Dean Swinford

This book tells the story of the early modern astronomer Johannes Kepler's Somnium, which has been regarded by science historians and literary critics alike as the first true example of science fiction. Kepler began writing his complex and heavily-footnoted tale of a fictional Icelandic astronomer as an undergraduate and added to it throughout his life. The Somnium fuses supernatural and scientific models of the cosmos through a satirical defense of Copernicanism that features witches, lunar inhabitants, and a daemon who speaks in the empirical language of modern science. Swinford's looks at the ways that Kepler's Somnium is influenced by the cosmic dream, a literary genre that enjoyed considerable popularity among medieval authors, including Geoffrey Chaucer, Dante, John of Salisbury, Macrobius, and Alan of Lille. He examines the generic conventions of the cosmic dream, also studying the poetic and theological sensibilities underlying the categories of dreams formulated by Macrobius and Artemidorus that were widely used to interpret specific symbols in dreams and to assess their overall reliability. Swinford develops a key claim about the form of the Somnium as it relates to early science: Kepler relies on a genre that is closely connected to a Ptolemaic, or earth-centered, model of the cosmos as a way of explaining and justifying a model of the cosmos that does not posit the same connections between the individual and the divine that are so important for the Ptolemaic model. In effect, Kepler uses the cosmic dream to describe a universe that cannot lay claim to the same correspondences between an individual's dream and the order of the cosmos understood within the rules of the genre itself. To that end, Kepler's Somnium is the first example of science fiction, but the last example of Neoplatonic allegory.

Kepler's Somnium, Medieval Dream Narratives, and the Polysemy of Allegorical Motifs

Through the Daemon's Gate

David Fosberg plays guitar in Valhalla. But don't worry: this is no jukebox hero saga of his rise to fame and fortune. Valhalla's a death metal band. From Florida. And the rest of the guys just quit. There's not a lot of money in metal hymns to the Elder Gods. If David can record another album, Plutonic Records will send him on a two week tour to promote it. A Eurotour. Where people like metal.

The Inverted Katabasis)

Death Metal Epic (Book One

Jason Miller

Mathias Jansson

Jesse Bullington

Sean Moreland

Nathan Meyer

Ben Gwin

Dustin LaValley

Stephen Jansen

Kriscinda Everitt

T. Tranchell

Mary Goff

Michael Riser

Harvey Bainbridge

Despumation champions fiction that explores the diverse themes metal music customarily addresses using language to evoke the feeling of listening to the music. This issue includes stories inspired by Dio, Voivod, Megadeth, Judas Priest, Meshuggah, and Candlemass, plus stories and poems inspired by the metal scene, metal sounds, and metal concepts.

Despumation

This book tells the story of the early modern astronomer Johannes Kepler’s Somnium, which has been regarded by science historians and literary critics alike as the first true example of science fiction. Kepler began writing his complex and heavily-footnoted tale of a fictional Icelandic astronomer as an undergraduate and added to it throughout his life. The Somnium fuses supernatural and scientific models of the cosmos through a satirical defense of Copernicanism that features witches, lunar inhabitants, and a daemon who speaks in the empirical language of modern science. Swinford’s looks at the ways that Kepler’s Somnium is influenced by the cosmic dream, a literary genre that enjoyed considerable popularity among medieval authors, including Geoffrey Chaucer, Dante, John of Salisbury, Macrobius, and Alan of Lille. He examines the generic conventions of the cosmic dream, also studying the poetic and theological sensibilities underlying the categories of dreams formulated by Macrobius and Artemidorus that were widely used to interpret specific symbols in dreams and to assess their overall reliability. Swinford develops a key claim about the form of the Somnium as it relates to early science: Kepler relies on a genre that is closely connected to a Ptolemaic, or earth-centered, model of the cosmos as a way of explaining and justifying a model of the cosmos that does not posit the same connections between the individual and the divine that are so important for the Ptolemaic model. In effect, Kepler uses the cosmic dream to describe a universe that cannot lay claim to the same correspondences between an individual’s dream and the order of the cosmos understood within the rules of the genre itself. To that end, Kepler’s Somnium is the first example of science fiction, but the last example of Neoplatonic allegory.

Black metal juggernaut Desekration stand poised to record their forthcoming masterwork ... once David and Svart get a few more dudes to join the band. Book Two of The Death Metal Epic finds David Fosberg living his rock and roll fantasy. Which means drinking every day and sleeping on Svart's couch. His mom's couch. Svart lives at home. David has left Miami behind. Left the Bard behind. And joined forces with Svart, a brutish nekrowarrior who only listens to, like, Celtic Frost, Destruction, and Bathory. The early stuff. As Desekration start to record InfernO, David's bandmates rail on about the mystic power of something they call -The Goat Song.- And what they'll sacrifice to play it.

Goat Song Sacrifice)

Death Metal Epic (Book Two

Dean Swinford

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