Heroic Dreams - All Things Medieval

Sir Galahad is Welcomed t…

Everybody knows the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round table. But did you know the significance of why a round table? It is an interesting thing and it says a lot about the values that were developing during the Middle Ages.

The Middle ages were a very tumultuous and difficult period to live in. There was war, barbarian hordes, plague, famine, the crusades, and many other things. The normal mode of operation was to take something by force. This is what the kings, knights and lords did. They fought, battled, killed and took what they wanted. In short there was little value placed on the individuals without power.

But through this there was a shifting in the belief systems of people and knighthood played a key role in this shifting. Along with the development of chivalry came the belief in the worth of the individual whether or not he held land or weapons. And the Round table is a good example of this raising of the individuals value.

The round table was meant to shift power from just the king who normally sat at the head of the table and spoke so everyone listened. With a round table it was symbolic of the fact that all the people seated at the table had equal weight and equal say in matters. It was almost democratic. It wasn’t a true democracy; the king was still the king and only knights were at the table. But it was a move toward the belief that everyone is important and everyone equally valuable.

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I have owned and worked on my first domain for many years now (Stormthecastle.com) and a couple of years ago I really wanted to branch it out into something very renaissance and use stormthecastle.net as the domain name. I envisioned it being a community or network of people who enjoy medieval and renaissance things. thus the dot net of it.

The problem was that stormthecastle.net was already taken by somebody else. Anyway the project kind of got sidelined for a while until the .net domain expired and I managed to snag it! So now I own stormthecastle.net and am beginning the work of building a renaissance/medieval community.

If you like medieval and renaissance things or larping or castles or any of that other great stuff from the middle ages buzz on over to the new forum and register! It is just starting out but it is going to be a really vibrant community. Drop a post and introduce yourself then start a message about your favorite things from movies to faires.

I have already loaded a nice gallery of avatars for you to choose from so you can express your unique personality and they range from wizards to knights to lord of the rings stuff.

I am going to be looking for moderators that are passionate about their particular area of the board so if you are really passionate about some aspect of the whole genre let me know! I look forward to hearing from you.

Oh and I am running a poll to try to find the tagline for the board. My favorite right now is:  Stormthecastle.net - Camelot Reborn

Here is the link directly to the forum: stormthecastle.net forum

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I have been a fan of Philip K Dick for a very long time. There was a time, decades ago where he was almost a secret little writer that only existed in the underground which is quite ironic because he tends to write a lot of stuff that is exatly like that - secret little underground situations that turn out to be big government plots.

Now, if you are not that familiar with the name you are sure familiar with the hollywood works that have derived from his writing such as Blade Runner or A Scanner Darkly or Total Recall. And if you are a fan of the Matrix movies you have to understand that those movies are pure Philip K. Dick from beginning to end. His influence just permeates every aspect of those movies.

Anyway, I am glad to see he is finally getting the recognition he deserves. The New York Times has just recently put out an article exactly to this point:

Times article on Philip K. Dick

I always remember one little snippet about philip that stuck with me and knowing this snippet gives you insight into a lot of his writing which is based on a basic mistrust of all that we see or seem.

He was working on a novel, which one I don’t know, but nobody knew about it. One of the main characters in the novel was a woman with a peculiar name and she had a boyfriend with a peculiar name. ANyway, he was at this party and was introduced to a woman with this same name - she then introduced him to her boyfriend who had the exact same name as the boyfriend in his novel. Rumor has it that this event had a dramatic impact on his life. And if you are familiar with his writing you can see this.

According to his website he has published 44 novels and a whole bunch of short writing. On my list of recommendations is of course: “Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep?” Which is one of the best science fiction novels  ever written. - bar none. This is a novel you have to read many times; it is layered with so much stuff and isn’t just a science fiction novel - it is a quest for understanding life/death and the nature of reality.

Okie, other works I like include Ubik which is a derivitive of the word Ubiquitous. This book is also much worth a read. The Man in the High Castle is the work that he is probably most famous for as far as written works and well worth a read.

For me Philip has always been kind of one part of a triptych of writers that came out of the 60’s and examined the nature of reality in new ways . The other two are Kurt Vonnegut and Carlos Castenada.

Here is his work in print at amazon.com

Philip K Dick at Amazon.com

The Official Philip K. Dick Website

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