Picture this... A great city stands besieged, it's outer defences lie broken and it's few defenders are tired after so long fighting. Everything to the east of this city has been either captured or destroyed by the great army that has come from even further east, sparing no one. The city has called for allies and yet none have arrived. Today the enemy are so close to breaching your final layer of defences and destroying all that you hold dear when, to your surprise a loud horn echoes across the plains. From the north comes a great army of allies, all united in their quest to help defend your city and defeat this great army from the east.

If you stood with these allies to the north you would see that numerous though they were, they were still not numerous enough to outnumber your foes. But still they march towards them, utterly fearless. The enemy from the east turns some of their forces to meet your allies while the rest try to break your defences one last time. You stand strong, emboldened by the sight of your allies arriving. Whilst your allies infantry push against the enemies, you notice on a hill a large gathering of cavalry forces, the largest gathering of cavalry forces ever known to man. Led by their king the cavalry force charge into the enemy breaking their positions and making them run for their lives. You sally forth to meet your allies and succeed in utterly routing your foe and saving the West.

Almost sounds like the Battle of Pelennor Fields does it not? Except it is not. The year is not 3019 of the Third Age it is 1683, and the city? Vienna not Minas Tirith. For on this day 334 years ago the Polish Winged Hussars lead the largest cavalry charge of all time (18,000 men) to break the Ottoman Empire's forces and relieve Vienna from the two month siege it had found itself in. That is not to say the Holy Roman Empire did nothing, their infantry were vital to push the Ottomans back and their cavalry charged alongside the Winged Hussars.

But overall the battle of Vienna, and indeed the entire centre of Europe and possibly beyond could have been lost to the Ottoman Empire. Then the Winged Hussars arrived.

Novastorme

I'm convinced that How Far We've Come by Matchbox Twenty is a description of Nightfall by Isaac Asimov. (I've only read the short story and not the extended novel, admittedly.)

Sample lyrics:

I believe the world is burning to the ground
Oh well I guess we're gonna find out
Let's see how far we've come
Let's see how far we've come
Well I believe it all is coming to an end
Oh well, I guess, we're gonna pretend,
Let's see how far we've come
Let's see how far we've come

The song, interpreted a little darkly to match Nightfall, is like, well, it's the end of the world, and let's see how far we've come. And in Nightfall, they've made it exactly as far as society did several times when it collapsed the previous times.

Also, World by Five for Fighting for Dragonsdawn by Anne McCaffrey.

Sample lyrics:

Got a package full of Wishes
A Time machine, a Magic Wand
A Globe made out of Gold

No Instructions or Commandments
Laws of Gravity or
Indecisions to uphold

What kind of world do you want?
Think Anything
Let's start at the start
Build a masterpiece
Be careful what you wish for
History starts now...

The song is asking that if you could start anew on an empty world, what would you do with it? I think it describes the settlement of Pern pretty well, at least until Thread starts falling.

Back to my lurking; I don't plan on becoming a regular poster at this time; I've just been dying to share this somewhere for awhile now.
A. Lurker

I kinda feel like the entirety of Fall Out Boy's album "Save Rock and Roll" works as a soundtrack for a story about supervillains, especially if you make The Phoenix the opening track and Young Volcanoes the end credits theme.

Also Rob Zombie. Most of his stuff obviously works for horror stories. Living Dead Girl is actually pretty great for a Vampire the Masquerade story about a Samedi lady. Or a Sabbat lady.

I always thought The Offspring's "You're Gonna Go Far Kid" matched the first Mistborn novel pretty well. I may be crazy.

In news for Twistey and any programmers in the audience, Fabien Sanglard has just released his Black Book of Wolf3D. So if you ever wanted to peer into the guts of Wolfie, you at least have a flashlight to do it with now. Given, this was not a book written for The Rest of Us by any means. I would suggest downloading the preview first to see if you can read it. I, for one, am very intimidated and doubt I will be able to...

Article here

Today marks the 78th anniversary of the Battle of Wizna where the Polish Army held out against the might of the Wehrmarcht for three days in what is sometimes called the Polish Thermopylae.

The Polish soldiers were outnumbered well over 40:1 and they held on until they ran out of ammunition.

Always remember a fallen soldier. Always remember fathers and sons at war.

Novastorme

Kitty Eden posted this in the chat last night.

The Voynich Manuscripts?

Solved.

—doctorlit