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Queen Of Demons
''Queen of Demons'' (1998) is a fantasy novel by American writer David Drake, part of the series Lord of the Isles. Plot introduction This book in the series covers approximately 35 days, starting on the second day of the second month (Heron) and ending on the seventh day of the third month (Partridge). For the most part it follows the adventures of two men (Garric and Cashel) and four women (Liane, Ilna, Tenoctris, and Sharina) as they are split up into parallel worlds and slowly reunite, culminating in the defeat of two of their enemies: the Queen and the Beast. Plot summary In the introduction, the current King of the Isles, Valence III, and his wizard, Silyon, make a deal with the Beast to regain control of his kingdom from his wife, the Queen. Meanwhile, the main characters are in Erdin where they discover the dead remains of a Scaled Man on their ship, which Tenoctris sees as a bad omen. With the exception of Ilna, they book passage on the ship ''Lady of Mercy'', bound fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Drake
David A. Drake (born September 24, 1945) is an American author of science fiction and fantasy literature. A Vietnam War veteran who has worked as a lawyer, he is now a writer in the military science fiction genre. Biography Drake graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Iowa, majoring in history (with honors) and Latin. His studies at Duke University School of Law were interrupted for two years when he was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he served as an enlisted interrogator with the 11th Armored Cavalry (the Black Horse Regiment) in Vietnam and Cambodia. After the war, from 1972 to 1980 he worked as the Assistant Town Attorney in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Since 1981 he transitioned to full time writing of science fiction literature. With Karl Edward Wagner and Jim Groce, he was one of the initiators of Carcosa, a small press company. He now lives in Pittsboro, North Carolina. On 17 November 2021 he announced he is retiring from writing novels, due to unspecified ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brontotheriidae
Brontotheriidae is a family of extinct mammals belonging to the order Perissodactyla, the order that includes horses, rhinoceroses, and tapirs. Superficially, they looked rather like rhinos, although they were actually more closely related to horses; Equidae and Brontotheriidae make up the suborder Hippomorpha. They lived around 56–34 million years ago, until the very close of the Eocene. Characteristics and evolution Brontotheres retain four toes on their front feet and three toes on their hind feet. Their teeth are adapted to shearing (cutting) relatively nonabrasive vegetation. Their molars have a characteristic W-shaped ectoloph (outer shearing blade). The evolutionary history of this group is well known due to an excellent fossil record in North America. The earliest brontotheres, such as ''Eotitanops'', were rather small, no more than a meter in height, and hornless. Brontotheres evolved massive bodies, although some small species such as ''Nanotitanops'' did pers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1998 American Novels
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently shadowed craters near the Moon's poles. * January 11 – Over 100 people are killed in the Sidi-Hamed massacre in Algeria. * January 12 – Nineteen European nations agree to forbid human cloning. * January 17 – The ''Drudge Report'' breaks the story about U.S. President Bill Clinton's alleged affair with Monica Lewinsky, which will lead to the House of Representatives' impeachment of him. February * February 3 – Cavalese cable car disaster: A United States military pilot causes the deaths of 20 people near Trento, Italy, when his low-flying EA-6B Prowler severs the cable of a cable-car. * February 4 – The 5.9 Afghanistan earthquake shakes the Takhar Province with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VII (''Very strong''). With up ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carcosa
Carcosa is a fictional city in Ambrose Bierce's short story "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" (1886). The ancient and mysterious city is barely described and is viewed only in hindsight (after its destruction) by a character who once lived there. American writer Robert W. Chambers borrowed the name "Carcosa" for his stories, inspiring generations of authors to similarly use Carcosa in their own works. ''The King in Yellow'' The city was later used more extensively in Robert W. Chambers' book of short horror stories published in 1895, titled ''The King in Yellow''. Chambers had read Bierce's work and borrowed a few additional names from his work, including #Associated names, Hali and Hastur. In Chambers' stories, and within the apocryphal play titled ''The King in Yellow'', which is mentioned several times within them, the city of Carcosa is a mysterious, ancient, and possibly cursed place. The most precise description of its location is the shores of Lake Hali, either on another planet, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cthulhu Mythos Deities
American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) created a number of fictional deities throughout the course of his literary career. These entities are usually depicted as immensely powerful and utterly indifferent to humans who can barely begin to comprehend them, though some entities are worshipped by humans. These deities include the "Great Old Ones" and extraterrestrials, such as the "Elder Things", with sporadic references to other miscellaneous deities (e.g. Nodens). The "Elder Gods" are a later creation of other prolific writers who expanded on Lovecraft's concepts, such as August Derleth, who was credited with formalizing the Cthulhu Mythos. Most of these deities were Lovecraft's original creations, but he also adapted words or concepts from earlier writers such as Ambrose Bierce, and later writers in turn used Lovecraft's concepts and expanded his fictional universe. Great Old Ones An ongoing theme in Lovecraft's work is the complete irrelevance of humanity in the face of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cthulhu Mythos
The Cthulhu Mythos is a mythopoeia and a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term was coined by August Derleth August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 – July 4, 1971) was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, and for his own contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and the ..., a contemporary correspondent and protégé of Lovecraft, to identify the settings, tropes, and lore that were employed by Lovecraft and his literary successors. The name "Cthulhu" derives from the central creature in Lovecraft's seminal short story "The Call of Cthulhu", first published in the pulp magazine ''Weird Tales'' in 1928. Richard L. Tierney, a writer who also wrote Mythos tales, later applied the term "Derleth Mythos" to distinguish Lovecraft's works from Derleth's later stories, which modify key tenets of the Mythos. Authors of Lovecraftian horror ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert William Chambers
Robert William Chambers (May 26, 1865 – December 16, 1933) was an American artist and fiction writer, best known for his book of short stories titled '' The King in Yellow'', published in 1895. Life Chambers was born in Brooklyn, New York, to William P. Chambers (1827–1911), a corporate and bankruptcy lawyer, and Caroline Smith Boughton (1842–1913). His parents met when his mother was twelve years old and William P. was interning with her father, Joseph Boughton, a prominent corporate lawyer. Eventually the two formed the law firm of Chambers and Boughton which continued to prosper even after Joseph's death in 1861. Robert Chambers's great-grandfather, William Chambers (birth unknown), a lieutenant in the British Royal Navy, was married to Amelia Saunders (1765–1822), a great granddaughter of Tobias Saunders of Westerly, Rhode Island. The couple moved from Westerly to Greenfield, Massachusetts and then to Galway, New York, where their son, also William Chambers (1798 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Demon
A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in media such as comics, video games, movies, anime, and television series. Belief in demons probably goes back to the Paleolithic age, stemming from humanity's fear of the unknown, the strange and the horrific. ''A Dictionary of Comparative Religion'' edited by S.G.F. Brandon 1970 In ancient Near Eastern religions and in the Abrahamic religions, including early Judaism and ancient-medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered a harmful spiritual entity which may cause demonic possession, calling for an exorcism. Large portions of Jewish demonology, a key influence on Christianity and Islam, originated from a later form of Zoroastrianism, and was transferred to Judaism during the Persian era. Demons may or may not also be considered to be devils: minions of the Devil. In ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lich
In fantasy fiction, a lich (; from the Old English , meaning "corpse") is a type of undead creature. Various works of fantasy fiction, such as Clark Ashton Smith's "The Empire of the Necromancers" (1932), had used ''lich'' as a general term for any corpse, animated or inanimate, before the term's specific use in fantasy role-playing games. The more recent use of the term ''lich'' for a specific type of undead creature originates from the 1976 ''Dungeons & Dragons'' role-playing game booklet ''Greyhawk'', written by Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz. Often such a creature is the result of a willful transformation, as a powerful wizard skilled in necromancy who seeks eternal life uses rare substances in a magical ritual to become undead. Unlike zombies, which are often depicted as mindless, liches are sapient, retaining their previous intelligence and magical abilities. Liches are often depicted as holding power over lesser undead soldiers and servants. Historical background ''Lich' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyclops
In Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, the Cyclopes ( ; el, Κύκλωπες, ''Kýklōpes'', "Circle-eyes" or "Round-eyes"; singular Cyclops ; , ''Kýklōps'') are giant one-eyed creatures. Three groups of Cyclopes can be distinguished. In Hesiod's ''Theogony'', the Cyclopes are the three brothers Brontes, Steropes, and Arges (Cyclops), Arges, who made for Zeus his weapon the thunderbolt. In Homer's ''Odyssey'', they are an uncivilized group of shepherds, the brethren of Polyphemus encountered by Odysseus. Cyclopes were also famous as the builders of the Cyclopean masonry, Cyclopean walls of Mycenae and Tiryns. In ''Cyclops (play), Cyclops'', the fifth-century BC play by Euripides, a satyr play, chorus of satyrs offers comic relief based on the encounter of Odysseus and Polyphemus. The third-century BC poet Callimachus makes the Hesiodic Cyclopes the assistants of smith-god Hephaestus; as does Virgil in the Latin epic ''Aeneid'', where he seems to equate the Hesiodic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salamander (legendary Creature)
The salamander is an amphibian of the order Urodela which, as with many real creatures, often has been ascribed fantastic and sometimes occult qualities by pre-modern authors (as in the allegorical descriptions of animals in medieval bestiaries) not possessed by the real organism. The legendary salamander is often depicted as a typical salamander in shape with a lizard-like form, but is usually ascribed an affinity with fire, sometimes specifically elemental fire. Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance lore This legendary creature embodies the fantastic qualities that ancient and medieval commentators ascribed to the natural salamander. Many of these qualities are rooted in verifiable traits of the natural creature but often exaggerated. A large body of legend, mythology, and symbolism has developed around this creature over the centuries. Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae'' of 1758 established the scientific description of the salamander and noted the chief char ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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