Despite the name, these demons have nothing to do with King Solomon of the Bible. They are supernatural beings listed in a spellbook known as The Lesser Key of Solomon, or Salomonis Regis, which contains descriptions of them along with summoning instructions. This meaty tome is divided into five parts, compiled by an anonymous author …
Many people would agree that it’s been a terrible year. Usually such a year would generate some cleverly epic Halloween costumes, but there’s nowhere to show them off, except virtually. And that’s not a lot of fun. Still, if you’re up for it, here are some randomly generated ideas. (And check out costumes for …
Yes, there is such a thing as beer for dogs. You can buy it here. One of my favorite things to randomize is food. Because it itself is so random — most people don’t know exactly what they’re going to eat that day. They grab a hot dog from a cart on the street, have …
Cocktails, or mixed alcoholic drinks, are one of those workhorse culinary items whose exact origin is unknown. Most pinpoint it to the United States in the early 19th century. But it wasn’t until the 20th century until they really took off, especially after WWII when boozing and socializing went hand-in-hand with the middle class …
In The Last Battle, Lewis introduces the reader to Narnia’s equivalent of Satan: Tash. Tash is the foremost deity of the desert nation of Calormen, mentioned first in The Horse and His Boy. However, in that book we are not told what he looked like, only his temple: it has a silver-plated roof and sits …
Lewis never again got as exotic in the Chronicles as he did in with Calormen. The Valley of Ten Thousand Perfumes, Lake Mezreel, the crossroads city of Azim Balda, the Flaming Mountain of Lagour… these places don’t come into the plots, they are mentioned only in passing. But they do add to the richness. Writing …
One of the questions I always wanted answered about Narnia-the-world is that of other civilizations. Sure, we had Narnia; then Telmar, dull and problematic as it was, and Archenland in Prince Caspian; in the next book Galma, Terabinthia, Calormen, and the Seven Isles came along, then Ettinsmoor and the Underworld in The Silver Chair. But …
The Horse and His Boy ties for my third favorite of the Chronicles with The Magician’s Nephew. Perhaps Nephew has the edge, because of the awesomeness of Charn, the Wood Between the Worlds, and Aslan’s Garden. But Horse has Tashbaan and the desert. It’s a close call. The flavor is different from the rest of …
The 1970 version and a more recent one (right) The Silver Chair is my favorite Narnia book. The protagonists travel across and into many worlds — the mountains of Aslan’s country, the swamp of the marsh-wiggles, the bleak moors and the bleaker ruins of the giants; then the cavernous underworld and the subterranean city of …
In last weeks’ Worldbuilding Wednesday I took a look at the etymology of Prunaprismia and how other women of Telmar might have been named. This week, I’ll look at the men. I think Lewis designed his names with French and Spanish in mind. The pronunciation of them, glottal and oily, recalls spoken Italian as …