People wearing Christmas hats bath in a pool of watermelon peel during a Christmas service at a hot spring in Luoyang, Henan province, China, December 24, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Jessica Shears attends the UK Premiere of “Daddy's Home 2” at Vue West End on November 16, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage)

Netapp Endura team rider Slovenian Blaz Jarc (R) crashes into Katusha team rider Russian Viacheslav Kuznetsov (ground) during the 112th Paris Roubaix cycling race, in Roubaix, France, 13 April 2014. (Photo by Nicolas Bouvy/EPA)

Masked Palestinian demonstrators hide behind a metal plate during clashes with Israeli soldiers on March 12, 2018 in the West Bank town of Birzeit, near Ramallah, following a protest by students of the Birzeit University against the arrest of the the head of Palestinian student council by an Israeli undercover commando. (Photo by Abbas Momani/AFP Photo)

A man holds a copy of the Koran during a protest against Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou's attendance last week at a Paris rally in support of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, which featured a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad as the cover of its first edition since an attack by Islamist gunmen, in Niamey January 17, 2015. (Photo by Tagaza Djibo/Reuters)

William Gibson is not one of the authors that spits out novels like a machine – in his long and fruitful career he has only published 11 novels andof short stories and articles in the tens each. Still his impact on modern literature was huge – the “noir prophet” of the cyberpunk subgenre (that he was one of the pioneers of) has predicted the rise of reality television, virtual reality, video games and the internet. He is a Hugo and Nebula award winning science fiction writer, with a special eye for what the future might bring.

“In 1967, Zhang Yaxin was 34 and working as a photojournalist at China’s state-controlled Xinhua News Agency when he was assigned to a top-secret government project. He was to be the official photographer of a new arts program led by Chairman Mao and his wife – the Model Operas. Though he was not to know it then, Zhang would spend the next seven years documenting the evolution of one of the most dramatic and elaborate attempts to redefine artistic sensibilities in modern art history”. – Chengcheng Jiang via TIME. Photo: Raid on the White Tiger Regiment, 1971. (Photo by Zhang Yaxin/Courtesy See+ Gallery, Beijing)

A Scots soldier has won a top award for his photos vividly depicting Army life in Afghanistan. Corporal Jamie Peters took the overall first prize for his portfolio in the annual Army Photographic Competition. Photo: Jamie's overall winning image entitled “Celtic Warrior” and shows Private Ross Cunningham from 1 Scots cleaning his personal weapon. (Photo by Jamie Peters/PA Wire)