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Pavane (novel)
''Pavane'' is an alternative history science fiction fix-up novel by British writer Keith Roberts, first published by Rupert Hart-Davis, Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd in 1968. Most of the original stories were published in Science Fantasy (magazine), ''Impulse''. An additional story, "The White Boat", was added in later editions. Comprising a cycle of linked stories set in Dorset, England, it depicts a 20th century in which the Catholic Church still has supremacy; in its timeline, Protestantism was destroyed during wars that resulted from the aftermath of the assassination of Elizabeth I of England, Queen Elizabeth in 1588. Overview The novel posits a history in which Queen Elizabeth I was assassinated just as the Spanish Armada was on its way. Protestant mobs attacked English Catholics who fought back in self-defense. With England engulfed in civil war, the Armada landed unopposed, the Spanish occupied England, suppressed Protestantism and imposed Roman Catholicism as the one and onl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fix-up
A fix-up (or fixup) is a novel created from several short fiction stories that may or may not have been initially related or previously published. The stories may be edited for consistency, and sometimes new connecting material, such as a frame story or other interstitial narration, is written for the new work. The term was coined by the science fiction writer A. E. van Vogt, who published several fix-ups of his own, including ''The Voyage of the Space Beagle'', but the practice (if not the term) also exists outside of science fiction. The use of the term in science fiction criticism was popularised by the first (1979) edition of ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'', edited by Peter Nicholls (writer), Peter Nicholls, which credited van Vogt with the term’s creation. The name “fix-up” comes from the changes that the author needs to make in the original texts, to make them fit together as though they were a novel. Foreshadowing of events from the later stories may be ja ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keith Roberts
Keith John Kingston Roberts (20 September 1935 – 5 October 2000) was an English science fiction author. He began publishing with two stories in the September 1964 issue of ''Science Fantasy'' magazine, "Anita" (the first of a series of stories featuring a teenage modern witch and her eccentric granny) and "Escapism". Several of his early stories were written using the pseudonyms Alistair Bevan and David Stringer. His second novel ''Pavane'', first published in 1968, which is a collection of linked stories, may be his most famous work: an alternate history novel in which the Catholic Church takes control of England following the assassination of Queen Elizabeth I.Cox, F. Brett. "Keith Roberts". ''British fantasy and science-fiction writers since 1960''. 261 (2002): 336. Roberts wrote numerous novels and short stories and worked as an illustrator. His artistic contributions include covers and interior artwork for '' New Worlds'' and ''Science Fantasy'', later renamed ''Impul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dutch Republic
The United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands and the first independent Dutch people, Dutch nation state. The republic was established after seven Dutch provinces in the Spanish Netherlands Dutch Revolt, revolted against Spanish Empire, Spanish rule, forming a mutual alliance against Spain in 1579 (the Union of Utrecht) and declaring their independence in 1581 (the Act of Abjuration). The seven provinces it comprised were Lordship of Groningen, Groningen (present-day Groningen (province), Groningen), Lordship of Frisia, Frisia (present-day Friesland), Lordship of Overijssel, Overijssel (present-day Overijssel), Duchy of Guelders, Guelders (present-day Gelderland), lordship of Utrecht, Utrecht (present-day Utrecht (province), Utrecht), county of Holland, Holland (present-day North Holla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Hardy's Wessex
Thomas Hardy's Wessex is the fictional literary landscape created by the English author Thomas Hardy as the setting for his major novels, located in the south and South West England, southwest of England. Hardy named the area "Wessex" after Wessex, the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom that existed in this part of that country prior to the unification of England by Æthelstan. Although the places that appear in his novels actually exist, in many cases he gave the place a fictional name. For example, Hardy's home town of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester is called Casterbridge in his books, notably in ''The Mayor of Casterbridge''. In an 1895 preface to the 1874 novel ''Far from the Madding Crowd'' he described Wessex as "a merely realistic dream country". The actual definition of "Hardy's Wessex" varied widely throughout Hardy's career, and was not definitively settled until after he retired from writing novels. When he created the concept of a fictional Wessex, it consisted merely of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semaphore Telegraph
Semaphore (; ) is the use of an apparatus to create a visual signal transmitted over distance. A semaphore can be performed with devices including: fire, lights, flags, sunlight, and moving arms. Semaphores can be used for telegraphy when arranged in visually connected networks, or for traffic signalling such as in railway systems, or traffic lights in cities. Fire The Phryctoriae were a semaphore system used in Ancient Greece for the transmission of specific prearranged messages. Towers were built on selected mountaintops, so that one tower, the ''phryctoria'', would be visible to the next tower, usually distant. Flames were lit on one tower, then the next tower would light a flame in succession. The Byzantine beacon system was a semaphore developed in the 9th century during the Arab–Byzantine wars. The Byzantine Empire used a system of beacons to transmit messages from the border with the Abbasid Caliphate across Asia Minor to the Byzantine capital, Constantinople ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Traction Engine
A traction engine is a steam engine, steam-powered tractor used to move heavy loads on roads, plough ground or to provide power at a chosen location. The name derives from the Latin ''tractus'', meaning 'drawn', since the prime function of any traction engine is to draw a load behind it. They are sometimes called road locomotives to distinguish them from railway steam locomotive, locomotives – that is, steam engines that run on rails. Traction engines tend to be large, robust and powerful, but also heavy, slow, and difficult to manoeuvre. Nevertheless, they revolutionized agriculture and road haulage at a time when the only alternative Prime mover (tractor unit), prime mover was the draught horse. They became popular in industrialised countries from around 1850, when the first self-propelled portable steam engines for agricultural use were developed. Production continued well into the early part of the 20th century, when competition from internal combustion engine-powered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Feudal
Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour. The classic definition, by François Louis Ganshof (1944),François Louis Ganshof (1944). ''Qu'est-ce que la féodalité''. Translated into English by Philip Grierson as ''Feudalism'', with a foreword by F. M. Stenton, 1st ed.: New York and London, 1952; 2nd ed: 1961; 3rd ed.: 1976. describes a set of reciprocal legal and Medieval warfare, military obligations of the warrior nobility and revolved around the key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs. A broader definition, as described by Marc Bloch (1939), includes not only the obligations of the warrior nobility but the obligations of all three estates of the realm: the nobility, the cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Union Jack
The Union Jack or Union Flag is the ''de facto'' national flag of the United Kingdom. The Union Jack was also used as the official flag of several British colonies and dominions before they adopted their own national flags. It is sometimes asserted that the term ''Union Jack'' properly refers only to naval usage, but this assertion was dismissed by the Flag Institute in 2013 after historical investigations. The origins of the earlier flag of Great Britain date from 1606. James VI and I, King James VI of Scotland had inherited the English and Irish thrones in 1603 as James I, thereby Union of the Crowns, uniting the crowns of Kingdom of England, England, Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland, and Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland in a personal union, although Scotland and England remained separate states until the Treaty of Union took effect in 1707. On 12 April 1606, a new flag to represent the regal union between these two nations was specified in a royal decree, according to which the fla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chair Of Saint Peter
The Chair of Saint Peter (), also known as the Throne of Saint Peter, is a relic conserved in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the sovereign enclave of the Pope inside Rome, Italy. The relic is a wooden throne that tradition claims belonged to the Apostle Saint Peter, the leader of the Early Christians in Rome and first Pope, and which he used as Bishop of Rome. The relic is enclosed in a sculpted gilt bronze casing designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and constructed between 1647 and 1653. In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI described the chair as "a symbol of the special mission of Peter and his Successors to tend Christ's flock, keeping it united in faith and in charity." The wooden throne was a gift from Emperor of the Romans Charles the Bald to Pope John VIII in 875. It has been studied many times over the years, most recently between 1968 and 1974. The study concluded that it was not a double, but a single chair, with a covering, and that the oldest parts are from the 6th century ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cobalt Blue
Cobalt blue is a blue pigment made by sintering cobalt(II) oxide with aluminium(III) oxide (alumina) at 1200 °C. Chemically, cobalt blue pigment is cobalt(II) oxide-aluminium oxide, or cobalt(II) aluminate, CoAl2O4. Cobalt blue is lighter and less intense than the (iron-cyanide based) pigment Prussian blue. It is extremely stable, and has historically been used as a coloring agent in ceramics (especially Chinese porcelain), jewelry, and paint. Transparent glasses are tinted with the silica-based cobalt pigment "smalt". Historical uses and production Ores containing cobalt have been used since antiquity as pigments to give a blue color to porcelain and glass. Cobalt blue in impure forms had long been used in Chinese porcelain. In 1742, Swedish chemist Georg Brandt showed that the blue color was due to a previously unidentified metal, cobalt. The first recorded use of ''cobalt blue'' as a color name in English was in 1777. It was independently discovered as an alumina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Cook
Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 1768 and 1779. He completed the first recorded circumnavigation of the main islands of New Zealand and was the first known European to visit the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands. Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager before enlisting in the Royal Navy in 1755. He served during the Seven Years' War, and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the St. Lawrence River during the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, siege of Quebec. In the 1760s, he mapped the coastline of Newfoundland (island), Newfoundland and made important astronomical observations which brought him to the attention of the Admiralty (United Kingdom), Admiralty and the Royal Society. This acclaim came at a crucial moment in Brit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australasia
Australasia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising Australia, New Zealand (overlapping with Polynesia), and sometimes including New Guinea and surrounding islands (overlapping with Melanesia). The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologically, where the term covers several slightly different but related regions. Derivation and definitions Charles de Brosses coined the term (as French ''Australasie'') in ''Histoire des navigations aux terres australes'' (1756). He derived it from the Latin for "south of Asia" and differentiated the area from Polynesia (to the east) and the southeast Pacific ( Magellanica). In the late 19th century, the term Australasia was used in reference to the "Australasian colonies". In this sense it related specifically to the British colonies south of Asia: New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia, Victoria (i.e., the Australian colon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
