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Tongues Of Serpents
''Tongues of Serpents'' is the sixth novel in the '' Temeraire'' alternate history/fantasy series by American author Naomi Novik. This installment follows William Laurence and his dragon, Temeraire's adventures in Australia. ''Tongues of Serpents'' was released in hardcover and e-Book formats in North America and the United Kingdom by Voyager Books on July 13, 2010. Plot details The story begins in New South Wales, where Laurence has been sentenced to "transportation" for his treasonous actions in ''Empire of Ivory''. With him is Temeraire; Captain Granby and his firebreathing Kazilik Iskierka; Tenzing Tharkay, his half-Nepalese friend; Tom Riley, captain of HMS ''Allegiance'' which sailed them hence; and three dragon eggs, sent by Admiral Jane Roland to form the foundation of New South Wales' Aerial Corps. Dropping by Van Diemen's Land to resupply, ''Allegiance'' discovered William Bligh, late of , exiled there after being deposed in a military coup, and have since borne him ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naomi Novik
Naomi Novik (born April 30, 1973) is an American author of speculative fiction. She is known for the ''Temeraire'' series (2006–2016), an alternate history of the Napoleonic Wars involving dragons, and her ''Scholomance'' fantasy series (2020–2022).. Her standalone fantasy novels '' Uprooted'' (2015) and ''Spinning Silver'' (2018) were inspired by Polish folklore and the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale, respectively; Novik has won many awards for her work, including the Alex, Audie, British Fantasy, Locus, Mythopoeic and Nebula Awards. Early life Novik grew up in Roslyn Heights on Long Island. She is a second-generation American; her father's family were Lithuanian Jews, and her mother's family were Polish Catholics. Displaying an interest in reading at a young age, she read ''The Lord of the Rings'' at age six, and developed a love for Jane Austen soon afterward. She received a bachelor's degree in English literature at Brown University and holds a master's degree in com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration of Australia in the 19th century. A British settlement was established in Van Diemen's Land in 1803 before it became a separate colony in 1825. Its penal colonies became notorious destinations for the transportation of convicts due to the harsh environment, isolation and reputation for being inescapable. Macquarie Harbour and Port Arthur are among the most well-known penal settlements on the island. With the passing of the Australian Constitutions Act 1850, Van Diemen's Land (along with New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, and Western Australia) was granted responsible self-government with its own elected representative and parliament. On 1 January 1856, the colony of Van Diemen's Land was officially changed to Tasmania. The last penal settlement was closed in Tasmania in 1877. Toponym The island was named in honour of Anthony van ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bunyip
The bunyip is a creature from the aboriginal mythology of southeastern Australia, said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes. Name The origin of the word ''bunyip'' has been traced to the Wemba-Wemba or Wergaia language of the Aboriginal people of Victoria, in South-Eastern Australia. The word ''bunyip'' is usually translated by Aboriginal Australians today as "devil" or "evil spirit". This contemporary translation may not accurately represent the role of the bunyip in pre-contact Aboriginal mythology or its possible origins before written accounts were made. Some modern sources allude to a linguistic connection between the bunyip and Bunjil, "a mythic 'Great Man' who made the mountains, rivers, man, and all the animals". The word ''bahnyip'' first appeared in the ''Sydney Gazette'' in 1812. It was used by James Ives to describe "a large black animal like a seal, with a terrible voice which creates terror among the blacks". Distribution The b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aboriginal Australians
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands. The term Indigenous Australians refers to Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders collectively. It is generally used when both groups are included in the topic being addressed. Torres Strait Islanders are ethnically and culturally distinct, despite extensive cultural exchange with some of the Aboriginal groups. The Torres Strait Islands are mostly part of Queensland but have a separate governmental status. Aboriginal Australians comprise many distinct peoples who have developed across Australia for over 50,000 years. These peoples have a broadly shared, though complex, genetic history, but only in the last 200 years have they been defined and started to self-identify as a single group. Australian Aboriginal identity has cha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guangzhou
Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kong and north of Macau, Guangzhou has a history of over 2,200 years and was a major terminus of the maritime Silk Road; it continues to serve as a major port and transportation hub as well as being one of China's three largest cities. For a long time, the only Chinese port accessible to most foreign traders, Guangzhou was captured by the British during the First Opium War. No longer enjoying a monopoly after the war, it lost trade to other ports such as Hong Kong and Shanghai, but continued to serve as a major transshipment port. Due to a high urban population and large volumes of port traffic, Guangzhou is classified as a Large-Port Megacity, the largest type of port-city in the world. Due to worldwide travel restrictions at the beginning ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qing Dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaking ethnic group who unified other Jurchen tribes to form a new "Manchu" ethnic identity. The dynasty was officially proclaimed in 1636 in Manchuria (modern-day Northeast China and Outer Manchuria). It seized control of Beijing in 1644, then later expanded its rule over the whole of China proper and Taiwan, and finally expanded into Inner Asia. The dynasty lasted until 1912 when it was overthrown in the Xinhai Revolution. In orthodox Chinese historiography, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The multiethnic Qing dynasty lasted for almost three centuries and assembled the territorial base for modern China. It was the largest imperial dynasty in the history of China and in 1790 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Smuggling
Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. There are various motivations to smuggle. These include the participation in illegal trade, such as in the drug trade, illegal weapons trade, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, exotic wildlife trade, art theft, heists, chop shops, illegal immigration or illegal emigration, tax evasion, import/export restrictions, providing contraband to prison inmates, or the theft of the items being smuggled. Smuggling is a common theme in literature, from Bizet's opera ''Carmen'' to the James Bond spy books (and later films) '' Diamonds Are Forever'' and '' Goldfinger''. Etymology The verb ''smuggle'', from Low German ''smuggeln'' or Dutch ''smokkelen'' (="to transport (goods) illegally"), apparently a frequentative formation of a word meaning "to s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Mountains (Australia)
The Blue Mountains are a mountainous region and a mountain range located in New South Wales, Australia. The region borders on Sydney's metropolitan area, its foothills starting about west of centre of the state capital, close to Penrith on the outskirts of Greater Sydney region. The public's understanding of the extent of the Blue Mountains is varied, as it forms only part of an extensive mountainous area associated with the Great Dividing Range. As defined in 1970, the Blue Mountains region is bounded by the Nepean and Hawkesbury rivers in the east, the Coxs River and Lake Burragorang to the west and south, and the Wolgan and Colo rivers to the north. Geologically, it is situated in the central parts of the Sydney Basin. The ''Blue Mountains Range'' comprises a range of mountains, plateau escarpments extending off the Great Dividing Range about northwest of Wolgan Gap in a generally southeasterly direction for about , terminating at . For about two-thirds of its len ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) // CITED: p. 36 (PDF p. 38/338) also known as the Turkish Empire, was an empire that controlled much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. It was founded at the end of the 13th century in northwestern Anatolia in the town of Söğüt (modern-day Bilecik Province) by the Turkoman tribal leader Osman I. After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe and, with the conquest of the Balkans, the Ottoman beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed the Conqueror. Under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire marked the peak of its power and prosperity, as well a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
His Majesty's Dragon
''His Majesty's Dragon'', published in the UK as ''Temeraire'', is the first novel in the '' Temeraire'' alternate history/fantasy series by American author Naomi Novik. The story is set during an alternate-history version of the Napoleonic Wars, in which dragons not only exist but are used as a staple of aerial warfare in Asia and Europe. The dragons of the story are portrayed as sapient and intelligent, capable of logical thought and human speech. The series centers primarily on events involving Temeraire (the titular dragon) and his handler, Will Laurence. The first book of the series tells how Laurence, formerly a Captain in the Royal Navy, becomes Temeraire's handler, and of their early training in preparation for battles against Napoleon's aerial fleet. It was first published in 2006. It won the 2007 Compton Crook Award for best novel in the science fiction/fantasy genre during 2006 by a first-time author. Plot summary In the winter of 1804 ("the year four" as the charact ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Roman Empire, Romans as ''Londinium'' and retains its medieval boundaries.See also: Independent city#National capitals, Independent city § National capitals The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national Government of the United Kingdom, government and Parliament of the United Kingdom, parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the Counties of England, counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely comprises Greater London ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Macarthur (wool Pioneer)
John Macarthur (1767 – 11 April 1834) was a British Army officer, racketeer, entrepreneur, grazier, usurper, politician, and highly influential figure in the early British colonisation of New South Wales. Macarthur is recognised as the pioneer of the Australian Merino wool industry. He was instrumental in agitating for, and organising, a rebellion against the colonial government in what is often described as the Rum Rebellion. Early life John Macarthur was born at Stoke Damerel near Plymouth, England in 1767. His exact date of birth is unknown, but his baptism was registered on 3 September 1767. He was the second son of Alexander Macarthur, who had fled Scotland to the West Indies after the Jacobite rising of 1745 before returning to Plymouth to work as a linen draper and mercer. In 1782, John Macarthur was commissioned as an ensign in Fish's Corps, a regiment of the British Army formed to serve in the American War of Independence. The war ended before the regiment was r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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