Cyborg (novel)

Cyborg is the title of a science fiction/secret agent novel by Martin Caidin which was first published in 1972. The novel also included elements of speculative fiction, and was adapted as the television movie The Six Million Dollar Man, which was followed by a weekly series, and also inspired a spin-off, The Bionic Woman.

Plot summary

Cyborg is the story of an astronaut-turned-test pilot, Steve Austin, who experiences a catastrophic crash during a flight, leaving him with all but one limb destroyed, blind in one eye, and with other major injuries.

At the same time, a secret branch of the American government, the Office of Strategic Operations (OSO) has taken an interest in the work of Dr. Rudy Wells in the field of bionics - the replacement of human body parts with mechanical prosthetics that (in the context of this novel) are more powerful than the original limbs. Wells also happens to be a close friend of Austin's, so when OSO chief Oscar Goldman "invites" (or rather, orders) Wells to rebuild Austin with bionics limbs, Wells agrees.

Cyborg

A cyborg (short for "cybernetic organism") is a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts. The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.

The term cyborg is not the same thing as bionic, biorobot or android; it applies to an organism that has restored function or enhanced abilities due to the integration of some artificial component or technology that relies on some sort of feedback. While cyborgs are commonly thought of as mammals, including humans, they might also conceivably be any kind of organism. It is hypothesized that cyborg technology will form a part of postbiological evolution, in the form of transhumanism - where people are artificially enhanced beyond their original biological characteristics.

D. S. Halacy's Cyborg: Evolution of the Superman in 1965 featured an introduction which spoke of a "new frontier" that was "not merely space, but more profoundly the relationship between 'inner space' to 'outer space' – a bridge...between mind and matter." In popular culture, some cyborgs may be represented as visibly mechanical (e.g., the Cybermen in the Doctor Who franchise or The Borg from Star Trek or Darth Vader from Star Wars); as almost indistinguishable from humans (e.g., the "Human" Cylons from the re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica etc.) The 1970s television series The Six Million Dollar Man featured one of the most famous fictional cyborgs, referred to as a bionic man; the series was based upon a novel by Martin Caidin titled Cyborg. Cyborgs in fiction often play up a human contempt for over-dependence on technology, particularly when used for war, and when used in ways that seem to threaten free will. Cyborgs are also often portrayed with physical or mental abilities far exceeding a human counterpart (military forms may have inbuilt weapons, among other things).

Hank Henshaw

Hank Henshaw is a fictional supervillain featured in the DC Comics universe. While originally featured primarily as an enemy of Superman, recent years have repositioned him as one of the main enemies of the Green Lantern Corps. While the character debuted in The Adventures of Superman #465 (April 1990), he was reintroduced as the original Cyborg Superman during the Reign of the Supermen storyline following Superman's death. At times, he is also referred to as The Cyborg (not to be confused with Teen Titans member Victor Stone aka Cyborg).

Fictional character biography

Hank Henshaw first appeared as a crew member on board the doomed NASA space shuttle Excalibur in Superman #42, and Henshaw and the other crew members were next seen in Adventures of Superman #465.

In a pastiche of the origin of the Fantastic Four, Hank and the other three members of the Excalibur crew, including his wife Terri, are part of a radiation experiment designed by LexCorp that is affected by a solar flare, causing their shuttle to crash. As a result of their radiation exposure, the human bodies of two crew members were destroyed. However, their minds survived and they were able to construct new bodies out of cosmic radiation and bits of earth and wreckage from the shuttle, respectively. Initially, Henshaw and his wife suffer no ill effects from the radiation (though Hank's hair turns white), and the crew travels to Metropolis in the hopes of using LexCorp facilities to cure their mutated crew mates. During a brief battle with Superman, the crew member now composed of radiation becomes unhinged and flies into the sun, thereby destroying himself. By this time, Henshaw's body has started to rapidly decay while his wife is beginning to phase into an alternate dimension. With Superman's help, Henshaw is able to use the LexCorp facilities to save Terri. The remaining member of the shuttle crew commits suicide using an MRI booth to tear apart the metallic components of his body.

Cyborg (comics)

Cyborg is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez and first appears in a special insert in DC Comics Presents #26 (October 1980). Cyborg is best known as a member of the Teen Titans. However, in September 2011, Cyborg was established as a founding member of the Justice League as part of DC's 2011 reboot of its continuity.

Fictional character biography

Victor "Vic" Stone is the son of Silas Stone and Elinore Stone, scientists who use him as a test subject for various intelligence enhancement projects. While these treatments worked and Victor's IQ grows to genius levels, he grows to resent this treatment. He strikes up a friendship with Ron Evers, a young miscreant who leads him into trouble with the law. This is the beginning of a struggle in which Victor strives for independence, engaging in pursuits of which his parents disapprove, such as athletics, and abandoning his scholastic studies. Victor's association with underage criminals leads him down a dark path in which he is often injured, but he still lives a "normal" life in which he is able to make his own decisions. He occasionally refuses to participate in Evers' grandiose plans of racially motivated terrorism.

Moon of Israel (novel)

Moon of Israel is a novel by Rider Haggard, first published in 1918 by John Murray. The novel narrates the events of the Biblical Exodus from Egypt told from the perspective of a scribe named Ana.

Haggard dedicated his novel to Sir Gaston Maspero, a distinguished Egyptologist and director of Cairo Museum.

Adaptation

His novel was the basis of a script by Ladislaus Vajda, for film-director Michael Curtiz in his 1924 Austrian epic known as Die Sklavenkönigin, or "Queen of the Slaves".

References

External links

Novel (disambiguation)

A novel is a long prose narrative.

Novel may also refer to:

See also

1633 (novel)

1633 is an alternate history novel co-written by Eric Flint and David Weber, and sequel to 1632 in the 1632 series. 1633 is the second major novel in the series and together with the anthology Ring of Fire, the two sequels begin the series hallmarks of being a shared universe with collaborative writing being very common, as well as one—far more unusual— which mixes many canonical anthologies with its works of novel length. This in part is because Flint wrote 1632 as a stand-alone novel, though with enough "story hooks" for an eventual sequel, and because Flint feels "history is messy", and the books reflect that real life is not a smooth polished linear narrative flow from the pen of some historian, but is instead clumps of semi-related or unrelated happenings that somehow sum together where different people act in their own self-interests.

Premise

The series begins in the Modern era on May 31, 2000, during a small town wedding when the small West Virginia town of Grantville trades places in both time and geographic location with a nearly unpopulated countryside region within the Holy Roman Empire during the convulsions of the Thirty Years' War.