A Wizard of Earthsea is a fantasy novel written by American author Ursula K. Le Guin and first published by the small press Parnassus in 1968. It is regarded as a classic of children's literature and of fantasy, within which it is widely influential. The story is set in the fictional archipelago of Earthsea and centers on a young mage named Ged, born in a village on the island of Gont. He displays great power while still a boy and joins a school of wizardry, where his prickly nature drives him into conflict with a fellow student. During a magical duel, Ged's spell goes awry and releases a shadow creature that attacks him. The novel follows Ged's journey as he seeks to be free of the creature.
Inanna is an ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, and fertility. She is also associated with beauty, sex, divine justice, and political power. She was originally worshiped in Sumer under the name "Inanna", and later by the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians under the name "Ishtar". She was known as the "Queen of Heaven" and was the patron goddess of the Eanna temple at the city of Uruk, which was her main cult center. She was associated with the planet Venus and her most prominent symbols included the lion and the eight-pointed star. Her husband was the god Dumuzid and her sukkal, or personal attendant, was the goddess Ninshubur.
Nergal was a Mesopotamian god worshiped through all periods of Mesopotamian history, from Early Dynastic to Neo-Babylonian times, with a few attestations under indicating his cult survived into the period of Achaemenid domination. He was primarily associated with war, death, and disease and has been described as the "god of inflicted death." He reigned over Kur, the Mesopotamian underworld, depending on the myth either on behalf of his parents Enlil and Ninlil, or in later periods as a result of his marriage with the goddess Ereshkigal. Originally either Mammitum, a goddess possibly connected to frost, or Laṣ, sometimes assumed to be a minor medicine goddess, were regarded as his wife, though other traditions existed, too.
Nanna, Sīn or Suen, and in Aramaic syn, syn’, or even shr 'moon', or Nannar was the god of the moon in the Mesopotamian religions of Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylonia and Aram. He was also associated with cattle, perhaps due to the perceived similarity between bull horns and the crescent moon. He was always described as a major deity, though only a few sources, mostly these from the reign of Nabonidus, consider him to be the head of the Mesopotamian pantheon.
Magic realism is a style of literary fiction and art. It paints a realistic view of the world while also adding magical elements, often blurring the lines between fantasy and reality. Magic realism often refers to literature in particular, with magical or supernatural phenomena presented in an otherwise real-world or mundane setting, commonly found in novels and dramatic performances. Despite including certain magic elements, it is generally considered to be a different genre from fantasy because magical realism uses a substantial amount of realistic detail and employs magical elements to make a point about reality, while fantasy stories are often separated from reality. Magical realism is often seen as an amalgamation of real and magical elements that produces a more inclusive writing form than either literary realism or fantasy.
The Eternal Champion is a fictional character created by British author Michael Moorcock and is a recurrent feature in many of his speculative fiction works.
Elminster Aumar is a fictional character appearing in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. He is also known as the Sage of Shadowdale, and is depicted as a powerful wizard featured in several novels by Forgotten Realms creator Ed Greenwood. Certain aspects of his appearance and demeanor seem to echo Gandalf, Merlin, or Odin.
Hiroshi Aramata is a Japanese author, polymath, critic, translator and specialist in natural history, iconography and cartography. His most popular novel was Teito Monogatari, which has sold over 5 million copies in Japan alone.
Timewyrm: Genesys is an original Doctor Who novel, published by Virgin Publishing in their New Adventures range of Doctor Who novels. It was the first book in that series, and was thought of by some fans as a continuation of the television series; in effect, a Season 27 to follow the televised Season 26.
A manbo is a priestess in the Haitian Vodou religion. Haitian Vodou's conceptions of priesthood stem from the religious traditions of enslaved people from Dahomey, in what is today Benin. For instance, the term manbo derives from the Fon word nanbo. Like their West African counterparts, Haitian manbos are female leaders in Vodou temples who perform healing work and guide others during complex rituals. This form of female leadership is prevalent in urban centers such as Port-au-Prince. Typically, there is no hierarchy among manbos and oungans. These priestesses and priests serve as the heads of autonomous religious groups and exert their authority over the devotees or spiritual servants in their hounfo (temples).
The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate is a historical novel by American writer L. Sprague de Camp, first published in hardcover by Doubleday in 1961, and in paperback by Lancer Books in 1968. The first trade paperback edition was issued by The Donning Company in 1982. The book was reissued with a new introduction by Harry Turtledove as a trade paperback and ebook by Phoenix Pick in September 2013. It is the third of de Camp's historical novels in order of writing, and earliest chronologically. It is set in 466-465 BCE, the last years of the reign of King Xerxes I of Persia.
Hadon of Ancient Opar is a fantasy novel by American writer Philip José Farmer, first published in paperback by DAW Books in April 1974, and reprinted three times through 1983. The first British edition was published by Magnum in 1977; it was reprinted by Methuen in 1993. The first trade paperback edition was published by Titan Books in 2013. The work has also been translated into French. It was later gathered together with its sequels Flight to Opar and The Song of Kwasin into the omnibus collection Gods of Opar: Tales of Lost Khokarsa (2012). It and its sequels purport to fill in some of the ancient prehistory of the lost city of Opar, created by Edgar Rice Burroughs as a setting for his Tarzan series.
The Church of Aphrodite was a religious group founded in 1939 by Gleb Botkin (1900–1969), a Russian émigré to the United States. Monotheistic in structure, the Church believes in a singular female goddess, who is named after the ancient Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite.
Šauška (Shaushka), also called Šauša or Šawuška, was the highest ranked goddess in the Hurrian pantheon, associated with love and war, as well as with incantations and by extension with healing. While she was usually referred to as a goddess and with feminine titles, such as allai, references to masculine Shaushka are also known. The Hurrians associated her with Nineveh, but she was also worshiped in many other centers associated with this culture, from Anatolian cities in Kizzuwatna, through Alalakh and Ugarit in Syria, to Nuzi and Ulamme in northeastern Mesopotamia. She was also worshiped in southern Mesopotamia, where she was introduced alongside a number of other foreign deities in the Ur III period. In this area, she came to be associated with Ishtar. At a later point in time, growing Hurrian influence on Hittite culture resulted in the adoption of Shaushka into the Hittite state pantheon.
The Sorcerer's Ship is a fantasy novel by Hannes Bok. It was first published in the December 1942 issue of the magazine Unknown, and was first published in book form in paperback by Ballantine Books as the ninth volume of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in December 1969. The Ballantine edition includes an introduction by Lin Carter. The novel has also been published in translation in Polish and Russian. Like much of Bok's fiction, it is the story of a traveler "from our world who found [himself] in colourful, magic lands that are far more attractive than our own".
The Island of Eternal Love is a 2006 novel by Cuban author Daína Chaviano.
Sumerian religion was the religion practiced by the people of Sumer, the first literate civilization of ancient Mesopotamia. The Sumerians regarded their divinities as responsible for all matters pertaining to the natural and social orders.
Erekosë is a heroic warrior in different fantasy adventure stories by English writer Michael Moorcock. The character repeatedly assumes different forms and identities during adventures across Moorcock's multiverse. He first appeared in the 1962 novella The Eternal Champion, which was later expanded into a novel of the same title in 1970. The book became the first of the Erekosë book series, which includes the novels Phoenix in Obsidian and The Dragon in the Sword. The Erekosë canon The Swords of Heaven, the Flowers of Hell, is a graphic novel plotted by Moorcock that was scripted and illustrated by Howard Chaykin. In Moorcock's novels The Vanishing Tower and The King of the Swords, Erekosë is described as a man with "jet black skin", often wearing a bear-skin cloak.
Annunitum or Anunītu was a Mesopotamian goddess of war. While initially she functioned as an epithet of Ishtar, she started to develop into a separate deity in the final years of the Sargonic period and through the Ur III period.
