Task: Question Answering
Input (English): Context: David Zindell (born November 28, 1952) is an American writer known for science fiction and fantasy epics. He was born in Toledo, Ohio, and resides today in Boulder, Colorado; he received a BA degree in mathematics and minored in anthropology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His first published story was "The Dreamer's Sleep" in "Fantasy Book" in 1984; his novelette "Shanidar", which formed the core of his first novel "Neverness", won the Writers of the Future Contest in 1985. David Zindell's writing style is at once romantic, heroic, deeply poetic and concerns itself with deep philosophical issues in the human psyche. He was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1986. John Clute writes that the author of "Neverness" is "romantic, ambitious, and skilled.", and Gene Wolfe, who is connected with Zindell in a way Wolfe himself was with Jack Vance, described Zindell as "...one of the finest talents to appear since Kim Stanley Robinson and William Gibson  perhaps the finest.", Patrick James Rothfuss (born June 6, 1973) is an American writer of epic fantasy. He is best known for his projected three-volume series "The Kingkiller Chronicle"., William Shatner (born March 22, 1931) is a Canadian actor, author, producer, and director. In his seven decades of television, Shatner became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T. Kirk, Captain of the USS "Enterprise", in the "Star Trek" franchise. He has written a series of books chronicling his experiences playing Captain Kirk and being a part of "Star Trek", and has co-written several novels set in the "Star Trek" universe. He has written a series of science fiction novels called "TekWar", which were adapted for television., Karen Joy Fowler (born February 7, 1950) is an American author of science fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction. Her work often centers on the nineteenth century, the lives of women, and alienation., Dave Wolverton (born 1957) is a science fiction author who also goes under the pseudonym David Farland for his fantasy works. He currently lives in St. George, Utah with his wife and five children and is best known for his Runelords series., James Alan Gardner (born January 10, 1955) is a Canadian science fiction author., Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911  January 24, 1986), better known as L. Ron Hubbard and often referred to by his initials, LRH, was an American author and the founder of the Church of Scientology. In 2014, Hubbard was cited by the Smithsonian magazine as one of the 100 most significant Americans of all time, as one of the eleven religious figures on that list. After establishing a career as a writer, becoming best known for his science fiction and fantasy stories, he developed a system called Dianetics which was first expounded in book form in May 1950. He subsequently developed his ideas into a wide-ranging set of doctrines and practices as part of a new religious movement that he called Scientology. His writings became the guiding texts for the Church of Scientology and a number of affiliated organizations that address such diverse topics as business administration, literacy and drug rehabilitation. The Church's dissemination of these materials led to Hubbard being listed by the "Guinness Book of World Records" as the most translated and published author in the world. The Guinness World Record for the most audio books published for one author is also held by Hubbard., Science fiction (often shortened to SF, sci-fi or scifi) is a genre of speculative fiction, typically dealing with imaginative concepts such as futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life. Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been called a "literature of ideas." It usually avoids the supernatural, and unlike the related genre of fantasy, historically science fiction stories were intended to have a grounding in science-based fact or theory at the time the story was created, but this connection is now limited to hard science fiction., Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific accuracy. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell, Jr.'s "Islands of Space" in "Astounding Science Fiction". The complementary term soft science fiction, formed by analogy to hard science fiction, first appeared in the late 1970s. The term is formed by analogy to the popular distinction between the "hard" (natural) and "soft" (social) sciences. Science fiction critic Gary Westfahl argues that neither term is part of a rigorous taxonomy; instead they are approximate ways of characterizing stories that reviewers and commentators have found useful., Time travel is the concept of movement (such as by a human) between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space, typically using a hypothetical device known as a time machine, in the form of a vehicle or of a portal connecting distant points in time. Time travel is a recognized concept in philosophy and fiction, but traveling to an arbitrary point in time has a very limited support in theoretical physics, and usually only in conjunction with quantum mechanics or wormholes, also known as Einstein-Rosen bridges. In a more narrow sense, one-way time travel into the future via time dilation is a well-understood phenomenon within the frameworks of special relativity and general relativity, but advancing a large amount of time is not feasible with current technology. The concept was touched upon in various earlier works of fiction, but was popularized by H. G. Wells' 1895 novel "The Time Machine", which moved the concept of time travel into the public imagination, and it remains a popular subject in science fiction., The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television network that is the flagship property of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. The network is headquartered in the Comcast Building (formerly known as the GE Building) at Rockefeller Center in New York City, with additional major offices near Los Angeles (at Universal City Plaza), Chicago (at the NBC Tower) and soon in Philadelphia at Comcast Innovation and Technology Center. The network is part of the Big Three television networks. NBC is sometimes referred to as the "Peacock Network", in reference to its stylized peacock logo, which was originally created in 1956 for its then-new color broadcasts and became the network's official emblem in 1979., Nina Kiriki Hoffman (born 20 March 1955 in San Gabriel, California) is an American fantasy, science fiction and horror writer., Ilsa J. Bick is an award - winning , best - selling author of short stories , e-books and novels . She has written for several long - running science fiction series , most notably Star Trek , Battletech , and Mechwarrior : Dark Age . She 's taken both Grand and Second Prize in the Strange New Worlds anthology series ( 1999 and 2001 , respectively ) , while her story , `` The Quality of Wetness , '' took Second Prize in the prestigious Writers of the Future contest in 2000 . Her first Star Trek novel , Well of Souls , was a 2003 Barnes & Noble bestseller . Her original stories have been featured in numerous anthologies , magazines , and online venues . `` The Key , '' a supernatural murder - mystery about the Holocaust and reincarnation , was named `` distinguished '' in The Best American Mystery Stories , 2005 ( edited by Joyce Carol Oates ) , and a sequel , `` Second Sight , '' appeared in Crimespells ( 2003 ) and was named to the 2010 Year 's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy recommended reads . Bick 's first YA novel , Draw the Dark ( Carolrhoda Lab , 2010 ) , is a paranormal mystery that was awarded the 2011 Westchester Fiction Award . Ashes , the first volume in her dystopian thriller trilogy , was released from Egmont USA in September 2011 . Before she became a successful author , Bick was a child / adolescent and forensic psychiatrist . She also holds a degree in literature and film studies , and has presented and written widely on applied psychoanalysis and film . She currently lives in Wisconsin ., BattleTech is a wargaming and military science fiction franchise launched by FASA Corporation in 1984, acquired by WizKids in 2000, and owned since 2003 by Topps. The series began with FASA's debut of the board game "BattleTech" (originally named "BattleDroids") by Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babcock III and has since grown to include numerous expansions to the original game, several computer and video games, a collectible card game, a series of more than 100 novels, an animated television series and more., Eugene Wesley "Gene" Roddenberry (August 19, 1921  October 24, 1991) was an American television screenwriter and producer. He is best remembered for creating the . Born in El Paso, Texas, Roddenberry grew up in Los Angeles, where his father was a police officer. Roddenberry flew 89 combat missions in the Army Air Forces during World War II, and worked as a commercial pilot after the war. Later, he followed in his father's footsteps and joined the Los Angeles Police Department, where he also began to write scripts for television., The Church of Scientology is a multinational network and hierarchy of numerous ostensibly independent but interconnected corporate entities and other organizations devoted to the practice, administration and dissemination of Scientology, a new religious movement. The Church of Scientology International (CSI) is officially the Church of Scientology's parent organization, and is responsible for guiding local Scientology churches. At a local level, every church is a separate corporate entity set up as a licensed franchise and has its own board of directors and executives. The first Scientology church was incorporated in December 1953 in Camden, New Jersey by L. Ron Hubbard. Its international headquarters are located at the Gold Base, in an unincorporated area of Riverside County, California. The location at Gilman Hotsprings is kept secret from most Scientologists. Scientology Missions International is under CSI and overseers Scientology missions, which are local Scientology organizations smaller than churches. The Church of Spiritual Technology (CST) is the organization which owns all the copyrights of the estate of L. Ron Hubbard., Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise based on the television series created by Gene Roddenberry. The first television series, simply called "Star Trek" and now referred to as "", debuted in 1966 and aired for three seasons on the television network NBC. It followed the interstellar adventures of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and his crew aboard the starship USS "Enterprise", a space exploration vessel, built by the interstellar federal republic United Federation of Planets in the twenty-third century. The "Star Trek" canon of the franchise include "The Original Series", an animated series, four television series, its film franchise and an upcoming television series scheduled to debut in 2017., The supernatural (Medieval Latin: "superntrlis": "supra" "above" + "naturalis" "natural", first used: 15201530 AD) includes all that cannot be explained by science or the laws of nature, including things characteristic of or relating to ghosts, gods, or other supernatural beings, or to things beyond nature., Joseph Edward "Jay" Lake, Jr. (June 6, 1964  June 1, 2014) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. In 2003 he was a quarterly first-place winner in the Writers of the Future contest. In 2004 he won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in Science Fiction. He lived in Portland, Oregon, and worked as a product manager for a voice services company., Writers of the Future (WOTF) is a science fiction and fantasy story contest that was established by L. Ron Hubbard in the early 1980s. A sister contest, Illustrators of the Future, presents awards for science fiction art. Hubbard characterized the contest as a way of "giving back" to the field that had defined his professional writing life. The contest has no entry fee and is the highest-paying contest for amateur science-fiction and fantasy writers. Notable past winners of WOTF include Stephen Baxter, Karen Joy Fowler, James Alan Gardner, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Jay Lake, Michael H. Payne, Patrick Rothfuss, Robert Reed, Dean Wesley Smith, Sean Williams, Dave Wolverton, Nancy Farmer, and David Zindell. 
The winning stories are published in the yearly anthology "L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of Future". The contest enjoys a favorable reputation in the science fiction community, although its connection with the Church of Scientology has caused some controversy., WizKids/NECA, LLC is an American company based in New Jersey that first made its mark in the game industry producing collectible miniatures wargames. WizKids was purchased by and is a subsidiary of National Entertainment Collectibles Association. The company was founded in 2000 by Jordan Weisman, a veteran of the game company FASA. It was purchased by sports-card manufacturer Topps, Inc. in 2003. (Topps was, in turn, acquired by Michael Eisner's Tornante Company and Madison Dearborn Partners in 2007.), Michael H. Payne (born February 10, 1965) is an American science fiction and fantasy writer, cartoonist, and reviewer. He holds an M.A. in Classics from the University of California, Irvine, and has hosted the Darkling Eclectica, a radio program originally on Saturday mornings, now on Sunday afternoons, on KUCI for more than 30 years., Speculative fiction is a broad umbrella genre denoting any narrative fiction with supernatural or futuristic elements; this encompasses the genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror, alternative history, magic realism, and superhero fiction, as well as combinations of the previous genres. It typically strays strongly from reality and so may feature fictional types of beings like mythical creatures and supernatural entities, technologies that do not exist in real life like time machines and interstellar spaceships, or magical or otherwise scientifically inexplicable elements. The term's popularity is sometimes attributed to Robert Heinlein, who referenced it in 1947 in an editorial essay, although there are prior mentions of speculative fiction, or its variant "speculative literature"., Subject: ilsa j. bick, Relation: date_of_birth, Options: (A) 10 (B) 100 (C) 1520 (D) 1895 (E) 19 (F) 1911 (G) 1921 (H) 1947 (I) 1950 (J) 1952 (K) 1953 (L) 1956 (M) 1957 (N) 1966 (O) 1973 (P) 1979 (Q) 1984 (R) 1985 (S) 1991 (T) 20 (U) 2000 (V) 2003 (W) 2004 (X) 22 (Y) 28 (Z) 30 ([) 6 (\) 7 (]) 89 (^) december 1953
Output (English): 1957