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.
Read more about this topic: Creatures Of Light And Darkness
Famous quotes containing the word sources:
“My profession brought me in contact with various minds. Earnest, serious discussion on the condition of woman enlivened my business room; failures of banks, no dividends from railroads, defalcations of all kinds, public and private, widows and orphans and unmarried women beggared by the dishonesty, or the mismanagement of men, were fruitful sources of conversation; confidence in man as a protector was evidently losing ground, and women were beginning to see that they must protect themselves.”
—Harriot K. Hunt (1805–1875)
“Even healthy families need outside sources of moral guidance to keep those tensions from imploding—and this means, among other things, a public philosophy of gender equality and concern for child welfare. When instead the larger culture aggrandizes wife beaters, degrades women or nods approvingly at child slappers, the family gets a little more dangerous for everyone, and so, inevitably, does the larger world.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (20th century)
“The sources of poetry are in the spirit seeking completeness.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)