The Book of Skulls
E201079
The Book of Skulls is a 1972 science fiction novel by Robert Silverberg that follows four college students who discover a desert cult promising immortality at the cost of ritual sacrifice.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Book of Skulls canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1804796 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Book of Skulls Context triple: [Robert Silverberg, notableWork, The Book of Skulls]
-
A.
The Black Sleep
The Black Sleep is a 1956 American horror film featuring a mad surgeon who experiments on human brains, notable for its cast of classic horror stars.
-
B.
Whisperers
The Whisperers are a brutal post-apocalyptic cult in The Walking Dead universe who survive by wearing the skins of walkers and living among the dead.
-
C.
The Incorruptible
The Incorruptible was the sobriquet of Maximilien Robespierre, the influential and austere leader of the French Revolution’s radical phase and a key figure in the Reign of Terror.
-
D.
The Ruin
The Ruin is a melancholic Old English poem reflecting on the crumbling remains of a once-great stone city and the transience of human achievements.
-
E.
The Valley of Ghosts
The Valley of Ghosts is a mystery novel by British writer Edgar Wallace, known for its suspenseful crime plot and atmospheric setting.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Book of Skulls Target entity description: The Book of Skulls is a 1972 science fiction novel by Robert Silverberg that follows four college students who discover a desert cult promising immortality at the cost of ritual sacrifice.
-
A.
The Black Sleep
The Black Sleep is a 1956 American horror film featuring a mad surgeon who experiments on human brains, notable for its cast of classic horror stars.
-
B.
Whisperers
The Whisperers are a brutal post-apocalyptic cult in The Walking Dead universe who survive by wearing the skins of walkers and living among the dead.
-
C.
The Incorruptible
The Incorruptible was the sobriquet of Maximilien Robespierre, the influential and austere leader of the French Revolution’s radical phase and a key figure in the Reign of Terror.
-
D.
The Ruin
The Ruin is a melancholic Old English poem reflecting on the crumbling remains of a once-great stone city and the transience of human achievements.
-
E.
The Valley of Ghosts
The Valley of Ghosts is a mystery novel by British writer Edgar Wallace, known for its suspenseful crime plot and atmospheric setting.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
novel
ⓘ
science fiction novel ⓘ |
| author | Robert Silverberg ⓘ |
| awardNomination |
Hugo Award for Best Novel
ⓘ
Nebula Award for Best Novel ⓘ |
| awardNominationYear |
1972
ⓘ
1973 ⓘ |
| centralTheme |
death
ⓘ
friendship ⓘ guilt ⓘ identity ⓘ immortality ⓘ moral dilemma ⓘ ritual sacrifice ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| coverArtist | Frank Kelly Freas ⓘ |
| genre |
science fiction
ⓘ
speculative fiction ⓘ |
| hasCharacter |
Eli
ⓘ
Ned ⓘ Oliver ⓘ Tim ⓘ |
| hasCultFollowing | yes ⓘ |
| hasISBN | 0-684-12569-4 ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mediaType | print ⓘ |
| narrativeFocus | four college students ⓘ |
| narrativeTechnique | alternating character perspectives ⓘ |
| notableFor | exploration of psychological and ethical consequences of immortality ⓘ |
| pageCount | 222 ⓘ |
| partOfMovement | New Wave science fiction ⓘ |
| plotElement |
discovery of a manuscript describing a desert brotherhood
ⓘ
initiation into a secret immortality cult ⓘ journey to an isolated desert monastery ⓘ one must be sacrificed by the others ⓘ one must commit suicide ⓘ requirement that two of the four must die ⓘ |
| protagonistGroup | four male college students ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1972 ⓘ |
| publisher | Charles Scribner's Sons ⓘ |
| setting | desert ⓘ |
| structure | multiple first-person viewpoints ⓘ |
| theme |
philosophy of mortality
ⓘ
religion ⓘ secret societies ⓘ sexuality ⓘ |
| timePeriodOfSetting | 20th century ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Book of Skulls Description of subject: The Book of Skulls is a 1972 science fiction novel by Robert Silverberg that follows four college students who discover a desert cult promising immortality at the cost of ritual sacrifice.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject surface form:
Robert Silverberg