biancadarc.com Blog

TV: Legend of the Seeker

I have to admit, I am LOVING this series! The casting is absolutely fantastic and the stories so far have avoided that tongue-in-cheek Xena Warrior Princess style, even though Ted Raimi did show up in one episode.

The series is based on the books of Terry Goodkind, including Wizards First Rule, which I read so long ago, I’ve forgotten most of it, I’m sad to say. If/when I get the time, I plan to reimmerse myself in the books, but in the meantime, I’m really enjoying this show. You definitely don’t have to have read the books in order to get into this fantasy adventure.

The best part is, right now, you can watch all the episodes on your computer by going to the Legend of the Seeker website.

Have a gander at the original trailer for the series here:

The second trailer is even cooloer and shows off a lot of the visual effects that make the series so appealing. I think the casting is great, although Richard seems younger than Kahlan to me. The girl they found to play Kahlan, Bridget Regan, has the look and the feel of the character down pat. She’s fantastic! The wizard Zed, played by Bruce Spence, is probably the best part of the show for me. (And if you think he looks a little familiar, remember the weird helicopter guy from the first Road Warrior flick? LMAO!) He’s the epitome of the long white haired wizard!

So go to the website where you can enter your zip code and find out when the show is on in your area. For me, in NY, it’s on Saturday nights. *sigh* Sorta cuts into my social schedule, but I tend to watch the episodes online anyway, so it’s all good. It’s a great show I HIGHLY recommend! And you know I don’t say that lightly.

Wallpaper Wednesdays

FireDrake will be in print later this month! I’m reprising some of the wallpapers from my old site that show scenes/characters from the book…

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Click on the size you want, then right click and “save as background” on most systems.

Winner!

And the winner of my little weekend contest is:

LindaP

Congratulations! Email me within 30 days to claim your prize at BIANCADARC AT GMAIL.COM. Thanks for playing!

Contest Time!

In conjunction with my blog today over on the Samhain blog, I’m running a little impromtu contest. (Remember I told you I might surprise you yesterday?)

So here are the details: The contest will run all weekend. On Monday, I’ll pick a name at random from among the entrants and they’ll get to choose which one of my published books they want to read. (The prize will be in ebook form.)

Comment here and you get one entry. Comment on the Samhain blog and your name goes in the hat twice. Become a new member of my no-spam newsletter group and you get a third, bonus entry.

Good luck!

Final Scorch Winner

It’s Thursday and time to announce the winner of the final Scorching February contest of this year. Without further ado, the winner is:

 Julie Robinson

Congratulations! Please email me at BIANCADARC at gmail.com within 30 days to claim your prize.

I’d like to thank everyone who participated in last month’s mayhem here on the blog. You never know when I’m going to spring a new contest on you folks, so be sure to visit back every once in a while!

And don’t forget – I do a giveaway every month on my newsletter group. Click the tab above that says “Monthly Contest” for more information on that or join the newsletter group. You won’t be spammed, I promise. You’ll get at most 1-2 emails from the group per month – the newsletter and any special announcements, such as book releases, etc.

Click to join BiancaDArcNews

Wallpaper Wednesdays

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Click on the size you want, then right click and “save as background” on most systems.

Fantasm Wins!

Many thanks to the readers who voted for my books in the Fantasm Awards! They were announced yesterday with fantastic results! Check out what my books won:

Best Epic Fantasy Romance & Best Overall Fantasy Romance – FireDrake

Best Post-Apocalyptic Romance – Davin’s Quest

Best Overall Sci Fi Romance – Jaci’s Experiment

Congratulations to my writer friends who also won awards and thanks again to the people who run the Fantasms and to all the readers who voted!

New Newsletter Now Available!

	March Newsletter from Bianca D’Arc Now Available! Click Here
FireDrake In Print March 31, 2009 from Samhain Publishing More Information A knight most unexpected…	Highlights Excerpt from FireDrake New Contest News & much more! All in our fabulous March Newsletter!

March & Lions

You know that old saying about March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb? It got me thinking about something I’ve heard of but have never seen in person that I thought I’d share with you. A sort of history lesson, if you will indulge me…

There is a memorial in Lucerne, Switzerland that I would love to see someday. Normally, I’m not much of a sightseer. I could care less about ooh-ing and ah-ing over the world’s biggest ball of rubberbands, you know what I mean? But there are some things I’d like to see. This sculpture is on that rather short list. Here is the monument in question:

The story behind this monument is what touches me most. Some of you may know my family history goes back to Europe. Some of my ancestors were involved in the French Revolution (on the losing-their-heads side) and on the other side of the family I am descended from, among others, a rather infamous Swiss Guard. (Infamous in our family, at least.)

For those of you who are interested, here’s what Wiki has to say about Swiss Guards:

Swiss Guards is the name given to the Swiss soldiers who have served as bodyguards, ceremonial guards, and palace guards at foreign European courts since the late 15th century. They are now represented in some sense by the Papal Swiss Guard. They have generally had a high reputation for discipline and loyalty to their employers. Apart from household and guard units, some formations have also served as fighting troops in the field; regular Swiss mercenary regiments served as line troops in various armies, notably those of France, Spain and Naples right up to the 19th century.

Various units of Swiss Guards have existed for hundreds of years. The earliest such detachment was the Swiss Hundred Guard’ (Cent-Garde) at the French court (1497 – 1830). This small force was complemented in 1567 by a Swiss Guard regiment. The Papal Swiss Guard in the Vatican was founded in 1506 and is the only Swiss Guard that still exists. In the 18th century several other Swiss Guards existed for periods in various European courts.

The monument at Lucerne is especially touching because it memorializes a group of Swiss Guards who fought in defense of Tuileries in Paris. They were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution, when revolutionaries stormed the palace. Mark Twain once called the sculpture of a mortally-wounded lion ”the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world,” and I have to agree. Even though I’ve never seen it in person. Someday I hope to do so.

I’m going to copy a bit of the Wiki entry here so you can get the jist of the story behind the sculpture and the bravery of the men who died fighting a mob. I’m one of the few, I guess, who think the French Revolution mobs were a sickening, disgusting affair. There’s nothing romantic about killing off everyone in sight. They went too far. They killed women and children who had nothing to do with the oppression they were fighting against. It was a sad, sad, evil period in French history.

From the early 17th century, a regiment of Swiss mercenaries had served as part of the Royal Household of France. On 6 October 1789, King Louis XVI had been forced to move with his family from the Palace of Versailles to the Tuileries Palace in Paris. In June 1791 he tried to flee abroad. In the 1792 10th of August Insurrection, revolutionaries stormed the palace. Fighting broke out spontaneously after the Royal Family had been escorted from the Tuileries to take refuge with the Legislative Assembly. The Swiss ran low on ammunition and were overwhelmed by superior numbers. A note written by the King has survived, ordering the Swiss to retire and return to their barracks, but this was only acted on after their position had become untenable.

Of the Swiss Guards defending the Tuileries, more than six hundred were killed during the fighting or massacred after surrender. An estimated two hundred more died in prison of their wounds or were killed during the September Massacres that followed. Apart from about a hundred Swiss who escaped from the Tuileries, the only survivors of the regiment were a 300 strong detachment which had been sent to Normandy a few days before August 10. The Swiss officers were mostly amongst those massacred, although Major Karl Josef von Bachmann — in command at the Tuileries — was formally tried and guillotined in September, still wearing his red uniform coat. However two surviving Swiss officers went on to reach senior rank under Napoleon.

The initiative to create the monument was taken by Karl Pfyffer von Altishofen, an officer of the Guards who had been on leave in Lucerne at that time of the fight. He began collecting money in 1818. The monument was designed by Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, and finally hewn in 1820–21 by Lukas Ahorn, in a former sandstone quarry near Lucerne.

The monument is dedicated Helvetiorum Fidei ac Virtuti (“To the loyalty and bravery of the Swiss”). The dying lion is portrayed impaled by a spear, covering a shield bearing the fleur-de-lis of the French monarchy; beside him is another shield bearing the coat of arms of Switzerland. The inscription below the sculpture lists the names of the officers, and approximate numbers of the soldiers who died (DCCLX = 760), and survived (CCCL = 350).

The pose of the lion was copied in 1894 by Thomas M. Brady (1849–1907) for his Lion of Atlanta in the Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia.

I hope you enjoyed the history lesson.