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Sunday, December 30, 2012

The Crimson Time - A Vampire Crawl

The Crimson Time - A Vampire Crawl

The Crimson Time - A Vampire Crawl

By Patricia K. McCarthy

The Crimson Time is a tale of consumption to gross excess, a "vampire crawl" if you will; a pub crawl in the company of vampires, with a treasure hunt to drive the plot on its lurching, sodden way. Magdalene our luscious heroine returns, now a vampire full-blown. Bask in her immortal radiance as we share a few tumblers of dark rum with Auntie, listen as baby Finn farts (loudly; blame the vegetables) and watch as husband Samuel makes a total ass of himself. The Crimson Time dishes up tales of wicked sex, basement grow-ops, police malfeasance, rampant bloodletting and more... all of it set on a single, late-winter's day in Canada's fair Capital.

Chimera

Chimera (mythology)

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The Chimera on a red-figure Apulian plate, ca 350–340 BC (Musée du Louvre)
The Chimera (also Chimaera or Chimæra) (pron.: /kɨˈmɪərə/ or /kˈmɪərə/; Greek: Χίμαιρα, Khimaira, from χίμαρος, khimaros, "she-goat") was, according to Greek mythology, a monstrous fire-breathing female creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of three animals: a lion, a serpent and a goat. Usually depicted as a lion, with the head of a goat arising from its back, and a tail that ended in a snake's head,[1] the Chimera was one of the offspring of Typhon and Echidna and a sibling of such monsters as Cerberus and the Lernaean Hydra. The term chimera has come to describe any mythical or fictional animal with parts taken from various animals.

Contents

Description

Homer's brief description in the Iliad[2] is the earliest surviving literary reference: "a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle,[3] and snorting out the breath of the terrible flame of bright fire".[4] Elsewhere in the Iliad, Homer attributes the rearing of Chimera to Amisodorus.[5] Hesiod's Theogony follows the Homeric description: he makes the Chimera the issue of Echidna: "She was the mother of Chimaera who breathed raging fire, a creature fearful, great, swift-footed and strong, who had three heads, one of a grim-eyed lion; in her hinderpart, a dragon; and in her middle, a goat, breathing forth a fearful blast of blazing fire. Her did Pegasus and noble Bellerophon slay"[6] The author of the Bibliotheca concurs:[7] descriptions agree that she breathed fire. The Chimera is generally considered to have been female (see the quotation from Hesiod above) despite the mane adorning its lion's head, the inclusion of a close mane often was depicted on lionesses, but the ears always were visible (that does not occur with depictions of male lions). Sighting the Chimera was an omen of storms, shipwrecks, and natural disasters (particularly volcanoes).
While there are different genealogies, in one version the Chimera mated with her brother Orthrus and mothered the Sphinx and the Nemean lion (others have Orthrus and their mother, Echidna, mating; most attribute all to Typhon and Echidna).
The Chimera finally was defeated by Bellerophon, with the help of Pegasus, at the command of King Iobates of Lycia. Since Pegasus could fly, Bellerophon shot the Chimera from the air, safe from her heads and breath.[8] A scholiast to Homer adds that he finished her off by equipping his spear with a lump of lead that melted when exposed to the Chimera's fiery breath and consequently killed her, an image drawn from metalworking.[9]
Gold reel, possibly an ear-stud, with winged Pegasus (outer band) and the Chimera (inner band), Magna Graecia or Etruria, fourth century BC (Louvre)
The Chimera was situated in foreign Lycia,[10] but her representation in the arts was wholly Greek.[11] An autonomous tradition, one that did not rely on the written word, was represented in the visual repertory of the Greek vase-painters. The Chimera first appears at an early stage in the proto-Corinthian pottery-painters' repertory, providing some of the earliest identifiable mythological scenes that can be recognized in Greek art. The Corinthian type is fixed, after some early hesitation, in the 670s BC; the variations in the pictorial representations suggest to Marilyn Low Schmitt[12] a multiple origin. The fascination with the monstrous devolved by the end of the seventh century into a decorative Chimera-motif in Corinth,[13] while the motif of Bellerophon on Pegasus took on a separate existence alone. A separate Attic tradition, where the goats breathe fire and the animal's rear is serpent-like, begins with such confidence that Marilyn Low Schmitt[14] is convinced there must be unrecognized earlier local prototypes. Two vase-painters employed the motif so consistently they are given the pseudonyms the Bellerophon Painter and the Chimaera Painter. A fire-breathing lioness was one of the earliest of solar and war deities in Ancient Egypt (representations from 3000 years prior to the Greek) and influences are feasible.
In Etruscan civilization, the Chimera appears in the "Orientalizing" period that precedes Etruscan Archaic art; that is to say, very early indeed. The Chimera appears in Etruscan wall-paintings of the fourth century BC.
Pebble mosaic depicting Bellerophon killing the Chimera, from Rhodes archaeological museum
Robert Graves suggests,[15] "The Chimera was, apparently, a calendar-symbol of the tripartite year, of which the seasonal emblems were lion, goat, and serpent."
In Medieval art, though the Chimera of Antiquity was forgotten, chimerical figures appear as embodiments of the deceptive, even Satanic forces of raw nature. Provided with a human face and a scaly tail, as in Dante's vision of Geryon in Inferno xvii.7–17, 25–27, hybrid monsters, more akin to the Manticore of Pliny's Natural History (viii.90), provided iconic representations of hypocrisy and fraud well into the seventeenth century, through an emblemmatic representation in Cesare Ripa's Iconologia.[16]

Classical sources

The myths of the Chimera can be found in Pseudo-Apollodorus' Bibliotheca (book 1), Homer's Iliad (book 6); Hyginus' Fabulae 57 and 151; Ovid's Metamorphoses (book VI 339; IX 648); and Hesiod's Theogony 319ff.
Virgil, in the Aeneid (book 5) employs Chimaera for the name of Gyas' gigantic ship in the ship-race, with possible allegorical significance in contemporary Roman politics.[17]

Hypothesis about origin

The eternal fires of Chimera in Lycia where the myth takes place
Pliny the Elder cited Ctesias and quoted Photius identifying the Chimera with an area of permanent gas vents which still can be found today by hikers on the Lycian Way in southwest Turkey. Called in Turkish Yanartaş (flaming rock), it consists of some two dozen vents in the ground, grouped in two patches on the hillside above the Temple of Hephaestus about 3 km north of Çıralı, near ancient Olympos, in Lycia. The vents emit burning methane thought to be of metamorphic origin, which in ancient times were landmarks by which sailors could navigate.
The Neo-Hittite Chimera from Carchemish, dated to 850–750 BC, which is now housed in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations[18] no doubt served as a basis for the Greek legend. It differs from the Greek version in that while there are three heads, none of them is that of a goat, only a main human head, a lion's head facing forward and placed on the chest of the lion's body, and a snake's head placed at the end of the tail.

Use for Chinese mythological creatures

Some western scholars of Chinese art, starting with Victor Segalen, use the word "chimera" generically to refer to winged quadrupeds, such as bixie, tianlu, and even qilin.[19]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Peck, "Chimaera".
  2. ^ Homer, Iliad 6.179–182
  3. ^ "The creature was a goat; a young goat that had seen but one winter was called chimaira in Greek". (Kerenyi 1959:82).
  4. ^ In Richmond Lattimore's translation.
  5. ^ Homer, Iliad, 16.328–329
  6. ^ Hesiod Theogony 319–325 in Hugh Evelyn-White's translation.
  7. ^ Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.3.1: "it had the fore part of a lion, the tail of a dragon, and its third head, the middle one, was rough which it belched fire. And it devastated the country and harried the cattle; for it was a single creature with the power of three beasts. It is said, too, that this Chimera was bred by Amisodarus, as Homer also affirms,3 and that it was begotten by Typhon on Echidna, as Hesiod relates".
  8. ^ Pindar: Olympian Odes, 13.84–90; Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.3.2; Hesiod, Theogony 319 ff.
  9. ^ Graves, section 75, note
  10. ^ Homer, Iliad 16.328–329, links her breeding to the Trojan ally Amisodarus of Lycia, as a plague for men.
  11. ^ Anne Roes "The Representation of the Chimaera" The Journal of Hellenic Studies 54.1 (1934), pp. 21–25, adduces Ancient Near Eastern conventions of winged animals who wings end in animal heads.
  12. ^ This outline of Chimera motifs follows Marilyn Low Schmitt, "Bellerophon and the Chimaera in Archaic Greek Art" American Journal of Archaeology 70.4 (October 1966), pp. 341–347.
  13. ^ Later coins struck at Sicyon, near Corinth, bear the chimera-motif. (Schmitt 1966:344 note.
  14. ^ Schmitt 1966.
  15. ^ Graves 1960:sect.34.2.
  16. ^ John F. Moffitt, "An Exemplary Humanist Hybrid: Vasari's 'Fraude' with Reference to Bronzino's 'Sphinx'" Renaissance Quarterly 49.2 (Summer 1996), pp. 303–333, traces the chimeric image of Fraud backwards from Bronzino.
  17. ^ W.S.M. Nicoll, "Chasing Chimaeras" The Classical Quarterly New Series, 35.1 (1985), pp. 134–139.
  18. ^ fr:Fichier:Museum of Anatolian Civilizations080.jpg
  19. ^ Barry Till (1980), "Some Observations on Stone Winged Chimeras at Ancient Chinese Tomb Sites", Artibus Asiae 42 (4): 261–281, JSTOR 3250032

References

  • Graves, Robert, (1955) 1960. The Greek Myths (Baltimore: Penguin), section 75.b, pp 252–56
  • Kerenyi, Karl, 1959. The Heroes of the Greeks. (London and New York:Thames and Hudson)
  • Peck, Harry Thurston, 1898. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities: "Chimaera"

Research Reference for Monstropedia Everna
Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_%28mythology%29

Monday, December 24, 2012

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters


The official red band trailer for Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters starring Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton as Hansel and Gretel. 15 years after their traumatic gingerbread-house incident, siblings Hansel and Gretel have become a formidable team of bounty hunters who track and kill witches all over the world. Renner and Arterton are compelled to track down a dangerous Sorceress (Famke Janssen) before she can sacrifice all the local children to her dark arts.

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Source:  http://youtu.be/mAzqMhVHh0c

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Strange Lands: Holiday Gift Guide

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This holiday, give the gift of another world! For our last-minute shoppers out there, we're offering a 30% discount plus FREE SHIPPING when you order before Christmas. Just enter STRANGELANDS12 during check out at RandomHouse.com. Now who says early birds get all the worms?

Don't know where to start? Check out our holiday gift guide, tailored to every kind of adventurer, whether they be in the realm of another world or of the heart.

 
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The Inheritance cycle is the unforgettable, worldwide bestselling saga of one boy, one dragon, and a world of adventure. When Eragon finds a polished blue stone in the forest, he thinks it is the lucky discovery of a poor farm boy. But when the stone brings a dragon hatchling, Eragon soon realizes he has stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself.

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Seraphina
by Rachel Hartman

Can one girl unite
two worlds?


Enchantress
by Michael Scott

Will the twins of legend
stand together?



Magicalamity
by Kate Saunders

Can Tom rescue his dad from the clutches of some killer fairies?



Mastiff
by Tamora Pierce

On this hunt, Beka will need all her resources.

 
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The Fallen in Love Boxed set contains all four hardcover editions of Lauren Kate's ridiculously romantic New York Times bestselling series. Fallen angels, demons, and a mortal or two thrown in for good measure . . . get ready to fall.

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Katerina now wants to forget that she ever used her special powers.


Timeless
by Alexandra Monir

Michele discovers a diary
that hurtles her back in time
to the year 1910.



Unspoken
by Sarah Rees Brennan

The boy she thought was imaginary is real, and definitely and deliciously dangerous.



Wildcat Fireflies
by Amber Kizer

Meridian Sozu is a Fenestra—the half-human, half-angel link between the living and the dead.

 
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When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. His memory is blank. But he’s not alone. When the lift’s doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade—a large, open expanse surrounded by stone walls.

Just like Thomas, the Gladers don’t know why or how they got to the Glade. All they know is that every morning the stone doors to the maze that surrounds them have opened. Every night they’ve closed tight. And every thirty days a new boy has been delivered in the lift.

Thomas was expected. But the next day, a girl is sent up—the first girl to ever arrive in the Glade. And more surprising yet is the message she delivers.


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Starters
by Lissa Price

A girl with a terrifying choice, would you sell your youth to survive?

In Mary's world there are simple truths. The Sisterhood always knows best.



Mystic City
by Theo Lawrence

The choices Aria makes can save or doom the city—including herself.



Yesterday
by C. K. Kelly Martin

Why do Freya's memories feel so foggy?

 
 
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Sunday, December 16, 2012

The Hobbit -Full (Main Theme) Song ''Over the Misty Mountains Cold'' Howard Shore

The Hobbit -Full (Main Theme) Song ''Over the Misty Mountains Cold'' Howard Shore

Source: http://youtu.be/L_fwNTiFZMI

Published on Sep 24, 2012 by
The MAIN THEME song from ''THE HOBBIT'' MOVIE. composed by Howard Shore. The movie is set to be released on the 14th of decmeber . please rate comment and sub , it makes a big difference . I have other trailers , sneak peaks and other 'Hobbit' related videos on my channel - https://www.youtube.com/user/bradleyisrad20?feature=mhee
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Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Vadis Fantasy Art Gallery - December 2012

Vadis' Fantasy Art Gallery Batch for December 1-15, 2012 All pictures are made by Andry Chang a.k.a. BJ Vadis All stories are in Indonesian Language Qi Xi - Bridge of Magpies http://fav.me/d5nlrss
Qixi-magpies by ~vadis on deviantART Qi Xi - The Grey Qi Xi http://fav.me/d5nls2b
Qixi-grey by ~vadis on deviantART Qi Xi - The Promise http://fav.me/d5nlqcc
Qixi-promise-4 by ~vadis on deviantART Qi Xi - Legend of Li Junyang "Even death can't do us part" http://fav.me/d5bmtge
Legend of Li Junyang by ~vadis on deviantART Link to "Qi Xi Love Anthology" - http://fantasindo.blogspot.com/2012/09/qi-xi-bunga-rampai-asmara.html Ther Melian Fan Fiction - The Assassin http://fav.me/d5n49es
Ther Melian - The Shazin by ~vadis on deviantART Link to the short story - http://www.facebook.com/notes/andry-chang/ther-melian-fan-fiction-sang-shazin-andry-chang/10151110989451741 Update: December 11, 2012 Marking the 1,100th post in FireHeart Blog

Friday, November 23, 2012

Strange Lands: A Different Kind of Holiday Magic

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A different kind of holiday magic awaits you this month in Strange Lands. We have beautiful boxed set editions of our most popular series, hotly anticipated sequels, and new adventures that will please even the biggest troll on your gift list. Scroll down for the perfect holiday picks!

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The complete Inheritance cycle, available for the first time in a paperback boxed set!

The Inheritance cycle is the unforgettable, worldwide bestselling saga of one boy, one dragon, and a world of adventure. When Eragon finds a polished blue stone in the forest, he thinks it is the lucky discovery of a poor farm boy. But when the stone brings a dragon hatchling, Eragon soon realizes he has stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself. Overnight his simple life is shattered, and he and his dragon, Saphira, are thrust into a perilous new world of destiny, magic, and power. Can Eragon take up the mantle of the legendary Dragon Riders? The fate of the Empire may rest in his hands. . . .

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The Fallen in Love Boxed set contains all four hardcover editions of Lauren Kate's ridiculously romantic New York Times bestselling series. Fallen angels, demons, and a mortal or two thrown in for good measure . . . get ready to fall.

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For fans of Matched, The Hunger Games, X-Men, and Blade Runner comes a tale of a magical city divided, a political rebellion ignited, and a love that was meant to last forever. Book One of the Mystic City Novels.

Aria Rose, youngest scion of one of Mystic City's two ruling rival families, finds herself betrothed to Thomas Foster, the son of her parents' sworn enemies. The union of the two will end the generations-long political feud--and unite all those living in the Aeries, the privileged upper reaches of the city, against the banished mystics who dwell below in the Depths. But Aria doesn't remember falling in love with Thomas; in fact, she wakes one day with huge gaps in her memory. And she can't conceive why her parents would have agreed to unite with the Fosters in the first place. Only when Aria meets Hunter, a gorgeous rebel mystic from the Depths, does she start to have glimmers of recollection--and to understand that he holds the key to unlocking her past. The choices she makes can save or doom the city--including herself.


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Readers of Carrie Ryan and Richelle Mead will love this dark revenge fantasy.

At sixteen, Velveteen Monroe was kidnapped and murdered by a madman named Bonesaw. But that's not the problem. The problem is she landed in the City of the Dead. And while it's not a fiery inferno, it's certainly no heaven either. Grey, ashen and crumbling more and more by the day, and everyone has a job to do there. Which doesn't leave Velveteen much time to do anything about what's really on her mind. Bonesaw.

Velveteen aches to deliver the bloody punishment he deserves. And she's figured out just how to do it. She'll haunt him for the rest of his days.
It'll be brutal...and awesome.

But crossing the divide between the living and the dead has devastating consequences. Velveteen's obsessive haunting could actually crack the foundation of her new world, not to mention jeopardize her very soul. A risk she's willing to take--except fate has just given her reason to stick around: an unreasonably hot and completely off-limits coworker.

Velveteen can't help herself when it comes to breaking rules . . . or getting revenge. And she just might be angry enough to take everyone down with her.

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All will be revealed for fans who have breathlessly awaited the sizzling sequel to Juliet Immortal. This time Romeo takes center stage and gets one chance, and one chance only, to redeem himself.

Cursed to live out eternity in his rotted corpse, Romeo, known for his ruthless, cutthroat ways, is given the chance to redeem himself by traveling back in time to save the life of Ariel Dragland. Unbeknownst to her, Ariel is important to both the evil Mercenaries and the love-promoting Ambassadors and holds the fate of the world in her hands. Romeo must win her heart and make her believe in love, turning her away from her darker potential before his work is discovered by the Mercenaries. While his seduction begins as yet another lie, it soon becomes his only truth. Romeo vows to protect Ariel from harm, and do whatever it takes to win her heart and soul. But when Ariel is led to believe his love is a deception, she becomes vulnerable to Mercenary manipulation, and her own inner darkness may ultimately rip them apart.

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Lush and opulent, romantic and sinister, The Unfailing Light, Volume II in The Katerina Trilogy, reimagines the lives of Russia's aristocracy in a fabulously intoxicating and page-turning fantasy.

Having had no choice but to use her power has a necromancer to save Russia from dark forces, Katerina Alexandrovna, Duchess of Oldenburg, now wants to forget that she ever used her special powers. She's about to set off to pursue her lifelong dream of attending medical school when she discovers that Russia's arch nemesis--who she thought she'd destroyed--is still alive. So on imperial orders, Katerina remains at her old finishing school. She'll be safe there, because the empress has cast a potent spell to protect it against the vampires and revenants who are bent on toppling the tsar and using Katerina for their own gains. But to Katerina's horror, the spell unleashes a vengeful ghost within the school, a ghost more dangerous than any creature trying to get in.

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The third book in the Beka Cooper trilogy


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Scored
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Unleashed
by Written by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie

Welcome to Wolf Springs -- who do you run with?

   
 
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