This is the online edition
of The Hélethrônium,
a medieval trilogy set in the mythical land of Entira. Although it is copyrighted work, you may freely enjoy it by reading it online. Feel free to re-distribute the URL (web address), but please do not copy the text or graphics without prior approval from the author.  "Who, what, when, where, why, how, and under the influence of which organic compounds?" Who? This book was written by a computer
scientist named Bill Majoros.
You can find out more about who he is by visiting his home page. He had
significant help from Kelsey
the Amazing Dog. His influences during this time included Sam
Adams, Sutter Home, Corbet Canyon, Jerry Bruckheimer,
Dennis
McKiernan, David
Eddings, David
Arkenstone, Johan
De Meij, Jethro
Tull, Rush,
and Jerry's Pizza. And
yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, of course Him
too. (Obviously).
What? It's a medieval fantasy about some short
people led by a wizard on a
quest to stop some evil guy from taking over the world. Yup
-- typical
fantasy stuff.
When? The story is set in the Seventh Age of
Entira. The story was written
between the years of 2002 and 2005 (in our time), and very slightly
revised in
2008. Further
revisions may take place, but should be overwhelmingly minor. A
sequel is
currently in the works, as of
mid-2008. The main characters in the sequel are Talen and Falco,
and they are (you guessed it!) trying to save the world from an evil
guy in a black robe.
Where? The story takes place in the mythical
land of Entira.
The story was written in two
houses and revised in a third house.
It was conceived and the background developed in the quaint town of
Damascus, Maryland in
2002 while the author was learning about Hidden Markov Models and
their
use as stochastic generators of interesting names for people, places,
and
things. The first edition was written in Germantown, Maryland
between 2003 and 2005. The second and third editions were
organized in Durham, North Carolina, in 2006 (1st ed.) and 2008 (2nd
ed.).
Why? Why not?
How? Using four laptops and one desktop
computer, running three operating
systems and innumerable software packages. The first outlines
were made on a Compaq Presario laptop
running Red Hat linux. Early maps were developed in Gimp, then
later touched up in Paint Shop Pro (in Windows) and Photoshop (on the
Mac). The text was
originally written
entirely in HTML using Mozilla's "Composer" application. It was
later converted to Microsoft Word running in VMWare/Windows98 under
Fedora Core 2 Linux
on a Sony Vaio laptop, transferred to a Windows XP desktop
(Compaq/AMD), and
converted to PDF via Adobe Acrobat. The PDF was uploaded directly
to the printer for print publication. For the online version, the
final Microsoft Word files were converted to HTML, which was then
modified using a custom Perl script and then manually partitioned into
individual chapter files using Mozilla Composer. Supporting
graphics were
developed in Eovia's Carrera Studio 3D, Gimp, Paint Shop Pro for
Windows, Terragen, and Poser, all running in Windows XP, and (later)
Photoshop
running on an Apple Macbook Pro. All names of people, places and
things were randomly generated using a 2nd order Hiddel Markov Model
(HMM) trained from either Gaelic, Welsh, or Irish word lists, and then
manually (and painstakingly) filtered by the author. The
soundtrack (by Elvenfire) was
recorded in
Sonar on a Windows XP desktop using Alesis drums and keyboards, Ibanez
guitars, Zoom effects pedals, D'Addario guitar strings (0.009 guage),
and Fender picks (heavy guage).
Under the influence of which organic compounds? Primarily merlot, cabernet sauvignon,
Sam Adams' Boston Ale, Diet
Cherry Coke, Jerry's Pizza (plain), and Starbuck's Coffee (cream, no
sugar). But not all at the same time.
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