action video game developed by UK-based studio Laughing Jackal. It was released as a PlayStation mini on the PlayStation Network in North America on June 8, 2010 and Europe on June 9, 2010.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Vibes is typical of rhythm action games. The player is required to press buttons in a sequence dictated on the screen. By successfully timing button presses, the player scores. In Vibes, the player controls a customizable pointer and has to press the corresponding button as it approaches, in addition to having the correct direction.

List of music tracks

Vibes (film)

Vibes is a film released in 1988 starring Cyndi Lauper, Jeff Goldblum, Julian Sands and Peter Falk. It was directed by Ken Kwapis. The plot revolves around Sylvia, a ditzy psychic, and Nick, her equally odd psychic friend and their trip into the Ecuadorian Andes to find the "source of psychic energy".

Plot

Lauper plays Sylvia Pickel (pronounced with an emphasis on the "kel", as she points out), a trance-medium who has contact with a wisecracking spirit guide named Louise. She first began communicating with Louise after falling from a ladder at the age of twelve and remaining comatose for two weeks. Subsequently, Louise taught her astral projection while Sylvia was placed in special homes for being "different." At a study of physics, she meets fellow psychic Nick Deezy (Goldblum), a psychometrist who can determine the history of events surrounding an object by touching it. Sylvia has a history of bad luck with men, and her overly flirtatious behavior turns off Nick right away.

Sylvia comes home to her apartment one night to find Harry Buscafusco (Falk) lounging in her kitchen. He claims to want to hire her for $50,000 if she'll accompany him to Ecuador where his son has allegedly gone missing. Sylvia recruits Nick who is reluctant but also eager to leave his job as a museum curator where his special talents are abused like a circus act.

List of female Transformers

This is a list of the known female Transformers in the Transformers franchise. Despite being robotic lifeforms with generally non-sexual methods of reproduction, the Transformer species has almost always been shown to include both male and female gender analogues, at least mentally if not physically. Female Transformers were originally depicted as an anomaly, specifically called out as either a thought-to-be-extinct subgroup or simply never existing in the first place. But over the course of decades, while they are still comparatively rare, they have increased greatly in numbers, prominence and overall fairness of representation, and are considered an official part of the Transformers brand in pretty much every continuity. Female Transformers are basically considered a normal part of the Cybertronian population.

Autobots

The Female Autobots (known in Japan as the Woman Cybertrons and alternately known as the Fatal Furies and Elita One's Squadron) were seen in the 1985 animated television series, in which they were indicated to be rare, and believed extinct by most other Transformers. They did not appear in the American Marvel comic book series, where it was specifically stated that Transformers do not have genders. It is very clear that the difference between male and female Transformers is much more than the shape of their bodies, it is a sociocultural difference, with each "gender" possessing—in a general sense—the traits usually associated, at least partially stereotypically, with the human genders. This list also includes females of the Maximals, the Mini-Cons and other heroic factions similar to the Autobots to give a better summary of the topic.

Ambient (album)

Ambient is the second studio album by American electronica musician Moby, released in August 1993 by record label Instinct.

It received a mediocre critical reception. Ambient, unlike most other Moby studio albums, has never been re-released in a special-edition or a remastered issue.

Compositions

The album is composed of electronic ambient pieces, similar to Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works releases. Like the Aphex Twin releases, the work is mainly instrumental (although there are samples of the sound of a choir vocalizing on "Tongues", and a woman saying 'bad days' in the background of "Bad Days"). Many of the tracks are beat-driven, except "J Breas" and "Piano and String", which both use pianos and synthesizers. "Bad Days" uses a 'sweeping' synth effect, and "Sound" is a high pitched loop playing and fading out and in. "80" uses synths mimicking an acoustic guitar.

The album has an experimental, moody style. Many of the tracks (including "Bad Days" and "Lean on Me") are dark and unearthly. There are also some more uplifting numbers, like "Heaven", "Tongues" and "Dog", which are more beat driven, dancable numbers. The track "Myopia" uses a bubbling synth-bass style. "House of Blue Leaves" and "My Beautiful Blue Sky" are more experimental beat songs ("House of Blue Leaves" is a simple beat and some keyboards, and "My Beautiful Blue Sky" is a tribal rhythm, synths, and a piano).