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Elric Of Melniboné
Elric of Melniboné is a fictional character created by English writer Michael Moorcock and the protagonist of a series of sword and sorcery stories taking place on an alternative Earth. The proper name and title of the character is Elric VIII, 428th Emperor of Melniboné. Later stories by Moorcock marked Elric as a facet of the Eternal Champion (character), Eternal Champion. Elric first appeared in print in Moorcock's novella "The Dreaming City" (''Science Fantasy (magazine), Science Fantasy'' No. 47, June 1961). Moorcock's doomed Albinism, albino antihero is one of the better known characters in fantasy literature, having crossed over into a wide variety of media, such as role-playing games, comics, music, and film. The stories have been continuously in print since the 1970s. Description Elric is described in 1972's ''Elric of Melniboné'': Elric is the last emperor of the stagnating island civilization of Melniboné. Physically weak, the anemic Elric must use drugs (spe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Whelan
Michael Whelan (born 29 June 1950) is an American artist of imaginative realism. For more than 30 years, he worked as an illustrator, specializing in science fiction and fantasy cover art. Since the mid-1990s, he has pursued a fine art career, selling non-commissioned paintings through galleries in the United States and through his website. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted Whelan in June 2009, the first living artist so honored. According to his Hall of Fame citation His paintings have appeared on the covers of more than 350 books and magazines, including many Stephen King novels, most of the Del Rey editions of Anne McCaffrey's ''Dragonriders of Pern'' series, Piers Anthony's ''Incarnations of Immortality'' series, the Del Rey edition of Edgar Rice Burroughs' ''Mars'' series, Melanie Rawn's ''Dragon Prince and Dragon Star'' series, the Del Rey editions of H. P. Lovecraft's short story collections, the Grand Master edition of Ray Bradbury's fix-up novel ''The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, is head of state for life or until abdication. The political legitimacy and authority of the monarch may vary from restricted and largely symbolic ( constitutional monarchy), to fully autocratic (absolute monarchy), and can expand across the domains of the executive, legislative, and judicial. The succession of monarchs in many cases has been hereditical, often building dynastic periods. However, elective and self-proclaimed monarchies have also happened. Aristocrats, though not inherent to monarchies, often serve as the pool of persons to draw the monarch from and fill the constituting institutions (e.g. diet and court), giving many monarchies oligarchic elements. Monarchs can carry various titles such as emperor, empress, king, queen, raja, khan, tsar, sultan, shah, or pharaoh. Monarchies can form federations, personal unions and realms with vassals through personal association with t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Túrin Turambar
Túrin Turambar (pronounced ) is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. "''Turambar and the Foalókë''", begun in 1917, is the first appearance of Túrin in the legendarium. Túrin was a Man of the First Age of Middle-earth, whose family had been cursed by the Dark Lord Morgoth. While trying vainly to defy the curse, Túrin brought ruin across much of Beleriand, and upon himself and his sister Niënor. His title, "Turambar", means master of fate. His epitaph, "Master of fate, yet by fate mastered", showed his inability to escape Morgoth's curse. Tolkien consciously based the story on the tale of Kullervo in the Finnish mythological poem '' Kalevala''. Scholars, and Tolkien himself, have noted parallels with other myths including that of Sigmund and Sigurd in the '' Volsunga saga''; the Greek myth of Oedipus; and structure and style, with Arthurian legend. Excerpts have been published in prose in '' The Silmarillion'', ''Unfinished Tales'', '' The Book o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Once And Future King
''The Once and Future King'' is a collection of fantasy novels by T. H. White about the legend of King Arthur. It is loosely based upon the 1485 work ''Le Morte d'Arthur'' by Sir Thomas Malory. It was first published in 1958 as a collection of shorter novels published from 1938 to 1940, with some new or amended material. The title refers to a legend that Arthur will one day return as king. Summary Most of the book takes place in "Gramarye", the name that White gives to Britain, and chronicles the youth and education of King Arthur, his rule as a king, and the romance between Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere. Arthur is supposed to have lived in the 5th and 6th centuries, but the book is set around the 14th century. Arthur is portrayed as an Anglo-Norman rather than a Briton; White refers to the actual monarchs of that period as "mythical". The book ends immediately before Arthur's final battle against his illegitimate son Mordred. White acknowledged that his book's source mate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Broken Sword
''The Broken Sword'' is a fantasy novel by American writer Poul Anderson, originally published on 5 November 1954. It was issued in a revised edition by Ballantine Books as the twenty-fourth volume of their Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in January 1971. The original text was returned to print by Gollancz in 2002. The novel is set during the Viking Age and the story contains many references to the Norse mythology. Plot The book tells the story of Skafloc, elven-fosterling and originally son of Orm the Strong. The story begins with the marriage of Orm the Strong and Aelfrida of the English. Orm kills a witch's family on the land and later half-converts to Christianity, but quarrels with the local priest and sends him off the land. Meanwhile, an elf named Imric, with the help of the witch, seeks to capture the newly born son of Orm. In his place, Imric leaves a changeling called Valgard. The real son of Orm is taken away to elven lands and named Skafloc by the elves who raise hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Titus Groan
''Titus Groan'' is a novel by Mervyn Peake, first published in 1946. It is the first novel in the ''Gormenghast'' series. Plot introduction The book is set in the huge castle of Gormenghast, a vast landscape of crumbling towers and ivy-filled quadrangles that has for centuries been the hereditary residence of the Groan family and with them a legion of servants. The Groan family is headed by Lord Sepulchrave, the seventy-sixth Earl of Groan. He is a melancholy man who feels shackled by his duties as Earl, although he never questions them. His only escape is reading in his library. His wife is the Countess Gertrude. Large and imposing, with dark red hair, she pays no attention to her family or to the rest of Gormenghast. Instead, she spends her time either in her bedroom or in walking selected areas, in the company of a legion of birds and her white cats that alone command her affections. Their daughter is 15-year-old Fuchsia Groan, attended to by the easily upset Nannie Slagg. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mervyn Peake
Mervyn Laurence Peake (9 July 1911 – 17 November 1968) was an English writer, artist, poet, and illustrator. He is best known for what are usually referred to as the '' Gormenghast'' books. The four works were part of what Peake conceived as a lengthy cycle, the completion of which was prevented by his death. They are sometimes compared to the work of his older contemporary J. R. R. Tolkien, but Peake's surreal fiction was influenced by his early love for Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson rather than Tolkien's studies of mythology and philology. Peake also wrote poetry and literary nonsense in verse form, short stories for adults and children ('' Letters from a Lost Uncle'', 1948), stage and radio plays, and ''Mr Pye'' (1953), a relatively tightly-structured novel in which God implicitly mocks the evangelical pretensions and cosy world-view of the eponymous hero. Peake first made his reputation as a painter and illustrator during the 1930s and 1940s, when he liv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Well Of The Unicorn
''The Well of the Unicorn'' is a fantasy novel by the American writer Fletcher Pratt. It was first published in 1948, under the pseudonym George U. Fletcher, in hardcover by William Sloane Associates. All later editions have appeared under the author's actual name with the exception of the facsimile reprint issued by Garland Publishing in 1975 for its Garland Library of Science Fiction series. The novel was first issued in paperback in 1967 by Lancer Books, which reprinted it in 1968; subsequent paperback editions were issued by Ballantine Books. The first Ballantine edition was in May 1976, and was reprinted three times, in 1979, 1980, and 1995. The most recent edition was a trade paperback in the Fantasy Masterworks series from Gollancz in 2001. The book has also been translated into German, and into Russian in 1992. Plot The land of Dalarna is under the heel of the Vulkings, whose heavy taxation is forcing the Dalecarl yeomen out of their holdings. The protagonist, Airar Alva ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fletcher Pratt
Murray Fletcher Pratt (25 April 1897 – 10 June 1956) was an American writer of history, science fiction, and fantasy. He is best known for his works on naval history and the American Civil War and for fiction written with L. Sprague de Camp. Life and work According to de Camp, Pratt was born near Tonawanda, New York. The son of Robert M. and Alice Horton Pratt, he attended public schools in Buffalo and graduated from high school in 1915 at the Griffith Institute in Springville, New York, where his father operated a trucking delivery service between Springville and Buffalo. Following high school he attended Hobart College in Geneva, New York for one year. In February 1916 the Associated Press reported that he had been arrested for burglary in Geneva after a series of midnight cash drawer robberies that allegedly netted him less than $25. He was reported to have told police that his father did not supply him with enough funds to survive at Hobart. On February 23 the ''Buffa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Three Hearts And Three Lions
''Three Hearts and Three Lions'' is a 1961 fantasy novel by American writer Poul Anderson, expanded from a 1953 novella by Anderson which appeared in '' Fantasy & Science Fiction'' magazine. Plot Holger Carlsen is an American-trained Danish engineer who joins the Danish resistance to the Nazis in World War II. At the shore near Elsinore, he is among the group of resistance fighters trying to cover the escape to Sweden of an important scientist (evidently the nuclear physicist Niels Bohr). With a German force closing in, Carlsen is shot and suddenly finds himself transported to a parallel universe, a world in which Northern European legend is real. This world is divided between the forces of Chaos, inhabiting the "Middle World" (which includes Faerie), and the forces of Law based in the human world, which is in turn divided between the Holy Roman Empire and the Saracens. He finds the equipment and horse of a medieval knight waiting for him. The shield is emblazoned with three h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poul Anderson
Poul William Anderson (November 25, 1926 – July 31, 2001) was an American fantasy and science fiction author who was active from the 1940s until the 21st century. Anderson wrote also historical novels. His awards include seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards. Biography Poul Anderson was born on November 25, 1926, in Bristol, Pennsylvania to Scandinavian parents. Soon after his birth, his father, Anton Anderson relocated the family to Texas, where they lived for more than ten years. After Anton Anderson's death, his widow took the children to Denmark. The family returned to the United States after the beginning of World War II, settling eventually on a Minnesota farm. While he was an undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota, Anderson's first stories were published by editor John W. Campbell in the magazine ''Astounding Science Fiction'': "Tomorrow's Children" by Anderson and F. N. Waldrop in March 1947 and a sequel, "Chain of Logic" by Anderson alone, in July ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Threepenny Opera
''The Threepenny Opera'' ( ) is a " play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, '' The Beggar's Opera'', and four ballads by François Villon, with music by Kurt Weill. Although there is debate as to how much, if any, Hauptmann might have contributed to the text, Brecht is usually listed as sole author. The work offers a socialist critique of the capitalist world. It opened on 31 August 1928 at Berlin's Theater am Schiffbauerdamm. Songs from ''The Threepenny Opera'' have been widely covered and become standards, most notably "" ("The Ballad of Mack the Knife") and "" ("Pirate Jenny"). Background Origins In the winter of 1927–28, Elizabeth Hauptmann, Brecht's lover at the time, received a copy of Gay's play from friends in England and, fascinated by the female characters and its critique of the condition of the London poor, began translating it into German. Brecht at first took ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_(Art.IWM_ART_LD_2851).jpg "Click for more on -> Mervyn Peake")
