Dark December (novel)
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Dark December (novel)
''Dark December'' is a 1960 post-holocaust novel by American pulp magazine writer Alfred Coppel whose best known short stories and novels have been in the genre of science fiction. Plot A nuclear war which left the US and the entire world devastated is over at last. The war-weary Major Kenneth Gavin is discharged. Leaving the enclave where the remnants of the US Army keep some semblance of order, he sets off on a quest into the wilderness which had been California, on a quest to reach his home - though having no idea if anything was left of it - and trying to make something of the life left to him in this harsh new world. He crosses areas where every living thing had been vaporized, countryside where anthrax and radiation sickness are killing off the survivors, where gangs of homeless kids had reverted to savagery and would murder for a pair of shoes and where women had slipped to the last stages of degradation. A crucial point in the book is the moment when Gavin finds a Soviet A ...
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Alfred Coppel
Alfred Coppel, Alfredo Jose de Arana-Marini Coppel (November 9, 1921 – May 30, 2004) was an American author. Born in Oakland, he served as a fighter pilot in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. After his discharge, he started his career as a writer. He became one of the most prolific pulp magazine authors of the 1950s and 1960s, adopting the pseudonyms Robert Cham Gilman and A.C. Marin and writing for a variety of pulp magazines and later "slick" publishers. Though writing in a variety of genres, including action thrillers, he is known for his science fiction stories which comprise both short stories and novels. Science fiction Coppel's first science fiction story was "Age of Unreason" (1947) in '' Amazing Stories''."Alfred Coppel" in ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' (1999) edited by John Clute and Peter Nicholls: 264 Other short stories include "The Dreamer" (1952) about a man called Denby, who wants to be the first to orbit the Moon, published in ...
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Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race. The Western Bloc was led by the United States as well as a number of other First W ...
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Novels Set In California
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the historica ...
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American Post-apocalyptic Novels
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * Ba ...
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Sir Gawain And The Green Knight
''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'' is a late 14th-century chivalric romance in Middle English. The author is unknown; the title was given centuries later. It is one of the best-known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of folk motifs: the beheading game, and the exchange of winnings. Written in stanzas of alliterative verse, each of which ends in a rhyming bob and wheel; it draws on Welsh, Irish, and English stories, as well as the French chivalric tradition. It is an important example of a chivalric romance, which typically involves a hero who goes on a quest which tests his prowess. It remains popular in modern English renderings from J. R. R. Tolkien, Simon Armitage, and others, as well as through film and stage adaptations. The story describes how Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table, accepts a challenge from a mysterious "Green Knight" who dares any knight to strike him with his axe if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawai ...
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King Arthur
King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a legendary king of Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In the earliest traditions, Arthur appears as a leader of the post-Roman Britons in battles against Saxon invaders of Britain in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. He appears in two early medieval historical sources, the ''Annales Cambriae'' and the ''Historia Brittonum'', but these date to 300 years after he is supposed to have lived, and most historians who study the period do not consider him a historical figure.Tom Shippey, "So Much Smoke", ''review'' of , ''London Review of Books'', 40:24:23 (20 December 2018) His name also occurs in early Welsh poetic sources such as ''Y Gododdin''. The character developed through Welsh mythology, appearing either as a great warrior defending Britain from human and supernatural enemies or as a magical figure of folklore, sometimes associated wi ...
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Gawain
Gawain (), also known in many other forms and spellings, is a character in Arthurian legend, in which he is King Arthur's nephew and a Knight of the Round Table. The prototype of Gawain is mentioned under the name Gwalchmei in the earliest Welsh sources. He has subsequently appeared in many Arthurian stories in Welsh, Latin, French, English, Scottish, Dutch, German, Spanish, and Italian, notably as the protagonist of the famous Middle English poem ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight''. Other tales featuring Gawain as the central character include '' De Ortu Waluuanii'', ''Diu Crône'', '' Ywain and Gawain'', '' Golagros and Gawane'', '' Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle'', '' L'âtre périlleux'', '' La Mule sans frein'', '' La Vengeance Raguidel'', '' Le Chevalier à l'épée'', '' The Awntyrs off Arthure'', '' The Greene Knight'', and '' The Weddynge of Syr Gawen and Dame Ragnell''. In Arthurian chivalric romance literature, Gawain is usually depicted as King Arthur's clo ...
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Gavin
Gavin is a male given name originating from Scotland. It is a variation on the medieval name Gawain, meaning "God send" or "white hawk" (or falcon). Sir Gawain was a knight of King Arthur's Round Table. ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'' is an epic poem connected with King Arthur's Round Table. Gawain beheads the Green Knight who promptly replaces his head and threatens Gawain an identical fate the same time next year. Decapitation figures elsewhere: the Italian name Gavino is the name of an early Christian martyr (San Gavino, Porto Torres, Sardinia) who was beheaded in 300 AD, his head being thrown in the Mediterranean Sea only later reunited and interred with his body. People with the given name People with the surname * Agnes Gavin (1872–1947), Australian actor and screenwriter * Andy Gavin (born 1970), American programmer * Barrie Gavin (born 1935), British film director * Barry Gavin (1944–2017), Australian rules footballer * Bill Gavin (1907–1985), American rad ...
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Satan
Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as Devil in Christianity, the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an non-physical entity, entity in the Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehood. In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God in Judaism, God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the ''yetzer hara'', or "evil inclination." In Christianity and Islam, he is usually seen as a fallen angel or jinn who has rebelled against God in Abrahamic religions, God, who nevertheless allows him temporary power over the fallen world and a host of demons. In the Quran, Shaitan, also known as Iblis, is an entity made of fire who was cast out of Heaven because he refused to bow before the newly created Adam in Islam, Adam and incites humans to sin by infecting their minds with ''waswās'' ("evil suggestions"). A figure known as ''ha-satan'' ("the satan") first appears in the Hebrew B ...
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Lord Of The Flies
''Lord of the Flies'' is a 1954 novel by the Nobel Prize-winning British author William Golding. The plot concerns a group of British boys who are stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempts to govern themselves. Themes include the tension between groupthink and individuality, between rational and emotional reactions, and between morality and immorality. The novel, which was Golding's debut, was generally well received. It was named in the Modern Library 100 Best Novels, reaching number 41 on the editor's list, and 25 on the reader's list. In 2003, it was listed at number 70 on the BBC's The Big Read poll, and in 2005 ''Time'' magazine named it as one of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005, and included it in its list of the 100 Best Young-Adult Books of All Time. Popular reading in schools, especially in the English-speaking world, ''Lord of the Flies'' was ranked third in the nation's favourite books from school in a 201 ...
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Humane
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, and language. Humans are highly social and tend to live in complex social structures composed of many cooperating and competing groups, from family, families and kinship networks to political state (polity), states. Social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, norm (sociology), social norms, and rituals, which bolster human society. Its intelligence and its desire to understand and influence the environment and to explain and manipulate Phenomenon, phenomena have motivated humanity's development of science, philosophy, mythology, religion, and other fields of study. Although some scientists equate the term ''humans'' with all members of the genus ''Homo'', in common usage, it generally refers to ''Homo sapien ...
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Geneva Conventions
upright=1.15, Original document in single pages, 1864 The Geneva Conventions are four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term ''Geneva Convention'' usually denotes the agreements of 1949, negotiated in the aftermath of the Second World War (1939–1945), which updated the terms of the two 1929 treaties and added two new conventions. The Geneva Conventions extensively define the basic rights of wartime prisoners (civilians and military personnel), established protections for the wounded and sick, and provided protections for the civilians in and around a war-zone; moreover, the Geneva Convention also defines the rights and protections afforded to non-combatants. The treaties of 1949 were ratified, in their entirety or with reservations, by 196 countries. The Geneva Conventions concern only prisoners and non-combatants in war; they do not address the use of weapons of war, whic ...
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