The fascinating story about a young Swede Christine Daaé. Her father, a famous musician, dies, and she is brought up in the Paris Opera House. After a while in the opera house, she begins to hear a voice that, in the end, teaches her how to sing beautifully. The ghost is in love with the main character and is jealous of her friend, but it can only spell disaster.
The desert shimmered in the heat waves. Conan the Cimmerian stared out over the aching desolation and involuntarily drew the back of his powerful hand over his blackened lips. He stood like a bronze image in the sand, apparently impervious to the murderous sun, though his only garment was a silk loin-cloth, girdled by a wide gold-buckled belt from which hung a saber and a broad-bladed poniard. On his clean-cut limbs were evidences of scarcely healed wounds.
Wings in the Night collects Robert E. Howard’s fiction and prose published in Weird Tales Magazine from July 1932 to May 1933. These works represent literary stepping-stones to Howard’s infamous Cthulhu mythos stories and his most famous character of all -- Conan the Cimmerian -- and ably demonstrate that each of Howard’s stories improved and added to his formidable skills as a master of fantasy and adventure.
The speaker wrapped his purple cloak closer about his powerful frame and settled back into his official chair, much as he might have settled back in his seat at the Circus Maximus to enjoy the clash of gladiatorial swords. Realization of power colored his every move. Whetted pride was necessary to Roman satisfaction, and Titus Sulla was justly proud; for he was military governor of Eboracum and answerable only to the emperor of Rome.
Torches flared murkily on the revels in the Maul, where the thieves of the east held carnival by night. In the Maul they could carouse and roar as they liked, for honest people shunned the quarters, and watchmen, well paid with stained coins, did not interfere with their sport. Along the crooked, unpaved streets with their heaps of refuse and sloppy puddles, drunken roisterers staggered, roaring. Steel glinted in the shadows where wolf preyed on wolf, and from the darkness ...
Over shadowy spires and gleaming towers lay the ghostly darkness and silence that runs before dawn. Into a dim alley, one of a veritable labyrinth of mysterious winding ways, four masked figures came hurriedly from a door which a dusky hand furtively opened. They spoke not but went swiftly into the gloom, cloaks wrapped closely about them; as silently as the ghosts of murdered men they disappeared in the darkness.
The roar of battle had died away; the shout of victory mingled with the cries of the dying. Like gay-hued leaves after an autumn storm, the fallen littered the plain; the sinking sun shimmered on burnished helmets, gilt-worked mail, silver breastplates, broken swords and the heavy regal folds of silken standards, overthrown in pools of curdling crimson. In silent heaps lay war- horses and their steel-clad riders, flowing manes and blowing plumes stained alike in the red tid...
The king of vendhya was dying. Through the hot, stifling night the temple gongs boomed and the conchs roared. Their clamor was a faint echo in the gold- domed chamber where Bhunda Chand struggled on the velvet-cushioned dais. Beads of sweat glistened on his dark skin; his fingers twisted the gold-worked fabric beneath him. He was young; no spear had touched him, no poison lurked in his wine.
The blare of the trumpets grew louder, like a deep golden tide surge, like the soft booming of the evening tides against the silver beaches of Valusia. The throng shouted, women flung roses from the roofs as the rhythmic chiming of silver hosts came clearer and the first of the mighty array swung into view in the broad, white street that curved round the golden-spired Tower of Splendor.
Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936) was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. In a meteoric career that spanned a mere twelve years, Robert E. Howard single-handedly invented the sword and sorcery genre. From his fertile imagination sprang some of fiction’s most enduring heroes. Yet while Conan is indisputably Howard’s greatest creation, it was in his earlier sequence of tales featuring Kull, a fearless warrior with the b...
The Pool of the Black One is one of the original short stories starring the sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard. It is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan becoming the captain of a pirate vessel and encountering a remote island with a mysterious pool that has powers of transmutation.
...Shipwrecked on a mysterious island, two sailors find traces of a lost civilization – and memories of their own impossible part in it! ...The „last words” of an operatic tenor bring the music of hell to the man who destroyed him....Turlogh O’Brien, mighty Gaelic warrior who serves no master but gold and blood, battles for a kingdom against the fearful ancient gods of Bal-Sagoth. All together for the first time in The Gods of Bal-Sagoth.
The fisherman loosened his knife in its scabbard. The gesture was instinctive, for what he feared was nothing a knife could slay, not even the saw-edged crescent blade of the Yuetshi that could disembowel a man with an upward stroke. Neither man nor beast threatened him in the solitude which brooded over the castellated isle of Xapur.
The long tapers flickered, sending the black shadows wavering along the walls, and the velvet tapestries rippled. Yet there was no wind in the chamber. Four men stood about the ebony table on which lay the green sarcophagus that gleamed like carven jade. In the upraised right hand of each man a curious black candle burned with a weird greenish light. Outside was night and a lost wind moaning among the black trees.
The Black Stranger"is one of the stories byRobert E. HowardaboutConan the Cimmerian. It was written in the 1930s but not published in his lifetime. When the original Conan version of the story failed to find a publisher, Howard rewrote „The Black Stranger” into a piraticalTerence Vulmeastory entitled „Swords of the Red Brotherhood.”
Before Robert E. Howard wrote of „Conan the Cimmerian”, he wrote of the swashbuckler Solomon Kane. „The Adventures of Solomon Kane” takes you through Howard’s horrific and fantastic world of swords and sorcery, the world of ancient secrets and the monsters that live in the jungles of Africa where Kane vanquishes evil. Here are shudder-inducing tales of vengeful ghosts and bloodthirsty demons, of dark sorceries wielded by evil men and women, all opposed by a grim avenger arm...
This collection contains all of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian stories published during his lifetime, contextualized with biographical details of their author. His Conan stories feature a young barbarian warrior who carves himself a kingdom and rules with a degree of wisdom and justice. Neither supernatural fiends nor demonic sorcery could oppose the warrior as he wielded his mighty sword and dispatched his enemies to a bloody doom on the battlefields of the legenda...
Red Nails is the last of the stories about Conan the Cimmerian written by American author Robert E. Howard. A novella, it was originally serialized in Weird Tales magazine from July to October 1936. It is set in the pseudohistorical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan encountering a lost city in which the degenerate inhabitants are proactively resigned to their own destruction. Due to its grim themes of decay and death, the story is considered a classic of Conan lore and is oft...
The dagger flashed downward. A sharp cry broke in a gasp. The form on the rough altar twitched convulsively and lay still. The jagged flint edge sawed at the crimsoned breast, and thin bony fingers, ghastly dyed, tore out the still- twitching heart. Under matted white brows, sharp eyes gleamed with a ferocious intensity.
The cliffs rose sheer from the jungle, towering ramparts of stone that glinted jade-blue and dull crimson in the rising sun, and curved away and away to east and west above the waving emerald ocean of fronds and leaves. It looked insurmountable, that giant palisade with its sheer curtains of solid rock in which bits of quartz winked dazzlingly in the sunlight. But the man who was working his tedious way upward was already halfway to the top.
Shadows in Zamboula is one of the original stories by Robert E. Howard about Conan the Cimmerian, first published in Weird Tales in November, 1935. Its original title was „The Man-Eaters of Zamboula”. The story takes place over the course of a night in the desert city of Zamboula, with political intrigue amidst streets filled with roaming cannibals. It features the character Baal-pteor, one of the few humans in the Conan stories to be a physical challenge for the main Cimme...
Rogues in the House is one of the original short stories starring the fictional sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in Weird Tales magazine in January 1934. It is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan inadvertently becoming involved in the power play between two powerful men fighting for control of a city. It was the seventh Conan story Howard had published.
Klasyczne dzieła fantasy polecamy każdemu, kto chciałby rozpocząć swoją przygodę w świecie fantasy - uwielbia poznawać nowe uniwersa i wielkich bohaterów walczących ze Złem.
W kategorii klasycznych książek fantasy, fani tego gatunku znajdą zarówno sagi high fantasy takie jak “Ziemiomorze” Ursuli K. Le Guin, “Władcę Pierścieni” J. R. R. Tolkiena czy “Pieśń Lodu i Ognia” George’a R. R. Martina, często porównywaną z dziełami Tolkiena, jak i “Mroczną wieżę” Stephena Kinga zawierającą wiele elementów literatury grozy, a także science fiction czy powieści obyczajowej. "Pieśń Lodu i Ognia" stała się podstawą równie kultowego serialu “Gra o tron”, który w ostatnich sezonach wykracza poza wątki znane z obecnie wydanych tomów sagi Martina. Fani wciąż czekają na ostatnie tomy cyklu - oczekiwanie to jednak osładzają inne dzieła związane z twórczością George’a R. R. Martina, takie jak powieści “Rycerz Siedmiu Królestw” czy dwa tomy “Ogień i krew”, związane z prequelem “Gry o tron”, serialem “Ród smoka”.
Ranking książek fantasy należy rozpocząć jedną z najbardziej klasycznych pozycji, jaką są dzieła Roberta E. Howarda, opowiadające o losach Conana Barbarzyńcy. Pisarza tego uważa się także za prekursora heroic fantasy - w Woblinku znajdziecie na przykład zbiór jego opowiadań “Zaginiona rasa” w formacie ebooka. Na liście klasycznych książek fantasy, wielbicielki i wielbiciele tego gatunku znajdą także “Władcę Pierścieni” J.R.R Tolkiena, “Ziemiomorze” Ursuli K. Le Guin, cykl "Pieśń Lodu i Ognia” G.R.R Martina czy “Mroczną Wieżę” Stephena Kinga. Wielu dopisuje do niego także serię “Kroniki Amberu” autorstwa Rogera Zelazny’ego, cykl dziesięciu powieści rozgrywających się w wieloświecie, gdzie Amber oraz Dworce Chaosu stanowią najpotężniejsze krainy. Podążamy tam śladami potomków twórcy Amberu i pierwszego z rodu Amberytów, Dworkina. A jeśli wolicie coś z gatunku dark fantasy, polecamy “Kroniki Czarnej Kompanii” autorstwa Glena Cooka, uznawane za dzieło, które zrewolucjonizowało ten typ opowieści. Pogrążone w nieustannej walce krainy czekają na narodziny Białej Róży, istoty, która zgodnie z pradawnym proroctwem ma zmienić losy ich świata. Kluczowi dla realizacji tej zapowiedzi okazują się najemnicy z tytułowej Czarnej Kompanii, bezwzględnie i bez żadnych pytań dokładnie wykonujący zlecone im zadania. Te i wiele innych wyjątkowych serii fantasy znajdziecie na Woblink w formatach książek papierowych, audiobooków lub ebooków.
Klasyka literatury fantasy to nie tylko epickie cykle powieści zagranicznych, ale także polskich twórców. Wśród nich z pewnością należy wspomnieć Andrzeja Sapkowskiego i jego sagę o wiedźminie Geralcie, jedną z najpopularniejszych polskich serii fantasy na świecie. Rozpoczyna ją tom “Wiedźmin. Ostatnie życzenie”, zbiór opowiadań wprowadzających w niesamowity świat czarów, potworów i namiętności. Dla wielu kultową jest także seria “Pan Lodowego Ogrodu” Jarosława Grzędowicza, fantasy polskiego autora z elementami science fiction. Vuko Drakkainen włada nadludzkimi zdolnościami dzięki najnowszej technice, a jego zadaniem jest znalezienie kilkorga naukowców, którzy bez śladu zaginęli wiele lat temu na planecie Midgaard. Nie sposób zapomnieć także o serii “Zastępy Anielskie” autorstwa Mai Lidii Kossakowskiej, zwanej pierwszą damą polskiej fantastyki. Siedem książek tworzy cykl zaliczany do angel fantasy - główny bohater, Daimon Frey, zwany jest także Abaddonem lub Aniołem Zagłady. W tym stworzonym przez Kossakowską świecie hierarchia wśród aniołów jest ściśle określona, mają oni jednak wspólny problem - zniknął ich Pan. Jak długo uda im się ukrywać ten fakt? Najlepsze polskie książki fantasy czekają na Was na Woblink także jako ebooki!