A Gift from the Culture
"A Gift from the Culture", published in 1987, is a short work of space opera, by the Scottish science fiction author Iain M. Banks. The story is an early venture into the "complex and unusual and very distant" setting of the Culture, which Banks would further develop through various of full length novels, stories, and his essay "A Few Notes on the Culture".
Ken Burns
Burns has gone on to a long, successful career directing and producing well-received television documentaries and documentary miniseries on subjects as diverse as arts and letters ("Thomas Hart Benton", 1988); mass media ("", 1991); sports ("Baseball", 1994, updated with "10th Inning", 2010); politicians ("Thomas Jefferson", 1997); music ("Jazz", 2001); literature ("Mark Twain", 2001); war (the 15-hour World War II documentary "The War", 2007); environmentalism ("", 2009); and the Civil War (the 11-hour "The Civil War", 1990, which All Media Guide says "many consider his 'chef d'oeuvre'").