The Golden Torc

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Elaborate examples, sometimes hollow, used a variety of techniques but complex decoration was usually begun by casting and then worked by further techniques. The Ipswich Hoard includes unfinished torcs that give clear evidence of the stages of work. [3] Flat-ended terminals are called "buffers", and in types like the "fused-buffer" shape, where what resemble two terminals are actually a single piece, the element is called a "muff". [4] Bronze Age Europe and the East [ edit ] I'm not sure if the book just isn't as good, or if my tastes have changed as I've become a more voracious reader the past few years. The humor was still good, the plot was light. It just wasn't working for me. Richard Voorhees – a Dutch spacecraft captain, dies when he places an old Tanu spaceship into a parking orbit around the Earth – perhaps giving rise to the legend of the eternally sailing Flying Dutchman Furthermore the pacing of the story seemed like utter crap to me. This might have been my own fault since I did not complete it in one sitting, but it did continuously ensure that my expectations would clash with the progress of the book. Gigantic crystalline organisms, self-aware and powerfully psychic, which evolved in and continue to inhabit interstellar space in the Duat Galaxy. Ships were capable of superluminal travel through mental generation of an aperture into hyperspace ("grey limbo"). Ships were entirely benevolent and many of them undertook a symbiotic "mind-marriage" with humanoid females of the Duat daughter-worlds. Ships routinely carried the Duat citizenry on interstellar voyages of considerable distance, the passengers traveling within a vessel embedded in the Ship's crystal body.

The Man with the Golden Torc - Goodreads The Man with the Golden Torc - Goodreads

Mythology, however, appears to be the strongest influence on the Saga of the Exiles. There are many parallels between the persons and places of the Saga of the Exiles and Celtic (and other) myths and legends. The presumption is that such myths and legends result from the peoples, individuals, and events in this story, creating a loop that connects the present to six million years in the past. The list below is far from exhaustive. urn:oclc:7464820 Scandate 20111208192006 Scanner scribe4.shenzhen.archive.org Scanningcenter shenzhen Worldcat (source edition) The famous Roman copy of the original Greek sculpture The Dying Gaul depicts a wounded Gaulish warrior naked except for a torc, which is how Polybius described the gaesatae, Celtic warriors from modern northern Italy or the Alps, fighting at the Battle of Telamon in 225 BC, although other Celts there were clothed. [10] One of the earliest known depictions of a torc can be found on the Warrior of Hirschlanden (6th centuryBC), and a high proportion of the few Celtic statues of human figures, mostly male, show them wearing torcs.

Mr. Green did not let me down with this book. I have found yet another male-lead urban fantasy series that I simply must keep up with and add to my keeper shelf. Although I could probably write Mr. Green a crazy fan letter after reading this novel, I will let this semi-gushing review suffice! Many finds of torcs, especially in groups and in association with other valuables but not associated with a burial, are clearly deliberate deposits whose function is unclear. They may have been ritual deposits or hidden for safekeeping in times of warfare. Some may represent the work-in-progress of a workshop. [17] After the early period, torcs are especially prominent in the Celtic cultures reaching to a coast of the Atlantic, from modern Spain to Ireland, and on both sides of the English Channel. Eddie Drood, aka Shaman Bond, is a field agent for his family. The powerful Droods have guarded mankind for centuries against all the things that go bump in the night. Like that other better known Mr. Bond, ShamanEddie has all sorts of cool gadgets at his disposal. Those will come in handy because when his family suddenly declares him rogue – something the Family never takes well – Eddie finds himself on the run and looking for answers in all the wrong places. I think my biggest problem was that I just didn’t connect with the tone. It was the definition of glib, and it was just too much for me. It felt like it was all style without the substance. I liked Shaman Bond and Molly, the agent and anarchist who form the crux of the book's narrative. They form a good pair of modern-day Avengers with a decent bit of chemistry combined with contrasting worldviews which aren't so different underneath the surface. It was perhaps a little too easy for these two to fall in love given their circumstances but I was rooting for them to so I can't exactly complain, can I?

Saga of the Pliocene Exile by Julian May - Goodreads Saga of the Pliocene Exile by Julian May - Goodreads

After the death of the inventor, his widow finds herself inundated with a steady stream of late 21st and early 22nd century misfits/outcasts begging to be allowed to escape the modern world for a chance to start over in the imagined simplicity of the Pliocene. The widow finally gives in and eventually establishes a regular training program for the "groups" making the trip to ensure they have the basics for survival and a trade in the Pliocene era. I probably could have overcome my dislike for the the characters in the story, the plot itself was rather good after all. But then I have to add in a mess of inconsistencies if not outright plot holes which, while never critical to the storyline, does confuse some points and just generally irritate the hell out of me. Celtic torcs [ edit ] Gold Celtic torc with three "balusters" and decoration including animals, found in Glauberg, Germany, 400BC This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources.The exotics are known as the 'Tanu' and the 'Firvulag', and together constitute a single dimorphic race. The Firvulag are the 'metapsychically operant' [see below] members of that race, and the Tanu are the 'metapsychically latent' half. However, the majority of Firvulag have only weak mental powers, whereas the Tanu wear torcs, which are also mind-amplifying devices to allow use of their mental powers. The Tanu are generally much longer lived than the Firvulag. The four books of the Saga of Pliocene Exile abound with Tanu who are more than a thousand years old, who were not born on Earth, and who are called 'first comers' because of the fact. Examples of 'first comers' include King Thagdal, Celadeyr of Afaliah, and Dionket Lord-Healer. The Firvulag are not usually as long lived, although they have a few first-comers of their own (King Yeochee and Palloll One-Eye among them), but are physically hardier and more resistant to Earthly radiation than the Tanu. Operancy: Psychic powers which are available for conscious, controlled use by a person. Basically, one is considered operant if they have psychic abilities and can consciously use them. In the Pliocene Epoch, the Firvulag were naturally operant. They did not require torcs or other mechanical assistance to be able to use their psychic powers. Kuhal Earthshaker and his brother Fian Skybreaker – the Irish legends of Cuchulainn and Fionn mac Cumhaill

The Golden Torc (Saga of the Exiles) (Saga of the Exiles, 2) The Golden Torc (Saga of the Exiles) (Saga of the Exiles, 2)

There were too many dead-ends in the story. I recall Mr. Green writing scenes in Nightside that seemed unimportant to the plot but that explore some bizarre idea he must have had. This book has entirely too much of that. I think if a few of them had been cut out/saved for later books this might have been a better story. High Vrazel, the royal seat of the Firvulag – Hy-Brasil, a mist-cloaked phantom island off the Irish coast Little is known about this race of people from the same galaxy as the Tanu and Firvulag, but a different planet. Whereas the Tanu and Firvulag come from the planet Duat, which also gives the entire galaxy its name, this race comes from Lene. Thousands of years before the action of the novels, the inhabitants of Duat developed interstellar travel, and colonized other planets in their native galaxy. These other planets came to be called 'Daughter Worlds', as in 'the daughter worlds of Duat'. A series of wars and the passage of time cut off Duat from these other worlds. Among the daughter worlds only Lene retained any form of space travel, and only very primitive reaction engines. The war left Duat with a wildly varying climate, and because of this, over a thousand generations on Duat, the race diverged into two separate races, the Tanu and the Firvulag. The Tanu lived in the open overcast lowlands and grew tall and lithe. They were metapsychically latent and developed and employed torcs to raise them to a limited form of metapsychic operancy. Prolepsis, the ability to predict future events, is a sixth power alluded to in The Saga of Pliocene Exile and explored a little in the Galactic Milieu trilogy. May does not clarify whether prolepsis is a separate metapsychic ability or a manifestation of extremely developed farsensory ability. Brede Ship-spouse – Wife of the Ship that guided the Tanu and Firvulag to Earth, from Lene (a daughter world of Duat), often called two-faced by the Firvulag – Brigid Irish goddess of poetry, smithing, and healingCahill, Mary, "The Dooyork Hoard", Irish Arts Review (2002−), Vol. 19, No. 1 (Summer, 2002), pp.118–121, JSTOR Later Celtic torcs nearly all return to having a break at the throat and strong emphasis on the two terminals. The Vix torc has two very finely made winged horses standing on fancy platforms projecting sideways just before the terminals, which are flattened balls under lions' feet. Like other elite Celtic pieces in the "orientalizing" style, the decoration shows Greek influence but not a classical style, and the piece may have been made by Greeks in the Celtic taste, or a "Graeco-Etruscan workshop", or by Celts with foreign training. [30] David J. Hayes reviewed Saga of Pliocene Exile in Pyramid #1 (May/June, 1993), and stated that "Exotic, complex and fascinatingly realistic, the world of the Exile is rich with adventure possibilities." [5] D-jumping (dimension jumping) or teleportation may also be considered a metapsychic power, but appears more in the Galactic Milieu Series of books also by Julian May. For the purposes of the Saga of Pliocene Exile only Brede, Felice, and later Marc may have been able to use this power. It may be a synthesis of other powers (creativity, psychokinesis, and farsense?) rather than a separate power. The four Leekfrith torcs, dating from c. 400–250 BC, which are the oldest gold torcs found in Great Britain

the Golden Torc: Secret History Book 1 (Secret Histories The Man with the Golden Torc: Secret History Book 1 (Secret

The Nonborn King is the third book in the Saga of Pliocene Exile, and it introduces the character of Marc Remillard, the Angel of the Abyss, the Adversary, or Abaddon, who sought to overthrow the Galactic Milieu and make humanity supreme. Simon R. Green books are wall-to-wall goofiness and that's part of their charm. The thing is, despite the fact he throws everything and the kitchen sink at the reader, the books never treat their ludicrous situations as anything but serious. The willingness for the characters to internalize the weirdness of their setting helps lend itself an authenticity that makes it kinda-sorta grounded. You believe in the characters and their motivations even when they're visiting an extra-dimensional cat burglar.

The book is always inventive, but it's also contrived, with overly-convenient plot developments popping up everywhere. I didn't ever find it believable, but eventually I started to find it pretty amusing. I would have had a more positive reaction to the book if I'd known it was supposed to be silly, but there wasn't much to indicate that it wasn't a straight-faced urban fantasy. This book takes my love of James Bond spy movies and supernatural stories and makes a wonderful hybrid, but it has Simon R. Green's own stamp and spin on it. He incorporated all the humor which will make me laugh out loud, the angsty moments, and some thrilling/scary/downright horrific moments as well.