|
Northern Lights (Pullman Novel)
''Northern Lights'' (titled ''The Golden Compass'' in North America and some other countries) is a young-adult fantasy novel by Philip Pullman, published in 1995 by Scholastic UK. Set in a parallel universe, it follows the journey of Lyra Belacqua to the Arctic in search of her missing friend, Roger Parslow, and her imprisoned uncle, Lord Asriel, who has been conducting experiments with a mysterious substance known as "Dust". ''Northern Lights'' is the first book of the trilogy, ''His Dark Materials'' (1995 to 2000). Alfred A. Knopf published the first US edition April 1996, under the name ''The Golden Compass'', under which title it was adapted as a 2007 feature film and as a companion video game. The book has also been adapted as a TV series in 2019 under the name ''His Dark Materials''. Pullman won the 1995 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's outstanding British children's book. For the 70th anniversary of the Medal, it was named one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Pullman
Sir Philip Nicholas Outram Pullman (born 19 October 1946) is an English writer. His books include the fantasy trilogy '' His Dark Materials'' and ''The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ'', a fictionalised biography of Jesus. In 2008, ''The Times'' named Pullman one of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945". In a 2004 BBC poll, he was named the eleventh most influential person in British culture. He was knighted in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to literature. ''Northern Lights'', the first volume in ''His Dark Materials'', won the 1995 Carnegie Medal of the Library Association as the year's outstanding English-language children's book.(Carnegie Winner 1995) . Living Archive: Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carnegie Medal (literary Award)
The Carnegie Medal is a British literary award that annually recognises one outstanding new English-language book for children or young adults. It is conferred upon the author by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP). CILIP calls it "the UK's oldest and most prestigious book award for children's writing". The Medal is named after the Scottish-born American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919), who founded more than 2,800 libraries in the English-speaking world, including at least one in more than half of British library authorities. It was established in 1936 by the British Library Association, to celebrate the centenary of Carnegie's birth and inaugurated in 1937 with the award to Arthur Ransome for '' Pigeon Post'' (1936) and the identification of two 'commended' books. The first Medal was dated 1936, but since 2007 the Medal has been dated by its year of presentation, which is now one or two years after publication. In 1955, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marisa Coulter
Marisa Coulter (née Delamare) is a fictional character in Philip Pullman's ''His Dark Materials'' trilogy and one of the main antagonists of '' Northern Lights''. She is the former lover of Lord Asriel and is usually called "Mrs Coulter". Description Mrs Coulter is 35 years old in the third novel, ''The Amber Spyglass''. She is described as being "beautiful and young" with "sleek black hair" that "framed her cheeks" and slim, though later accounts of her describe her as having blonde or "golden" hair. Such details of a character's physical appearances are uncommon in ''His Dark Materials''. There is a reference in ''Lyra's Oxford'' to Mrs Coulter having written an academic work called 'The Bronze Clocks of Benin'. In the books, she is portrayed as an elegant and cool-minded sophisticate with social ''savoir faire'', but she is also calculating, power-hungry and ruthless. She has political connections, and is highly placed and trusted in the Church's hierarchy, who give her a l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aurora Borealis
An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of brilliant lights that appear as curtains, rays, spirals, or dynamic flickers covering the entire sky. Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by the solar wind. Major disturbances result from enhancements in the speed of the solar wind from coronal holes and coronal mass ejections. These disturbances alter the trajectories of charged particles in the magnetospheric plasma. These particles, mainly electrons and protons, precipitate into the upper atmosphere ( thermosphere/exosphere). The resulting ionization and excitation of atmospheric constituents emit light of varying colour and complexity. The form of the aurora, occurring within bands around both polar regions, is also dependent on the amount of accelera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elementary Particle
In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a subatomic particle that is not composed of other particles. Particles currently thought to be elementary include electrons, the fundamental fermions (quarks, leptons, antiquarks, and antileptons, which generally are matter particles and antimatter particles), as well as the fundamental bosons ( gauge bosons and the Higgs boson), which generally are force particles that mediate interactions among fermions. A particle containing two or more elementary particles is a composite particle. Ordinary matter is composed of atoms, once presumed to be elementary particles – ''atomos'' meaning "unable to be cut" in Greek – although the atom's existence remained controversial until about 1905, as some leading physicists regarded molecules as mathematical illusions, and matter as ultimately composed of energy. Subatomic constituents of the atom were first identified in the early 1930s; the electron and the proton ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Master (college)
A master (more generically called a head of house or head of college) is the head or senior member of a college within a collegiate university, principally in the United Kingdom. The actual title of the head of a college varies widely between institutions. The role of master varies significantly between colleges of the same university, and even more so between different universities. However, the master will often have responsibility for leading the governing body of the college, often acting as a chair of various college committees; for executing the decisions of the governing body through the college's organisational structure, acting as a chief executive; and for representing the college externally, both within the government of the university and further afield often in aid of fund-raising for the college. The nature of the role varies in importance depending on the nature of the collegiate university. At loosely federated universities such as the University of London, ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jordan College, Oxford
This article covers the fictional locations in the ''His Dark Materials'' trilogy and related works by Philip Pullman. Locations Jordan College Jordan College is a fictional college. It exists in Oxford in a universe parallel to our own and is the home of the trilogy's young heroine, Lyra Belacqua. The location and layout of Jordan College is analogous to the location of Exeter College, Oxford, Exeter College, Philip Pullman's alma mater, at the University of Oxford. However, unlike the fictional college, Exeter College is not the oldest ''(it is the fourth-oldest)'', nor is it the largest or richest college at Oxford. Jordan College is an exaggerated version of the real Exeter College, rambling above and below ground in a motley arrangement of buildings, cellars and tunnels constructed over several centuries: :''What was above ground was only a small fraction of the whole. Like some enormous fungus whose root-system extended over acres, Jordan (finding itself jostling for spa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dæmon (His Dark Materials)
A dæmon () is a type of fictional being in the Philip Pullman fantasy trilogy ''His Dark Materials''. Dæmons are the external physical manifestation of a person's "inner-self" that takes the form of an animal. Dæmons have human intelligence, are capable of human speech—regardless of the form they take—and usually behave as though they are independent of their humans. Pre-pubescent children's dæmons can change form voluntarily, almost instantaneously, to become any creature, real or imaginary. During their adolescence a person's dæmon undergoes "settling", an event in which that person's dæmon permanently and involuntarily assumes the form of the animal which the person most resembles in character. Dæmons are usually of the opposite sex to their human, though same-sex dæmons do exist. Although dæmons mimic the appearance and behaviour of the animals they resemble perfectly, dæmons are not true animals, and humans, other dæmons, and true animals are able to disting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sentience
Sentience is the capacity to experience feelings and sensations. The word was first coined by philosophers in the 1630s for the concept of an ability to feel, derived from Latin '' sentientem'' (a feeling), to distinguish it from the ability to think (''reason''). In modern Western philosophy, sentience is the ability to experience sensations. In different Asian religions, the word 'sentience' has been used to translate a variety of concepts. In science fiction, the word "sentience" is sometimes used interchangeably with " sapience", " self-awareness", or "consciousness". Some writers differentiate between the mere ability to perceive sensations, such as light or pain, and the ability to perceive emotions, such as fear or grief. The subjective awareness of experiences by a conscious individual are known as qualia in Western philosophy. Philosophy and sentience In philosophy, different authors draw different distinctions between ''consciousness'' and sentience. According to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heresy
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religious law, religious teachings, but is also used of views strongly opposed to any generally accepted ideas. A heretic is a proponent of heresy. The term is used particularly in reference to Heresy in Christianity, Christianity, Heresy in Judaism, Judaism, and Bid‘ah, Islam. In certain historical Christian, Muslim, and Jewish cultures, among others, espousing ideas deemed heretical has been (and in some cases still is) met with censure ranging from excommunication to the death penalty. Heresy is distinct from apostasy, which is the explicit renunciation of one's religion, principles or cause; and from blasphemy, which is an impious utterance or action concerning God or sacred things. Heresiology is the study of heresy. Etymology Derived f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theocracy
Theocracy is a form of government in which one or more deities are recognized as supreme ruling authorities, giving divine guidance to human intermediaries who manage the government's daily affairs. Etymology The word theocracy originates from the el, θεοκρατία () meaning "the rule of God". This, in turn, derives from θεός (theos), meaning "god", and κρατέω (''krateo''), meaning "to rule". Thus the meaning of the word in Greek was "rule by god(s)" or human incarnation(s) of god(s). The term was initially coined by Flavius Josephus in the first century AD to describe the characteristic government of the Jews. Josephus argued that while mankind had developed many forms of rule, most could be subsumed under the following three types: monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy. However, according to Josephus, the government of the Jews was unique. Josephus offered the term "theocracy" to describe this polity in which God was sovereign and His word was law. Joseph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parallel Universes In Fiction
A parallel universe, also known as a parallel dimension, alternate universe, or alternate reality, is a hypothetical self-contained plane of existence, co-existing with one's own. The sum of all potential parallel universes that constitute reality is often called a " multiverse". While the four terms are generally synonymous and can be used interchangeably in most cases, there is sometimes an additional connotation implied with the term "alternate universe/reality" that implies that the reality is a variant of our own, with some overlap with the similarly named alternate history. Fiction has long borrowed an idea of "another world" from myth, legend and religion. Heaven, Hell, Olympus, and Valhalla are all "alternative universes" different from the familiar material realm. Plato reflected deeply on the parallel realities, resulting in Platonism, in which the upper reality is perfect while the lower earthly reality is an imperfect shadow of the heavenly. The concept is also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
