Tempered Illusions

Tempered Illusions
Author: Whitney Hill
Publisher: Benu Media
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2023-02-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1737631180

Arden Finch’s big dreams for her future risk becoming nightmares. After stopping the Wild Hunt and preventing the end of the world, Arden thought she could take a break. But the mundane backlash against supernaturals is getting worse, and Otherside abhors a power vacuum. When someone dumps a vampire-bitten corpse at the North Carolina governor’s mansion, tensions boil over. With rioting humans on one side and invading vampires on another, Arden must decide how far she’ll go to secure her authority as Arbiter. A step in the wrong direction will bring war to the Triangle and threaten everything Arden has built. And with the trickster gods stirring, all her illusions about power will be tested to see if they can stand the weight of this new world—or if they’ll shatter under the pressure. Arden, Troy, Maria, and your other favorites are back in the first book of the Shadows of Otherside Trickster Cycle. The stakes are higher and the danger is greater than ever before, forcing Arden to lean into new powers and leave the Triangle to deal with new threats. This book is set a year after the epilogue in Eternal Huntress and continues Arden Finch's story in the Otherside universe. If you'd like to start at the beginning of the series, read Elemental. Content warnings: This book contains strong physical violence and gore, on-page death, swearing, slurs (not toward any real racial or ethnic group/identity), alcohol use, knife violence, threat of sexual violence, mention of past abuse by a guardian, deadnaming, kidnapping, state-sanctioned violence, blood-drinking, and consensual on-page sex scenes.

The Ironic Temper and the Comic Imagination

The Ironic Temper and the Comic Imagination
Author: Morton Gurewitch
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Total Pages: 270
Release: 1994
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780814325131

The Ironic Temper and the Comic Imagination examines and illuminates the role which the ironic temper plays in the creation of complex literary comedy. The book focuses on ironic comedy, though not of the kind that is characterized by the surprises and shocks, the incongruities and reversals, of circumstantial irony. Circumstantial—or situational—irony cannot stand alone; it serves, for example, the aggressive functions of satire, or the irrational impulses of farce, or the benevolent, whimsical, or pain-defeating energies of humor.

Illusion, Disillusion, and Irony in Psychoanalysis

Illusion, Disillusion, and Irony in Psychoanalysis
Author: John Steiner
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2020-04-22
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1000063011

Illusion, Disillusion, and Irony in Psychoanalysis explores and develops the role of illusion and daydream in everyday life, and in psychoanalysis. Using both clinical examples and literary works, idealised illusions and the inevitable disillusion that is met when reality makes an impact, are carefully explored. Idealised phantasies which involve a timeless universe inevitably lead to disillusion in the face of reality which introduces an awareness of time, ageing, and eventually death. If the illusions are recognised as phantasy rather than treated as fact, the ideal can be internalised as a symbol and serve as a measure of excellence. Steiner shows that the cruelty of truth needs to be recognised, as well as the deceptive nature of illusion, and that relinquishing omnipotence is a critical and difficult developmental task that is relived in analysis. Illusion, Disillusion, and Irony in Psychoanalysis will be of great use to the psychoanalyst or psychotherapist seeking to understand the patient’s withdrawal into a phantasy world, and the struggle to allow the impact of reality.

The Brain, Consciousness & Illusion of Truth

The Brain, Consciousness & Illusion of Truth
Author: Karol Ondrias
Publisher: Universal-Publishers
Total Pages: 228
Release: 1999
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9781581127799

...How do we know that something is true or false? How does the brain discern the truth? What kind of mechanism allows the brain to interpret the information received in the shape of electrical and chemical impulses to which it is constantly exposed? Is it the case that our brains are endowed with appropriate algorithmic rules for discriminating between truth and untruth, alongside certain rules for handling, say, optical information? Is it the case that the brain produces illusions of truth like it does illusions of vision? My answer is in the positive, and this is what I shall be seeking to show in this essay. An essay in style, The Brain, Consciousness and Illusion of Truth is a valuable addition to the literature on the mind/body problem and an engrossing account of the human brain with its services and disservices to the self. Karol Ondrias is one of the 'disturbing' authors who will not stop at taboos. Problems he addresses here are of our postmodern era, when people, still tightly controlled by their ancestral genetic code and ethnocentric cultural stereotypes, are acquiring an awareness of this and trying to review the authenticated behavioral patterns and preconceived ideas still shaping their lives. The notion of the distorted and manipulated reception of the world cuts through the whole of the essay. ...The human race, the author argues, cannot afford any longer remain content with the illusory certainties provided by the 'selfish' genes and by parochial cultures (however dear to the cockles of our heart the latter might be). But isn't it just another illusion - to try and free the self from the comfortable bondage of biological and cultural forces? The essay will take you to the further and farther reaches of human nature and this may be part of the answer.

Worlds of Exile and Illusion

Worlds of Exile and Illusion
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Publisher: Orb Books
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2016-12-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0765397668

Worlds of Exile and Illusion contains three novels in the Hainish Series from Ursula K. Le Guin, one of the greatest science fiction writers and many times the winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Her career as a novelist was launched by the three novels contained here. These books, Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, and City of Illusions, are set in the same universe as Le Guin's groundbreaking classic, The Left Hand of Darkness. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Passing of an Illusion

The Passing of an Illusion
Author: François Furet
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 628
Release: 1999
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780226273419

"A brilliant and important book. . . . The publication of the American edition makes accessible to the general reader the most thought-provoking historical assessment of communism in Europe to appear since its collapse".--Jeffrey Herf, "Wall Street Journal".

Magic and Illusion in the Movies

Magic and Illusion in the Movies
Author: George Higham
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2024-11-07
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1476654220

From top hats to top secrets, this book is a celebration of illusion technology and mechanisms of trickery through a genre-crossing selection of films. Heroes, villains, spies, con-men, and madmen, magicians all, have utilized complex constructs and trickery in thrilling cinematic adventures from the earliest days of cinema to the present. Current blockbusters such as Spider-Man: Far from Home and the Mission: Impossible series feature amazing acts of deception, often appearing far-fetched, that are in fact surprisingly close to today's technology. Along with the James Bond saga, classics such as The Wizard of Oz, Nightmare Alley, and The Sting are joined by a host of other movies superficially seeming to be very different, yet proving there is more than meets the eye.