Out of the mainstream but ahead of the tide, that is Scottish Science Fiction. Science Fiction emphasizes “progress” through technology, advanced mental states, or future times. How does Scotland, often considered a land of the past, lead in Science Fiction? “Left behind” by international politics, Scots have cultivated alternate places and different times as sites of identity so that Scotland can seem a futuristic fiction itself.This book explores the tensions between science and ...

The Wheel of Time Reread on Tor.com is an extensive analysis of Robert Jordan's epic fantasy series, covering the material chapter by chapter. Join Leigh Butler as she summarizes the chapters and comments on the ongoing mysteries of the series, gender issues, politics, history, and the many Crowning Moments of Awesome.Volume 1 of the collected Tor.com Wheel of Time Reread covers books 1 through 4 of The Wheel of Time: The Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn, and The...

There is a commonly held belief the tropical storms and hurricanes that form off the coast of West Africa are not natural disasters, but rather they are retaliation by restless spirits impacted by one of the darkest chapters of world history—the trans-Atlantic slave trade.Awiti’s destiny was forever changed the day the slave raiders arrived at her village. She made a life-altering decision with the hope of being reunited with her family, only to discover her effort was in vain. For...

The Wheel of Time Reread on Tor.com is an extensive analysis of Robert Jordan's epic fantasy series, covering the material chapter by chapter. Join Leigh Butler as she summarizes the chapters and comments on the ongoing mysteries of the series, gender issues, politics, history, and the many Crowning Moments of Awesome.Volume 4 of the collected Tor.com Wheel of Time Reread covers the prequel New Spring and books 10 through 12 of The Wheel of Time: Crossroads of Twilight, Knife of Dr...

C. S. Lewis is the 20th century's most widely read Christian writer and J.R.R. Tolkien its most beloved mythmaker. For three decades, they and their closest associates formed a literary club known as the Inklings, which met every week in Lewis's Oxford rooms and in nearby pubs. They discussed literature, religion, and ideas; read aloud from works in progress; took philosophical rambles in woods and fields; gave one another companionship and criticism; and, in the process, rewrote the cultu...

This collection of new essays applies a wide range of critical frameworks to the analysis of prolific fantasy author Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. Essays focus on topics such as Pratchett's treatment of noise and silence and their political implications; art as an anodyne for racial conflict; humor and cognitive debugging; visual semiotics; linguistic stylistics and readers' perspectives of word choice; and Derrida and the "monstrous Regiment of Women." The volume also includ...

Exploring the Rapunzel fairy tale throughout history. Includes research-based exegesis, original translations, poems and articles related to the work.About the AuthorKATE FORSYTH is the bestselling and award-winning author of more than twenty books, ranging from picture books to poetry to novels for both children and adults, including "The Heart of Stars", "The Forbidden Land", "The Pool of Two Moons", and "The Witches of Eileanan". She is the only author to win five Aureali...

J.R.R. Tolkien claimed that he based the land of Middle Earth on a real place. The Real Middle Earth brings alive, for the first time, the very real civilization in which those who lived had a vision of life animated by beings beyond the material world.Magic was real to these people and they believed their universe was held together by an interlaced web of golden threads visible only to wizards. At its center was Middle Earth, a place peopled by humans, but...

J.K. Rowling has drawn deeply from classical sources to inform and color her Harry Potter novels, with allusions ranging from the obvious to the obscure. "Fluffy," the vicious three-headed dog in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, is clearly a repackaging of Cerberus, the hellhound of Greek and Roman mythology. But the significance of Rowling's quotation from Aeschylus at the front of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a matter of speculation. Her use o...

Few twentieth-century authors can compete with J.R.R. Tolkien. More than three-quarters of a century after the publication of The Hobbit in 1937, his works continue to captivate millions of readers across the world. As a collection of papers delivered in 2012 at the Tolkien Society’s international conference of the same name, The Return of the Ring is representative of the wide and varied responses Tolkien’s works have generated over the decades. The first volume focuses ...

Outlander is much more than a television romance about a World War II nurse and a Jacobite soldier in a fetching kilt. The series--and the massive serial novel on which it is based--has been categorized as a period drama, adventure saga, military history and fantasy epic. Inspired by the Irish legends of Fionn Mac Cumhaill and the prophecies of Brahan Seer, the storyline is filled with mythology and symbolism from around the world, from the Fair Folk and the Loch Ness monster to w...

The Empire of the Ants by H. G. Wells "Empire of the Ants" is a 1905 short story by H. G. Wells, which inspired a film of the same title in 1977. The story involves an explorer who is dispatched to South America to investigate reports of intelligent ants destroying a colony. It was published in 1905 in The Strand Magazine.