Work of Fiction

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a 1992 action-comedy-horror film about "valley girl" cheerleader Buffy (Kristy Swanson) chosen by fate to fight and kill vampire. The movie is a light parody which plays on the clichés of typical horror film. It also led to the darker and much more popular TV series of the same name, which starred Sarah Michelle Gellar and was created and executive produced by screenwriter Joss Whedon. Whedon often detailed how the TV series was a much closer rendering of his vision...

The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by the English academic and philologist J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as merely a sequel to Tolkien's earlier work, The Hobbit, but eventually developed into a much larger story. It was written in stages between 1937 and 1949, much of it during World War II. Although intended as a single-volume work, it was originally published in three volumes in 1954 and 1955, and it is in this three-volume form that it is popularly known. It has...

The Children of Húrin is an epic high fantasy novel which forms the completion of a tale by J. R. R. Tolkien. He wrote the original version of the story in late 1910s, revised it several times later, but did not complete it before his death in 1973. His son, Christopher Tolkien, edited the manuscripts to form a consistent narrative, and published it in 2007 as an independent work. The Children of Húrin was published on 17 April 2007, by HarperCollins in the United Kingdom and Canada, and by...

The Tombs of Atuan is the second of a series of books written by Ursula K. Le Guin and set in her fantasy archipelago of Earthsea, first published in 1971. It follows on from A Wizard of Earthsea and is continued in The Farthest Shore. The Tombs of Atuan was a Newbery Honor Book in 1972. The story centers on a Karg child who is taken from her family and dedicated as the high priestess in the service of the "Nameless Ones" on the island of Atuan. Her true name is Tenar, but she is renamed Arha,...

Tehanu was the fourth of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea books. It won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1990. Tehanu continues the stories of Tenar, the heroine of the second book of the Earthsea series The Tombs of Atuan, and Ged, the hero of the first book, A Wizard of Earthsea. Tehanu is set almost immediately after the conclusion of the series' third book, The Farthest Shore. Tenar, who arrived on Gont some years ago, has married a farmer called Flint and had two children, Apple and Spark...

The Other Wind is the sixth and (so far) last of a series of books written by Ursula K. Le Guin and set in her fantasy archipelago of Earthsea. It follows on from Tehanu, the fourth novel, and the short story "Dragonfly" from the fifth book Tales from Earthsea. The novel won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 2002, and was also nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel that same year. It is about fifteen years since the events described in Tehanu, and eight after those in Dragonfly...

The Silver Chair is part of The Chronicles of Narnia, a series of seven fantasy novels written by C. S. Lewis. It was the fourth book published and is the sixth book chronologically. It is the first book, and one of two books in the series, in which the Pevensie children do not appear (the other being The Magician's Nephew). The book is dedicated to Nicholas Hardie, the son of Lewis's fellow Inkling Colin Hardie. The story begins with Eustace Scrubb, who was introduced in ''The Voyage of the'...

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a fantasy novel for children by C. S. Lewis. Written in 1950, it was published in 1952 as the third book of The Chronicles of Narnia. Current editions of the series are numbered using the internal chronological order making Dawn Treader the fifth book. See the Note on typography below about the italics in the book's title. The two youngest Pevensies, Lucy and Edmund, are sent to the house of their obnoxious cousin Eustace Scrubb for a holiday. They are...

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a fantasy novel for children by C. S. Lewis. Written in 1950 and set in approximately 1940, it is the first book of The Chronicles of Narnia and is the best known book of the series. (Although it was written and published first, it is second in the series' internal chronological order, after The Magician's Nephew.) ''Time'' magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. The book is dedicated to Lewis's...

The Seeker, titled The Dark Is Rising in the United Kingdom and The Seeker: The Dark is Rising in Canada, is a 2007 film adaptation of the second book in the five-book children's fantasy series The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper. The film is directed by David Cunningham and stars Ian McShane, Alexander Ludwig, Frances Conroy, Gregory Smith, and Christopher Eccleston. The Seeker is the first film to be produced by Walden Media and 20th Century Fox as part of their Fox-Walden partnership. On his...

The Black Cauldron is the second book in Lloyd Alexander's five-part novel series The Chronicles of Prydain (first published in 1964). The story centers on the adventures of Taran, an Assistant Pig-Keeper in the magical land of Prydain, as he joins in a quest to capture the eponymous vessel, a magical device which can be used to create armies of the undead. The Walt Disney company adapted this book and all the other books into a film in 1985, which itself served as inspiration for a 1986...

2010 is a science fiction film released in 1984 directed by Peter Hyams. Its full title is given on posters and DVD releases as 2010: The Year We Make Contact, although the subtitle does not appear in the film itself. It is based on the novel 2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke. The film, like the novel, is a sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film is set nine years after the mysterious failure of the Discovery mission to Jupiter, Dr. Heywood Floyd from 2001 has been made the scape goat...

2010: Odyssey Two is a best-selling science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke, which was released in January 1982. It is the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1983. The novel was turned into a 1984 film, 2010. Unlike 2001: A Space Odyssey, the novel and the screenplay were not written simultaneously, and there are significant differences between the two. In one aspect, a part of this novel has similarities with a much older short story by...

The Book of Three is the first of Lloyd Alexander's five-part novel series The Chronicles of Prydain (first published 1964). Inspired by Welsh mythology, it follows the adventures of Taran, a boy in the care of the enchanter Dallben, as he enters manhood while fighting the forces of the evil Arawn Death-Lord. Taran, a young man who lives at Caer Dallben with his guardians, the elderly scholar Dallben and the middle aged farmer Coll, is dissatisfied with his life, which consists largely of farm...