Dirge (novel)
   HOME
*





Dirge (novel)
''Dirge'' (2000) is a science fiction novel by American writer Alan Dean Foster. The full title is sometimes shown as ''Dirge: Book Two of The Founding of the Commonwealth''. Plot summary It has been twenty years since the chance meeting of street thug Cheelo Montoya and thranx poet Desvendapur revealed the insectoid alien colony hidden deep within the Amazon Basin, and not much has changed. Humanity has recently discovered the planet Argus V, better known as Treetrunk, with the intention of colonizing the planet when their survey team is visited by a new alien race, the Pitar. At first the humans worry that the Pitar will want to lay claim to the planet, but instead of wanting to claim territory, the aliens instead simply want to observe the humans. The Pitar are a close human analog to humans, appearing to be perfectly human except for a wider variety of hair and eye colors (including blue and violet among them) along with nearly god-like physiques. Most humans almost immedi ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Alan Dean Foster
Alan Dean Foster (born November 18, 1946) is an American writer of fantasy and science fiction. He has written several book series, more than 20 standalone novels, and many novelizations of film scripts. Career ''Star Wars'' Foster was the ghostwriter of the original novelization of ''Star Wars'', which was credited solely to George Lucas. When asked if it was difficult for him to see Lucas get all the credit for ''Star Wars'', Foster said, "Not at all. It was George's story idea. I was merely expanding upon it. Not having my name on the cover didn't bother me in the least. It would be akin to a contractor demanding to have his name on a Frank Lloyd Wright house." Foster also wrote the follow-up novel ''Splinter of the Mind's Eye'' (1978), written with the intention of being adapted as a low-budget sequel to ''Star Wars'' if the film was unsuccessful. However, ''Star Wars'' was a blockbusting success, and ''The Empire Strikes Back'' (1980) would be developed instead. Foster's s ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Mark Harrison (artist)
Mark Harrison (born 22 September 1963) is a British comic book artist and occasional writer. The bulk of his work has appeared in the magazine '' 2000 AD''. Harrison's fully painted style uses strong, dark colours and computer effects, though recent series '' The Ten-Seconders'' (written by Rob Williams) shows him moving towards lighter pencilling. Biography Harrison graduated from School of Art, Bournville in 1982. He started work at '' 2000 AD'' in 1994 working on the ''Durham Red''-related titles as well as '' Glimmer Rats'' and '' The Ten-Seconders''. Harrison has illustrated cards for the ''Magic: The Gathering'' collectible card game. Most recently he has been creating book covers for Abaddon Books. Harrison joined Oxford based games developer Rebellion as Head of Concept and worked on '' Star Wars: Battlefront'' (PSP),'' Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron'',
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Science Fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, extraterrestrial life, sentient artificial intelligence, cybernetics, certain forms of immortality (like mind uploading), and the singularity. Science fiction predicted several existing inventions, such as the atomic bomb, robots, and borazon, whose names entirely match their fictional predecessors. In addition, science fiction might serve as an outlet to facilitate future scientific and technological innovations. Science fiction can trace its roots to ancient mythology. It is also related to fantasy, horror, and superhero fiction and contains many subgenres. Its exact definition has long been disputed among authors, critics, scholars, and readers. Science fiction, in literature, film, television, and other media, has beco ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Del Rey Books
Del Rey Books is a branch of Ballantine Books, which is owned by Random House and, in turn, by Penguin Random House. It is a separate imprint established in 1977 under the editorship of author Lester del Rey and his wife Judy-Lynn del Rey. It specializes in science fiction and fantasy books, and formerly manga under its (now defunct) Del Rey Manga imprint. The first new novel published by Del Rey was ''The Sword of Shannara'' by Terry Brooks in 1977. Del Rey also publishes the ''Star Wars'' novels under the LucasBooks sub-imprint (licensed from Lucasfilm, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Studios division of The Walt Disney Company). Authors *Piers Anthony *Isaac Asimov * Stephen Baxter *Amber Benson *Ray Bradbury *Terry Brooks *Pierce Brown *Bonnie Burton *Jack L. Chalker * Arthur C. Clarke * James Clemens *Dan Cragg * Brian Daley * Maurice G. Dantec * Philip K. Dick * Stephen R. Donaldson *David Eddings *Philip José Farmer *Mick Farren * Joe Clifford Faust *Lynn Flewellin ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Phylogenesis (novel)
''Phylogenesis'' (1999) is a science fiction novel by American writer Alan Dean Foster. It is the first novel in Foster's ''Founding of the Commonwealth Trilogy''. In ''Phylogenesis'', Foster begins to further expand the history of the founding of the Humanx Commonwealth, which began in his 1982 novel '' Nor Crystal Tears''. While ''Nor Crystal Tears'' was a first contact novel between human and thranx, and set the foundation for the eventual Humanx Commonwealth, starting with'' Phylogenesis'', Foster's trilogy set out to detail the events that led to the union between the two races. Plot Desvendapur is an anti-social Thranx poet native to the colony on Willow-Wane who believes he can find new inspiration for his poetry by coming in contact with the physically repulsive humans, an intelligent mammal race that is unlike the insectoid thranx. Desvendapur's aspirations lead him to a secret thranx colony in the Amazon Basin on Earth where he meets a petty human thief turned murdere ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Diurnity's Dawn
''Diuturnity's Dawn'' (2002) is a science fiction novel by American writer Alan Dean Foster. The full title is sometimes shown as ''Diuturnity's Dawn: Book Three of The Founding of the Commonwealth''. Plot summary In the third and concluding novel of this trilogy, an uncomfortable archaeological alliance of Thranx, humans, and AAnn, explores the well-kept secrets of the lost civilization of the Sauun on the frontier world Comagrave. After a series of accidents that occur where the AAnn are convenient for helping an injured or stranded human, the chief Thranx scientist starts suspecting an anti-Thranx conspiracy. Meanwhile, on the planet Dawn, such a conspiracy seems to be up and running, for terrorists there plan vicious destruction to crush the infant commonwealth. Unexpected players in this engrossing drama are the padres, human and Thranx, of the anything but dogmatic United Church, which ministers to both species with a decidedly untraditional religious outlook. Themes The t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Amazon Basin
The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela. Most of the basin is covered by the Amazon rainforest, also known as Amazonia. With a area of dense tropical forest, this is the largest rainforest in the world.   Geography The Amazon River begins in the Andes Mountains at the west of the basin with its main tributary the Marañón River and Apurimac River in Peru. The highest point in the watershed of the Amazon is the second biggest peak of Yerupajá at . With a length of about before it drains into the Atlantic Ocean, it is one of the two longest rivers in the world. A team of scientists has claimed that the Amazon is longer than the Nile, but debate about its exact length continues. The Amazon system ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surface is made up of the ocean, dwarfing Earth's polar ice, lakes, and rivers. The remaining 29% of Earth's surface is land, consisting of continents and islands. Earth's surface layer is formed of several slowly moving tectonic plates, which interact to produce mountain ranges, volcanoes, and earthquakes. Earth's liquid outer core generates the magnetic field that shapes the magnetosphere of the Earth, deflecting destructive solar winds. The atmosphere of the Earth consists mostly of nitrogen and oxygen. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere like carbon dioxide (CO2) trap a part of the energy from the Sun close to the surface. Water vapor is widely present in the atmosphere and forms clouds that cover most of the planet. More solar e ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

2005 American Novels
5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. It has attained significance throughout history in part because typical humans have five digits on each hand. In mathematics 5 is the third smallest prime number, and the second super-prime. It is the first safe prime, the first good prime, the first balanced prime, and the first of three known Wilson primes. Five is the second Fermat prime and the third Mersenne prime exponent, as well as the third Catalan number, and the third Sophie Germain prime. Notably, 5 is equal to the sum of the ''only'' consecutive primes, 2 + 3, and is the only number that is part of more than one pair of twin primes, ( 3, 5) and (5, 7). It is also a sexy prime with the fifth prime number and first prime repunit, 11. Five is the third factorial prime, an alternating factorial, and an Eisenstein prime with no imaginary part and real part of the form 3p ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

2005 Science Fiction Novels
5 (five) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number, and cardinal number, following 4 and preceding 6, and is a prime number. It has attained significance throughout history in part because typical humans have five digits on each hand. In mathematics 5 is the third smallest prime number, and the second super-prime. It is the first safe prime, the first good prime, the first balanced prime, and the first of three known Wilson primes. Five is the second Fermat prime and the third Mersenne prime exponent, as well as the third Catalan number, and the third Sophie Germain prime. Notably, 5 is equal to the sum of the ''only'' consecutive primes, 2 + 3, and is the only number that is part of more than one pair of twin primes, ( 3, 5) and (5, 7). It is also a sexy prime with the fifth prime number and first prime repunit, 11. Five is the third factorial prime, an alternating factorial, and an Eisenstein prime with no imaginary part and real part of the form ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


American Science Fiction 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 * B ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Humanx Commonwealth
The Humanx Commonwealth is a fictional interstellar ethical/political entity featured in the science fiction novels of Alan Dean Foster.Phylogenesis: Book One of The Founding of the Commonwealth
''Alan Dean Foster'' The Commonwealth takes its name from its two major sapient species, who jointly inhabit Commonwealth planets and administer both the political and religious/ethical aspects. They are the mammalian Humans of the planet and the oid ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]