Epics, Sagas, Fantasies, Mythos, Legends, Nations.

[HoneyBadger]

Lingchih: Are you familiar with Project Gutenburg?

http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/d#a2685

It's an amazing resource.

That's where I found The Gods of Pegana, as well as quite a few other writings of his.

[Lingchih]

Oh my. I had forgotten about Project Gutenberg. There they all are. And I had been about to spend over $100 buying them online.

Thanks Honeybadger!

(alhtough I am still glad I bought a copy of the King of Elfland's Daughter... the cover is beautiful, and I much prefer reading from a book than reading onscreen). And it appears that it is not available on the Gutenberg site anyway.

[Omnirizon]

JimMorrison said:
Hahaha, I love it!

There needs to be a Xenu pretender too. 8 )

that's perfect. perhaps a Tom Cruise rainbow mage one too.

[HoneyBadger]

Lingchih: You're allowed to do whatever you like with the free Gutenberg ebooks, even publish them for sale, so feel free to print them out if you want Although I'd personally prefer you do so on recycled paper, or best quality rag paper for that matter, treehugger that I am.

Should I ever retire with enough money to do so, I might decide, as a part time business, to publish some handmade Gutenberg editions for sale.

I'm currently reading the Worm Ouroboris, which is another classic. It's not on Gutenberg, but it can be found here:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/ring/two/index.htm

I have no idea how "free" it is, though, so you may want to research the site before you print out a copy.

Here's the complete works of H.P. Lovecraft on a different site: Again, I've no idea of it's copyright availability, but his work is generally considered to be in the Public Domain. It also includes links to works by Poe and others, as well as the complete texts of Dracula and Frankenstein, the Picture of Dorian Gray, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and the Phantom of the Opera.

http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/

And, just to round it out, here's a link to the Baen free library, which contains numerous more modern fantasy and sci-fi titles.

http://www.baen.com/library/

I wasn't able to locate a copy of the King of Elfland's Daughter online.

Here's a book by William Morris that might be of interest to us Dominions fans: There's a link to the Gutenberg text at the bottom of the page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_the_Wolfings

This link is to as complete a collection of the works of William Morris that I could find online:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/index.htm

and to Shakespeare-and certainly, he wrote some fine fantasies:

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/

As far as Moorcock goes, I consider him to be the most important author of fantasy after Tolkien-and far, far more relevant. Here's a fun little essay of his called "Epic Pooh" that lays out extremely well my own viewpoint on fantasy-which is that fantasy, myth, the spirit, our soul and our beliefs are an integral part of who we are at every age, in every situation.

http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.php?id=953

You'll note that he's kind enough to introduce us to quite a diverse group of well known, and lesser known, fantasy authors-which he makes a good case for being better writers than J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.

I hope you enjoy!

[HoneyBadger]

By the way, concerning the last link, and considering that the question of age being balanced against maturity comes up often enough on these forums that it's worth discussing.

I'm finding, the more I age-and I'm aging quite fast and not terribly well-the more I recognise that I'm the same person I always was. The thing that has made me who I am-this person that I consider to be more or less an adult, has been accumulated knowledge and experience, added on to-but not replacing-the child that I was. There was no great transition, no vast shifting from one form to another, just a recognition that I was expected to 1: grow--in depth, knowledge, power, competence, dignity, open-mindedness, whatever the things are that lead to the respect we wish for ultimately as adults (for, after losing all the greatness, the godliness, of youth, that respect is the only thing we have to replace it with, love-however wonderful, being no trump to time, your mind however quick and sharp, inevitably becoming outmoded and outpaced by the sheer speed of the world as it passes you by, and dignity perhaps having gone last, but most thoroughly of all.)--and 2: to make a bunch of really hard choices, the first of which was what kind of adult-and how much of an adult-did I want to be?

Being an "adult" and being a "child" both have their benefits, and downsides. There's no reason you have to lose your sense of wonder, your spirit and energy-atleast mental energy-your beliefs, your own legends, and the magic that lives within you-as an adult. I think we often fear that to keep the good parts of being a child will cost us something-cost us some of that respect that we dearly, desperately crave as an elixer against Time. And it may. There's often a price to pay for magic, after all. But, if we hold on to that inner child, the fantastical child of wonder that we carry within us, then that child will grow, as we grow, into an adult-powerful, knowledgeable, dignified, mature. Demanding and deserving of respect, even as our bodies grow and age.

Because as we grow, and make the hard choices, and live the hard lives that this world demands, and keep our Selves from being swallowed up by Despair, our spirits grow, even as our bodies age. And as we use our imaginations, building upon them, creating an inner world of ever-increasing complexity and depth, our spirits are able to live and breath and open up windows through which our inner worlds and the outer World can flow together, and we can come to recognise each within the other. And our spirits, through our child's belief and faith, and our adult's open eyes and hard-gained wisdom, might indeed live on forever, beyond the respect, beyond a lovely well-attended funeral of this world, to a Heaven of our own making-born from every myth that we embrace and reality that we endure-that we build in our own imaginations, and live every day, and in dying, pass on to Something that we have Foreseen.

[JimMorrison]

Omnirizon said:

that's perfect. perhaps a Tom Cruise rainbow mage one too.

Tom Cruise should be one of their heroes. Stealthy, Awe..... 4 arms. >.>



And Badger Badger Mushroom Badger, that was deep, I am thoroughly impressed by your clarity of expression. <3

[HoneyBadger]

Thanks! I don't want this post to go too much off-topic, since I'm the one responsible for the topic, but I seem to have as much philosophic angst about getting older as I did when I was young, about growing up.

[Omnirizon]

what a beautiful existential reflection.

[HoneyBadger]

Australia-themed nation is an absolute must! And I love those vampire squid-hands guys. We really, really need an early age "The Dreaming Time" Australian nation. It's the only continent-including Antarctica! (LA Atlanteans? maybe? ok I admit they're based on Alaska through Lovecraft-tinted lenses-but until someone makes a Penguin nation, it'll have to do...Caelum: The Penguining? Anyone?). But still, it's a woeful lack. A woeful lack I say!

[JimMorrison]

EA: Auborea - Dream Time
MA: Auborea - Enter The Penguin
LA: Auborea - The Iceman Cometh


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