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Soulless (novel)
''Soulless'' is a steampunk paranormal romance novel by Gail Carriger. First published in the United States on October 1, 2009 by Orbit Books, ''Soulless'' is the first book in the five-novel "The Parasol Protectorate" series, each featuring Alexia Tarabotti, a woman without a soul, as its lead character. A finalist for several literary awards and a recipient of the 2010 Alex Award, ''Soulless'' was declared by ''Publishers Weekly'' to be one of the "Best Books of 2009". A manga adaptation of the first 3 volumes of the novel was published by Yen Press in July 2011. Plot ''Soulless'' is set in an alternate history version of Victorian era Britain where werewolves and vampires are accepted as functioning members of society. Alexia Tarabotti is a woman with several critical problems: she is still searching for a husband, her late Italian father complicates her social standing in a rigid class system, and she has no soul. The fact that she is "soulless" leaves her unaffected by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gail Carriger
Gail Carriger is the pen name of Tofa Borregaard, an author of steampunk fiction and an American archaeologist. She was born in Bolinas, an unincorporated community in Marin County, California, and attended high school at Marin Academy. She received her undergraduate degree from Oberlin College, a masters of science in archaeological materials at England's University of Nottingham in 2000, and a master of arts in anthropology (with a focus on archaeology) at the University of California Santa Cruz in 2008. She is a 2010 recipient of the Alex Awards. Novels Carriger's first novel, '' Soulless'', was published in 2009 by Orbit Books and earned her a nomination for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. The book was a Compton Crook Award nominee, a Locus Award finalist for Best First Novel, and ''Locus'' placed her on their recommended reading list. Her second novel, '' Changeless'', was published in early 2010 and earned her a place on the ''New York Times'' Bests ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Werewolf
In folklore, a werewolf (), or occasionally lycanthrope (; ; uk, Вовкулака, Vovkulaka), is an individual that can shapeshift into a wolf (or, especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature), either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction (often a bite or the occasional scratch from another werewolf) with the transformations occurring on the night of a full moon. Early sources for belief in this ability or affliction, called lycanthropy (), are Petronius (27–66) and Gervase of Tilbury (1150–1228). The werewolf is a widespread concept in European folklore, existing in many variants, which are related by a common development of a Christian interpretation of underlying European folklore developed during the medieval period. From the early modern period, werewolf beliefs also spread to the New World with colonialism. Belief in werewolves developed in parallel to the belief in witches, in the course of the Late Middle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Language
German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also a co-official language of Luxembourg and Belgium, as well as a national language in Namibia. Outside Germany, it is also spoken by German communities in France ( Bas-Rhin), Czech Republic ( North Bohemia), Poland (Upper Silesia), Slovakia ( Bratislava Region), and Hungary (Sopron). German is most similar to other languages within the West Germanic language branch, including Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German, Luxembourgish, Scots, and Yiddish. It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group, such as Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language after English, which is also a West Germanic language. Germ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blanvalet
Blanvalet is a German publishing house, based in Munich, which was founded in 1935 in Berlin and is now part of the Bertelsmann's Random House publishing group. Blanvalet publishes entertainment literature and non-fiction, first in hardcover, and as paperbacks since 1998. The publisher became well known with the novel series " Angélique". More recent authors include Charlotte Link, Marc Elsberg, Karin Slaughter, Diana Gabaldon and George R. R. Martin. History Lothar Blanvalet founded, on 1 April 1935 in Berlin, the "Buchwarte publishing Lothar Blanvalet", which was named after him and its publications included humorous works. The operation was registered as a private company in the commercial register and established in 1937. After the end of World War II, in January 1946, the publisher received the license to continue publishing activity. The program focused on fiction - mainly criminal and adventure novels – as well as art books and graphics. The first titles published ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Language
is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by Japanese people and primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language. Japanese belongs to the Japonic or Japanese- Ryukyuan language family. There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the Ainu, Austroasiatic, Koreanic, and the now-discredited Altaic, but none of these proposals has gained widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), there was a massive influx of Sino-Japanese vocabulary into the language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese. Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords. The basis of the standard dial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bunkobon
In Japan, are small-format paperback books, designed to be affordable and space saving. The great majority of ''bunkobon'' are A6 (105×148mm or 4.1"×5.8") in size. They are sometimes illustrated and like other Japanese paperbacks usually have a dust wrapper over a plain cover. They are used for similar purposes as Western mass market paperbacks: generally for cheaper editions of books which have already been published as hardbacks. However, they are typically printed on durable paper and durably bound, and some works are initially published in ''bunkobon'' format. ''Bunkobon'' take their name from the publisher Iwanami Shoten, which in 1927, launched the Iwanami Bunko (Iwanami Library), a series of international works aimed "to bring the classics of new and old, east and west to the broadest possible audience." The original Iwanami Bunko series is credited for transforming books in Japan into affordable, mass-market commodities. The ''bunkobon'' format began to flouri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Language
French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien) largely supplanted. French was also substratum, influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the (Germanic languages, Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Franks, Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France's French colonial empire, past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole language, Haitian Creole. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is an official language in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spanish Language
Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain. Spanish is the official language of 20 countries. It is the world's second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese; the world's fourth-most spoken language overall after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu); and the world's most widely spoken Romance language. The largest population of native speakers is in Mexico. Spanish is part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. The oldest Latin texts with traces of Spanish come from mid-northern Iberia in the 9th century, and the first systematic written use of the language happened in Toledo, a prominent c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prime Suspect
''Prime Suspect'' is a British police procedural television drama series devised by Lynda La Plante. It stars Helen Mirren as Jane Tennison, one of the first female Detective Chief Inspectors in Greater London's Metropolitan Police Service, who rises to the rank of Detective Superintendent while confronting institutionalised sexism within the police force. Plot ''Prime Suspect'' focuses on a no-nonsense female Detective Chief Inspector (DCI), Jane Tennison (played by Helen Mirren), who is an officer in the Metropolitan Police, initially at the fictional Southampton Row police station. The series follows her constant battles to prove herself within a male-dominated profession in which many of her colleagues are determined to see her fail, though she has the support of her boss, Detective Chief Superintendent Mike Kernan (John Benfield), and the loyalty of Detective Sergeant Richard Haskons (Richard Hawley). In later series, Tennison is reassigned to rotating duties, including ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Upper Class
Upper class in modern societies is the social class composed of people who hold the highest social status, usually are the wealthiest members of class society, and wield the greatest political power. According to this view, the upper class is generally distinguished by immense wealth which is passed on from generation to generation. Prior to the 20th century, the emphasis was on ''aristocracy'', which emphasized generations of inherited noble status, not just recent wealth. Because the upper classes of a society may no longer rule the society in which they are living, they are often referred to as the old upper classes, and they are often culturally distinct from the newly rich middle classes that tend to dominate public life in modern social democracies. According to the latter view held by the traditional upper classes, no amount of individual wealth or fame would make a person from an undistinguished background into a member of the upper class as one must be born into a famil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victoria Of The United Kingdom
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previous British monarch and is known as the Victorian era. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, the British Parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India. Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the fourth son of King George III), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After the deaths of her father and grandfather in 1820, she was raised under close supervision by her mother and her comptroller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her father's three elder brothers died without surviving legitimate issue. Victoria, a constitutiona ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supernatural
Supernatural refers to phenomena or entities that are beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin (above, beyond, or outside of) + (nature) Though the corollary term "nature", has had multiple meanings since the ancient world, the term "supernatural" emerged in the Middle Ages and did not exist in the ancient world. The supernatural is featured in folklore and religious contexts, but can also feature as an explanation in more secular contexts, as in the cases of superstitions or belief in the paranormal. The term is attributed to non-physical entities, such as angels, demons, gods, and spirits. It also includes claimed abilities embodied in or provided by such beings, including magic, telekinesis, levitation, precognition, and extrasensory perception. The philosophy of naturalism contends that nothing exists beyond the natural world, and as such approaches supernatural claims with skepticism. Etymology and history of the conc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
