David Andrew Gemmell was a British author of heroic fantasy, best known for his debut novel, Legend. A former journalist and newspaper editor, Gemmell had his first work of fiction published in 1984. He went on to write over thirty novels. Gemmell's works display violence, yet also explore themes of honour, loyalty and redemption. There is always a strong heroic theme but nearly always the heroes are flawed in some way. With over one million copies sold, his work continues to sell worldwide.
Lancelot du Lac, also written as Launcelot and other variants, is a character in some versions of Arthurian legend where he is typically depicted as King Arthur's close companion and one of the greatest Knights of the Round Table. In the French-inspired Arthurian chivalric romance tradition, Lancelot is an orphaned son of King Ban of the lost kingdom of Benoic, raised in a fairy realm by the Lady of the Lake. A hero of many battles, quests and tournaments, and famed as a nearly unrivalled swordsman and jouster, Lancelot becomes the lord of the castle Joyous Gard and personal champion of Arthur's wife, Queen Guinevere, despite suffering from frequent and sometimes prolonged fits of madness. But when his adulterous affair with Guinevere is discovered, it causes a civil war that, once exploited by Mordred, brings an end to Arthur's kingdom.
King's Quest is a graphic adventure game series, released between 1980 and 2016 and created by the American software company Sierra Entertainment. It is widely considered a classic series from the golden era of adventure games. Following the success of its first installments, the series was primarily responsible for building the reputation of Sierra. Roberta Williams, co-founder and former co-owner of Sierra, designed all of the King's Quest games until the series' reboot in 2015.
The Knights of the Round Table are the legendary knights of the fellowship of King Arthur that first appeared in the Matter of Britain literature in the mid-12th century. The Knights are an order dedicated to ensuring the peace of Arthur's kingdom following an early warring period, entrusted in later years to undergo a mystical quest for the Holy Grail. The Round Table at which they meet is a symbol of the equality of its members, who range from sovereign royals to minor nobles.
Kakheti is a region (mkhare) formed in the 1990s in eastern Georgia from the historical province of Kakheti and the small, mountainous province of Tusheti. Telavi is its capital. The region comprises eight administrative districts: Telavi, Gurjaani, Qvareli, Sagarejo, Dedoplistsqaro, Signagi, Lagodekhi and Akhmeta.
Blood of Elves is the first novel in The Witcher series written by the Polish fantasy writer Andrzej Sapkowski, first published in Poland in 1994. It is a sequel to the Witcher short stories collected in the books The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny and is followed by Time of Contempt. The book won the Janusz A. Zajdel Award in 1994 and the David Gemmell Legend Award in 2009. An English translation was published in the United Kingdom in 2008 (Gollancz) and in the United States in 2009 (Orbit).
Legend is a fantasy novel by British writer David Gemmell, published in 1984. It established him as a major fantasy novelist and created the character of Druss, who would appear in several subsequent books. It was the first novel by Gemmell, and in The Drenai saga.
The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend is a fantasy novel by British author David Gemmell, first published in 1993. The novel is a prequel to the popular title Legend. The novel details the early life and events of the character Druss, and is followed by The Legend of Deathwalker, which deals with later events in his life between this book and the events in Legend.
The King Beyond The Gate is a fantasy novel by British writer David Gemmell. It was published in 1985. It was the second book published by Gemmell, after Legend, published a year earlier. The book is set in the same fictional world as Legend, that of the Drenai, but is not a sequel in the usual sense as the events of the two books take place around a century apart. Thus the main protagonists of Legend are long since dead and play little part in The King Beyond the Gate, other than passing mentions. This set a precedent for the entire Drenai series, in which very few characters appear in more than one novel, the gaps between novels sometimes running to centuries, giving a more epic, historical flavour to the series.
The Hero and the Crown is a fantasy novel written by Robin McKinley and published by Greenwillow Books in 1984. It is the winner of the 1985 Newbery Medal award. This story focuses on "Aerin Dragon-Killer", also known as "Aerin Firehair", the heroine who is introduced as a legendary character in The Blue Sword. The book narrates Aerin's evolution from the shy, retiring daughter of the King of Damar to the heroic queen who protects her people from the demonic Northerners.
Waylander is a fantasy novel by British writer David Gemmell, published in 1986. It is the first of three Waylander stories, followed by Waylander II: In the Realm of the Wolf and Waylander III: Hero In The Shadows.
Corbenic is the name of the Grail castle, the edifice housing the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. It is a magical domain of the Grail keeper, often known as the Fisher King. The castle's descriptions vary greatly in different sources, and it first appears by that name in the Lancelot-Grail cycle where it is also the birthplace of Galahad.
"The Hand of Nergal" is one of the original short stories by American author Robert E. Howard starring the sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, an untitled fragment begun in the 1930s but not finished or published in Howard's lifetime. It was completed and titled by Lin Carter and in this form was published in the following collections:
The Legend of Deathwalker is a heroic fantasy novel written by British author David Gemmell, it was first published in 1996 and was reprinted in 1999. The book follows on from the novel The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend and was the seventh book to be released in the Drenai Series. It is also one of three stories compiled into a single collection in Drenai Tales Volume Three, along with Winter Warriors and Hero in the Shadows. The book details the life of the character Druss and is set chronologically after the main events in The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend but prior to events in Legend.
The Kingdom of Kartli was a late medieval/early modern monarchy in eastern Georgia, centred on the province of Kartli, with its capital at Tbilisi. It emerged in the process of a tripartite division of the Kingdom of Georgia in 1478 and existed, with several brief intervals, until 1762 when Kartli and the neighbouring Georgian kingdom of Kakheti were merged through dynastic succession under the Kakhetian branch of the Bagrationi dynasty. Through much of this period, the kingdom was a vassal of the successive dynasties of Iran, and to a much shorter period Ottoman Empire, but enjoyed intermittent periods of greater independence, especially after 1747.
Winter Warriors, published in 1997, is a novel by the British fantasy writer David Gemmell. It is the eighth entry in the Drenai series. It is also the second of three stories that feature in the anthology Drenai Tales Volume Three. The story is set several decades after Gemmell's earlier title, Quest for Lost Heroes, and introduces an entirely new set of characters.
Mark Lawrence is an American-British novelist who wrote The Broken Empire trilogy. In 2014, Lawrence won the David Gemmell Legend Award for best novel for Emperor of Thorns. He operates the annual Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off.
The Last Guardian is a 1989 British post-apocalyptic heroic fantasy novel written by bestselling British author David Gemmell.
