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Grimdark
Grimdark is a subgenre of speculative fiction with a tone, style, or setting that is particularly dystopian, amoral, and violent. The term is inspired by the tagline of the tabletop strategy game '' Warhammer 40,000'': "In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war." Definitions Several attempts to define the neologism "grimdark" have been made: * Adam Roberts described it as fiction "where nobody is honourable and Might is Right", and as "the standard way of referring to fantasies that turn their backs on the more uplifting, Pre-Raphaelite visions of idealized medievaliana, and instead stress how nasty, brutish, short and, er, dark life back then 'really' was". But he noted that grimdark has little to do with re-imagining an actual historic reality and more with conveying the sense that our own world is a "cynical, disillusioned, ultraviolent place". *Genevieve Valentine called grimdark a "shorthand for a subgenre of fantasy fiction that claims to trade on the p ...
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Mark Lawrence (author)
Mark Lawrence (born 1966) 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. Biography Mark Lawrence was born in 1966, in the United States. While he was still young, his parents moved to the United Kingdom. Lawrence has a degree in physics and holds a PhD in mathematics. He is married and has four children. Lawrence is the primary carer of his disabled child Celyn, and for this reason he does not travel to promote his books or attend conventions. He works as a novelist and was a research scientist in the field of artificial intelligence. He has held secret level clearance with both US and UK governments. Since 2015, Lawrence has operated the annual Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, a literary contest intended to bring greater visibility to self-published English-language fantasy authors. In 2021 Lawr ...
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Warhammer 40,000
''Warhammer 40,000'' is a miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop. It is the most popular miniature wargame in the world, and is particularly popular in the United Kingdom. The first edition of the rulebook was published in September 1987, and the ninth and current edition was released in July 2020. As in other miniature wargames, players enact battles using miniature models of warriors and fighting vehicles. The playing area is a tabletop model of a battlefield, comprising models of buildings, hills, trees, and other terrain features. Each player takes turns moving their model warriors around the battlefield and fighting their opponent's warriors. These fights are resolved using dice and simple arithmetic. ''Warhammer 40,000'' is set in the distant future, where a stagnant human civilization is beset by hostile aliens and supernatural creatures. The models in the game are a mixture of humans, aliens, and supernatural monsters, wielding futuristic weaponry and supernatural ...
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A Song Of Ice And Fire
''A Song of Ice and Fire'' is a series of epic fantasy novels by the American novelist and screenwriter George R. R. Martin. He began the first volume of the series, '' A Game of Thrones'', in 1991, and it was published in 1996. Martin, who initially envisioned the series as a trilogy, has published five out of a planned seven volumes. The fifth and most recent volume of the series, '' A Dance with Dragons'', was published in 2011, six years after the publication of the preceding book, '' A Feast for Crows''. He is currently writing the sixth novel, '' The Winds of Winter''. A seventh novel, ''A Dream of Spring'', is planned. ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' takes place on the fictional continents Westeros and Essos. The point of view of each chapter in the story is a limited perspective of a range of characters growing from nine in the first novel, to 31 characters by the fifth novel. Three main stories interweave: a dynastic war among several families for control of Westeros, ...
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Speculative Fiction
Speculative fiction is a term that has been used with a variety of (sometimes contradictory) meanings. The broadest interpretation is as a category of fiction encompassing genres with elements that do not exist in reality, recorded history, nature, or the present universe. Such fiction covers various themes in the context of supernatural, futuristic, and other imaginative realms. The genres under this umbrella category include, but are not limited to, science fiction, fantasy, horror, superhero fiction, alternate history, utopian and dystopian fiction, and supernatural fiction, as well as combinations thereof (for example, science fantasy). History Speculative fiction as a category ranges from ancient works to paradigm-changing and neotraditional works of the 21st century. Characteristics of speculative fiction have been recognized in older works whose authors' intentions, or in the social contexts of the stories they portray, are now known. For example, the ancient Greek ...
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Nihilism
Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan Turgenev, and more specifically by his character Bazarov in the novel '' Fathers and Sons''. There have been different nihilist positions, including that human values are baseless, that life is meaningless, that knowledge is impossible, or that some set of entities do not exist or are meaningless or pointless. Pratt, Alan.Nihilism" ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy''. . Scholars of nihilism may regard it as merely a label that has been applied to various separate philosophies, or as a distinct historical concept arising out of nominalism, skepticism, and philosophical pessimism, as well as possibly out of Christianity itself. Contemporary understanding of the idea stems largely from the Nietzschean 'crisis of nihilism', from w ...
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Breaking Bad
''Breaking Bad'' is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. Set and filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the series follows Walter White (Bryan Cranston), an underpaid, overqualified, and dispirited high-school chemistry teacher who is struggling with a recent diagnosis of stage-three lung cancer. White turns to a life of crime and partners with a former student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), to produce and distribute methamphetamine to secure his family's financial future before he dies, while navigating the dangers of the criminal underworld. The show aired on AMC from January 20, 2008, to September 29, 2013, consisting of five seasons for a total of 62 episodes. Among the show's co-stars are Anna Gunn and RJ Mitte as Walter's wife Skyler and son Walter Jr., and Betsy Brandt and Dean Norris as Skyler's sister Marie Schrader and her husband Hank, a DEA agent. Others include Bob Odenkirk as Walter's and Jesse's lawyer Saul G ...
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Batman
Batman is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in the 27th issue of the comic book ''Detective Comics'' on March 30, 1939. In the DC Universe continuity, Batman is the alias of Bruce Wayne, a wealthy American playboy, philanthropist, and industrialist who resides in Gotham City. Batman's origin story features him swearing vengeance against criminals after witnessing the murder of his parents Thomas and Martha as a child, a vendetta tempered with the ideal of justice. He trains himself physically and intellectually, crafts a bat-inspired persona, and monitors the Gotham streets at night. Kane, Finger, and other creators accompanied Batman with supporting characters, including his sidekicks Robin and Batgirl; allies Alfred Pennyworth, James Gordon, and Catwoman; and foes such as the Penguin, the Riddler, Two-Face, and his archenemy the Joker. Kane conceiv ...
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Paul Kearney
Paul Kearney (born 1967) is a Northern Irish fantasy author. He is noted for his work in the epic fantasy subgenre and his work has been compared to that of David Gemmell. Life Kearney was born in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, in 1967. He studied Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, and Old Norse at Oxford University before spending several years in both the United States and Denmark before returning to Northern Ireland. He currently lives and writes in County Down. Writings Kearney made his name with the stand-alone novels ''The Way to Babylon'' (1992), ''A Different Kingdom'' (1993) and ''Riding the Unicorn'' (1994). All these novels had some common threads, most notably the use of a hero from our world who journeys into a fantastical one. Despite strong reviews, these books had commercially disappointing sales, and Kearney was asked to consider a more traditional fantasy epic. The outcome was the '' Monarchies of God'', which brought him a measure of success, and ran to five volum ...
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Steven Erikson
Steve Rune Lundin (born October 7, 1959), known by his pseudonym Steven Erikson, is a Canadian novelist who was educated and trained as both an archaeologist and anthropologist. He is best known for his ten-volume spanning epic fantasy series ''Malazan Book of the Fallen'', which began with the publication of ''Gardens of the Moon'' (1999) and was completed with the publication of '' The Crippled God'' (2011). By 2012 over 1 million copies of the series had been sold worldwide, and over 3 million copies by 2018. ''SF Site'' has called the series "the most significant work of epic fantasy since Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant," and ''Fantasy Book Review'' described it as "the best fantasy series of recent times." Fellow author Glen Cook has called the series a masterwork, while Stephen R. Donaldson has praised him for his approach to the fantasy genre. Set in the Malazan world, Erikson has written a prequel trilogy, '' The Kharkanas Trilogy'', seven novellas, a short ...
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Richard K
Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'strong in rule'. Nicknames include "Richie", "Dick", "Dickon", " Dickie", " Rich", "Rick", " Rico", " Ricky", and more. Richard is a common English, German and French male name. It's also used in many more languages, particularly Germanic, such as Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Dutch, as well as other languages including Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Finnish. Richard is cognate with variants of the name in other European languages, such as the Swedish "Rickard", the Catalan "Ricard" and the Italian "Riccardo", among others (see comprehensive variant list below). People named Richard Multiple people with the same name * Richard Andersen (other) * Richard Anderson (other) * Richard Cartwright (other) ...
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Joe Abercrombie
Joseph Edward Abercrombie (born December 31, 1974) is a British fantasy writer and film editor. He is the author of '' The First Law'' trilogy, as well as other fantasy books in the same setting and a trilogy of young adult novels. His novel '' Half a King'' won the 2015 Locus Award for best young adult book. Life and education Abercrombie was born in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. He was educated at Lancaster Royal Grammar School and Manchester University, where he studied psychology. He has a wife, Lou. Abercrombie has been an avid player of video games since his childhood. In an interview with '' Edge'' magazine, Abercrombie stated that video games have been a big influence on his writing, including early interest in text-based adventure games and historically based strategy games such as ''Civilization'' and ''Age of Empires''. Other favorite games of Abercrombie's include '' Elite'', '' Dungeon Master'', '' Street Fighter II'', and ''Red Dead Redemption''. Career ...
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Glen Cook
Glen Charles Cook (born July 9, 1944) is an American writer of fantasy and science fiction, known for ''The Black Company'' and '' Garrett P.I.'' fantasy series. Biography Cook was born in New York City."Glen Cook – Summary Bibliography"
. Retrieved August 2, 2014.
Cook served in the United States Navy from 1962 to 1972 and specifically was attached, for a time, to a Marine Force Recon unit, the 3rd Marine Battalion. During his time attached to the Force Recon Unit, Cook participated in what he called "practice combat", and left active duty, "a month before he unitshipped out to Viet Nam". He later worked his way through college. C ...
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