Creatures of Light and Darkness - Sources

Sources

Most of the characters have the names and some of the features of Egyptian gods. But Typhon belongs in Greek mythology and was a fire-breathing dragon rather than a dark horse-shadow. Norns are Norse and weavers of fate rather than smiths. The Steel General and other minor characters have no obvious mythological source.

Typhon also contains or controls Skagganauk Abyss, which is described in the chapter "Master of the House of the Dead" as "a bottomless hole that is not a hole. It is a gap in the fabric of space itself." This resembles a Black Hole, a concept first described in 1916, though the term itself was not coined until 1967 and only gradually became the standard name. This would make it an early instance of black holes in fiction.

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