The Unicorn Chronicles

The Unicorn Chronicles consists of four young adult fantasy novels by Bruce Coville about the fantasy world of Luster that lies parallel to our own. Within this realm exist all sorts of fantastical and mythological beasts, from the familiar unicorn to the strange, squirrel-like creature known as the Squijum. Cara Hunter is sent to Luster via a magical amulet, given to her by her grandmother, Ivy Morris. She is asked to tell the Queen of the Unicorns that "The Wanderer is weary," and must set out in search of the Queen. Along her travels, she befriends the world's inhabitants, such as Lightfoot, a young unicorn prince, M'Gama, a Geomancer who draws magical power from the earth, and the Dimblethum, a bearlike creature, among many others.

Novels

The first book, Into the Land of the Unicorns, introduces Cara as the main character. Ivy sends Cara into the parallel universe 'Luster', where she must find the unicorns' Queen, Arabella Skydancer, and give her a message sent by Ivy.

Darkness

Darkness, the polar opposite to brightness, is understood to be an absence of visible light. It is also the appearance of black in a colored space.

Humans are unable to distinguish color when either light or darkness predominate. In conditions of insufficient light, perception is achromatic and ultimately, black.

The emotional response to darkness has generated metaphorical usages of the term in many cultures.

Scientific

Perception

The perception of darkness differs from the mere absence of light due to the effects of after images on perception. In perceiving, the eye is active, and that part of the retina that is unstimulated produces a complementary afterimage.

Physics

In terms of physics, an object is said to be dark when it absorbs photons, causing it to appear dim compared to other objects. For example, a matte black paint does not reflect much visible light and appears dark, whereas white paint reflects much light and appears bright. For more information see color.

Light cannot be absorbed without limit. According to the principle of the conservation of Energy, energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be converted from one type to another. Consequently, most objects that absorb visible light reemit it as heat. So, although an object may appear dark, it is likely bright at a frequency that humans cannot perceive. For more information see thermodynamics.

Whispering

Whispering is an unvoiced mode of phonation in which the vocal folds (vocal cords) are adducted so that they do not vibrate; air passes between the arytenoid cartilages to create audible turbulence during speech. Supralaryngeal articulation remains the same as in normal speech.

In normal speech, the vocal folds alternate between states of voice and voicelessness. In whispering, only the voicing segments change, so that the vocal folds alternate between whisper and voicelessness (though the acoustic difference between the two states is minimal). Because of this circumstance, there is currently no known possibility to use speech recognition successfully on a whispering person, as the characteristic spectral range needed to detect syllables and words is not given through the total absence of tone.

There is no symbol in the IPA for whispered phonation, since it is not used phonemically in any language. However, a sub-dot under phonemically voiced segments is found in the Extended IPA and sometimes seen in the literature, as [ʃʊ̣ḍ] for whispered should.