Geisterbahn is German for ghost train, the popular amusement park ride that carries thrill-seekers into dark, eerie tableaus designed to thrill and shock them. The most elaborate of these are found at Munich’s Oktoberfest. In the US, these rides are known as Spookhouses, or Haunted Houses. Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion is an example of the best …
Science fiction writer Joan D. Vinge wrote a fairy tale/space opera mashup in the early 1980s called The Snow Queen, which borrowed from the Hans Christian Anderson tale of the same name. Most of the action took place on a frigid water planet named Tiamat, where humans were split into two clans: Summers and Winters. …
World mythology is full of fabulous beasts, beings, spirits, and creatures. There are the ones everybody knows, like gryphons, dragons, and unicorns; then there are those that are semi-familiar, like the harpy and thunderbird; and lastly, some that are truly obscure, like the grootslang, the ahkluyat, the senmurv. Here’s a list of randomly generated creatures …
Many people, myself included, have thought that the book of Middle Eastern fantasy tales, One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, is a unified work of one author or compiler from the 16th century, ala The Brothers Grimm. But it isn’t. It’s a far older collection of folk tales and poetry from a far wider range …
Not as glamorous as evil societies or those dedicated to dark magic. But every sizable town and city in a typical Medieval European society has them. There are guilds devoted to workers and tradesmen, merchants’ leagues, secret societies like Freemasons, civic leagues dedicated to improve some aspect of city life, and even rebels lurking below …