Sword and sorcery (S&S) is a subgenre of fantasy characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent adventures. Elements of romance, magic, and the supernatural are also often present. Unlike works of high fantasy, the tales, though dramatic, focus on personal battles rather than world-endangering matters. Sword and sorcery commonly overlaps with heroic fantasy.
Gwydion fab Dôn is a magician, hero and trickster of Welsh mythology, appearing most prominently in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, which focuses largely on his relationship with his young nephew, Lleu Llaw Gyffes. He also appears prominently in the Welsh Triads, the Book of Taliesin and the Stanzas of the Graves.
Elfquest is a comic book property created by Wendy and Richard Pini in 1978. It is a fantasy story about a community of elves and other fictional species who struggle to survive and coexist on a primitive Earth-like planet with two moons. Several published volumes of prose fiction also share the same setting. Elfquest was one of the first comic book series to have a planned conclusion. Over the years Elfquest has been self-published by the Pinis through their own company Warp Graphics, then Marvel Comics, then the Pinis again, more recently DC Comics and then Dark Horse Comics. All issues of Elfquest published prior to 2014 are available online for free.
Kim James Newman is an English journalist, film critic and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternative fictional versions of history. He has won the Bram Stoker Award, the International Horror Guild Award, and the BSFA award.
Michael Scot was a mathematician and scholar in the Middle Ages. Born in Scotland or northern England, he was educated at Oxford and Paris, and worked in Bologna and Toledo, where he learned Arabic. His patron was Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire and Scot served as science adviser and court astrologer to him. Scot translated Averroes and was the greatest public intellectual of his day.
Malazan Book of the Fallen is a series of epic fantasy novels written by the Canadian author Steven Erikson. The series, published by Bantam Books in the U.K. and Tor Books in the U.S., consists of ten volumes, beginning with Gardens of the Moon (1999) and concluding with The Crippled God (2011). Erikson's series is extremely complex with a wide scope, and presents the narratives of a large cast of characters spanning thousands of years across multiple continents.
Saga of the Noble Dead written by Barb Hendee and J. C. Hendee is a set of chronological books in series, and chronological series in a saga that tells the story of protagonists drawn together in a struggle against the little-known and little believed-in Noble Dead that herald the return of a long forgotten age in a fantasy world. It begins with an unlikely trio drawn together as charlatans who use their skills to cheat peasants by the common superstitions concerning the undead. Soon enough they find that not all superstitions are completely false; the bits of truth they hold could lead to something far worse that has been long forgotten.
Judith Tarr is an American fantasy and science fiction author.
Caroline Stevermer is an American writer of young adult fantasy novels and shorter works. She is best known for historical fantasy novels.
A hellhound is a mythological hound which embodies a guardian or a servant of hell, the devil, or the underworld. Hellhounds occur in mythologies around the world, with the best known examples being Cerberus from Greek mythology, Garmr from Norse mythology, the black dogs of English folklore, and the fairy hounds of Celtic mythology. Physical characteristics vary, but they are commonly black, anomalously overgrown, supernaturally strong, and often have red eyes or accompanied by flames.
Elements of the supernatural and the fantastic were an element of literature from its beginning. The modern genre is distinguished from tales and folklore which contain fantastic elements, first by the acknowledged fictitious nature of the work, and second by the naming of an author. Works in which the marvels were not necessarily believed, or only half-believed, such as the European romances of chivalry and the tales of the Arabian Nights, slowly evolved into works with such traits. Authors like George MacDonald created the first explicitly fantastic works.
The Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game is a game produced by Palladium Books. It is set in the Palladium world some 10,000 years after a great war between the elves and dwarves. First published in July 1983 as The Palladium Role-Playing Game, the Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game saw a second edition in April 1996. The two are largely compatible, though the second edition uses a later iteration of Palladium's ruleset to be more compatible with the rest of their Megaverse.
Occult detective fiction is a subgenre of detective fiction that combines the tropes of the main genre with those of supernatural, fantasy and/or horror fiction. Unlike the traditional detective who investigates murder and other common crimes, the occult detective is employed in cases involving ghosts, demons, curses, magic, vampires, undead, monsters and other supernatural elements. Some occult detectives are portrayed as being psychic or in possession of other paranormal or magical powers.
Lewis Carroll's books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871) have been highly popular in their original forms, and have served as the basis for many subsequent works since they were published. They have been adapted directly into other media, their characters and situations have been appropriated into other works, and these elements have been referenced innumerable times as familiar elements of shared culture. Simple references to the two books are too numerous to list; this list of works based on Alice in Wonderland focuses on works based specifically and substantially on Carroll's two books about the character of Alice.
The Alamut series consists of the two fantasy books Alamut and The Dagger and the Cross by Judith Tarr. The series is set in the same universe as The Hound and the Falcon, which was written first, but the Alamut series describes events which occurred before the events in The Hound and the Falcon.
A series of books by author David Drake. In 1997, Drake began his largest fantasy series, Lord of the Isles, using elements of Sumerian religion and medieval era technology. The series consists of nine books broken into two distinct parts, the Lord of the Isles consisting of the first six books, and a final trilogy dubbed the Crown of the Isles.
God Game is a science fiction novel by Andrew Greeley. It was published in hardcover by Warner Books in 1986, with a paperback edition by Tor Books following in 1987.
This is a list of elements of Welsh mythology that have appeared in works of literature and in popular culture.
Hounded is the first novel in Kevin Hearne's urban fantasy series, The Iron Druid Chronicles. It was released on May 3, 2011. The sequel, Hexed was released on June 7, 2011.
Toll the Hounds is the eighth novel in Canadian author Steven Erikson's epic fantasy series, the Malazan Book of the Fallen. It was first published on June 30, 2008 in the UK and Canada, and on September 16, 2008 in the USA.
