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The 37th Mandala
''The 37th Mandala'' is a horror novel written by Marc Laidlaw and published in 1996. It tells the story of New Age writer Derek Crowe who uses an ancient mystical text as the basis of one of his works. As his writing gains popularity, it also attracts the unwanted attention of the 37 mandalas—terrible Lovecraftian-style monsters—that the original text was about. ''The 37th Mandala'' earned Laidlaw the 1996 International Horror Guild Award for "Best Novel". It was also nominated for World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1997. In popular culture In the Valve computer game ''Half-Life'', which Laidlaw helped design, this book is one of two seen on a shelf in the personal locker of Gordon Freeman Gordon Freeman is the silent protagonist of the ''Half-Life'' video game series, created by Gabe Newell and designed by Newell and Marc Laidlaw of Valve. His first appearance is in ''Half-Life''. Gordon Freeman is depicted as a bespectacled Ca .... The other book on the shel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horror Fiction
Horror is a genre of fiction which is intended to frighten, scare, or disgust. Horror is often divided into the sub-genres of psychological horror and supernatural horror, which is in the realm of speculative fiction. Literary historian J. A. Cuddon, in 1984, defined the horror story as "a piece of fiction in prose of variable length... which shocks, or even frightens the reader, or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing". Horror intends to create an eerie and frightening atmosphere for the reader. Often the central menace of a work of horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for larger fears of a society. Prevalent elements of the genre include ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, ghouls, the Devil, witches, monsters, extraterrestrials, dystopian and post-apocalyptic worlds, serial killers, cannibalism, cults, dark magic, satanism, the macabre, gore and torture. History Before 1000 The horror genre has ancient origins, with roots in folklore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novel
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 histori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marc Laidlaw
Marc Laidlaw (born August 3, 1960) is an American writer of science fiction and horror, musician, and a former writer for the video game company Valve. He is most famous for working on Valve's ''Half-Life'' series. Biography Laidlaw was born and raised in Laguna Beach, California. He attended the University of Oregon, where he tried, and was discouraged by, punched card computer programming. He wrote short stories and his first novel, ''Dad's Nuke'', was published in 1985. This was followed by several more novels over the next decade, but he worked as a legal secretary in San Francisco for a living. Laidlaw had played computer and arcade games, but was not intrigued until he played ''Myst'' (1993). He obsessed over ''Myst'' and bought a new computer so that he could play it at his San Francisco home. He wrote ''The Third Force'' (1996), a tie-in novel based on the world created by the ''Gadget'' computer game. His favorite PC game is '' Thief: The Dark Project''. La ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Age
New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars consider it a religious movement, its adherents typically see it as spiritual or as unifying Mind-Body-Spirit, and rarely use the term ''New Age'' themselves. Scholars often call it the New Age movement, although others contest this term and suggest it is better seen as a ''milieu'' or ''zeitgeist''. As a form of Western esotericism, the New Age drew heavily upon esoteric traditions such as the occultism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including the work of Emanuel Swedenborg and Franz Mesmer, as well as Spiritualism, New Thought, and Theosophy. More immediately, it arose from mid-twentieth century influences such as the UFO religions of the 1950s, the counterculture of the 1960s, and the Human Potential Movement. Its exact origins ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lovecraftian
Lovecraftian horror, sometimes used interchangeably with "cosmic horror", is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named after American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937). His work emphasizes themes of cosmic dread, forbidden and dangerous knowledge, madness, non-human influences on humanity, religion and superstition, fate and inevitability, and the risks associated with scientific discoveries, which are now associated with Lovecraftian horror as a subgenre. The cosmic themes of Lovecraftian horror can also be found in other media, notably horror films, horror games, and comics. Origin American author H. P. Lovecraft refined this style of storytelling into his own mythos that involved a set of supernatural, pre-human, and extraterrestrial elements. His work was influenced by authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Algernon Blackwood, Ambrose Bierce, Arthur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Horror Guild Award
The International Horror Guild Award (also known as the IHG Award) was an accolade recognizing excellence in the field of Horror fiction, horror/dark fantasy, presented by the International Horror Guild (IHG) from 1995 to 2008. The IHG Awards were determined by a jury of notable horror/dark fantasy critics and reviewers, which has included Edward Bryant, Ann VanderMeer, Stefan Dziemianowicz, William Sheehan, Fiona Webster and Hank Wagner. Nomination suggestions were accepted from the public. The annual awards were usually announced during a special presentation at a convention or other event, and IHG Award presentations have been held at the World Fantasy Convention, the World Horror Convention and Dragon*Con. Originally in the form of a "winged dog gargoyle" figure on a base, in 2002 the IHG Award was redesigned as a black, tombstone-shaped and free-standing plaque. The Living Legend Award had the same design, but in clear acrylic. Presentations References External links Abo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World Fantasy Award For Best Novel
In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique while others talk of a "plurality of worlds". Some treat the world as one simple object while others analyze the world as a complex made up of many parts. In ''scientific cosmology'' the world or universe is commonly defined as " e totality of all space and time; all that is, has been, and will be". '' Theories of modality'', on the other hand, talk of possible worlds as complete and consistent ways how things could have been. ''Phenomenology'', starting from the horizon of co-given objects present in the periphery of every experience, defines the world as the biggest horizon or the "horizon of all horizons". In ''philosophy of mind'', the world is commonly contrasted with the mind as that which is represented by the mind. ''Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Valve Corporation
Valve Corporation is an American video game developer, video game publisher, publisher, and digital distribution company headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. It is the developer of the software distribution platform Steam (service), Steam and the franchises ''Half-Life (series), Half-Life'', ''Counter-Strike'', ''Portal (series), Portal'', ''Day of Defeat'', ''Team Fortress'', ''Left 4 Dead (series), Left 4 Dead'' and ''Dota''. Valve was founded in 1996 by former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington. Their debut game, the first-person shooter (FPS) ''Half-Life (video game), Half-Life'' (1998), was a critical and commercial success; with its realism, scripted sequences and seamless narrative, it had a lasting influence on the FPS genre. Harrington left in 2000. In 2003, Valve launched Steam, followed by ''Half-Life 2'' in 2004. With advanced Physics engine, physics systems and an increased focus on story and characters, ''Half-Life 2'' received critical acclaim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Half-Life (video Game)
''Half-Life'' is a 1998 first-person shooter (FPS) game developed by Valve and published by Sierra Studios for Windows. It was Valve's debut product and the first game in the ''Half-Life'' series. Players assume the role of Gordon Freeman, a scientist who must escape the Black Mesa Research Facility after it is invaded by aliens. The gameplay consists of combat, exploration, and puzzle-solving. Unlike other games of the time, the player has almost uninterrupted control of the player character, and the story is told mostly in scripted sequences rather than cutscenes. Valve co-founder Gabe Newell said that the team was disappointed with the lack of innovation in the FPS genre, and aimed to create an immersive world rather than a "shooting gallery". Valve developed using GoldSrc, a heavily modified version of the ''Quake'' engine, licensed from id Software. The science fiction novelist Marc Laidlaw was hired to shape the story and assist with design. ''Half-Life'' received accl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gordon Freeman
Gordon Freeman is the silent protagonist of the ''Half-Life'' video game series, created by Gabe Newell and designed by Newell and Marc Laidlaw of Valve. His first appearance is in ''Half-Life''. Gordon Freeman is depicted as a bespectacled Caucasian man from Seattle, with brown hair and a signature goatee, who graduated from MIT with a PhD in theoretical physics. He was an employee at the fictional Black Mesa Research Facility. Controlled by the player, Gordon is often tasked with using a wide range of weapons and tools to fight alien creatures such as headcrabs, as well as Combine machines and soldiers. Gordon Freeman's character has been well received by critics and gamers, and various gaming websites often consider him to be one of the greatest video game characters of all time, including UGO and ''GameSpot''. Character design ''Half-Life'' director Gabe Newell coined the name "Gordon Freeman" during a conversation with the game's writer Marc Laidlaw in his car. Laidl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1996 American Novels
File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone on board; Eight people 1996 Mount Everest disaster, die in a blizzard on Mount Everest; Dolly (sheep), Dolly the Sheep becomes the first mammal to have been cloned from an adult somatic cell; The Port Arthur massacre (Australia), Port Arthur Massacre occurs on Tasmania, and leads to major changes in Gun laws of Australia, Australia's gun laws; Macarena, sung by Los del Río and remixed by The Bayside Boys, becomes a major dance craze and cultural phenomenon; Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 crash-ditches off of the Comoros Islands after the plane was Aircraft hijacking, hijacked; the 1996 Summer Olympics are held in Atlanta, marking the Centennial (100th Anniversary) of the modern Olympic Gam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Horror 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
