This is the home-base online of fantasist James Enge. See here for more about me. My booklength work up to now has largely focused on Morlock Ambrosius and his turbulent circle of friends, relations, and enemies: including an open-ended series about Morlock in his days of exile, and a just-completed trilogy about his early years as a defender of the Wardlands. See below for more about those works. The mosaic of Morlocks in the page header is composed of work by Steve Stone and Dominic Harman, not to mention the skilled production staff at Pyr Books. Another guy who has created great images of Morlock is Chuck Lukacs, who illustrated the stories that appeared originally in Black Gate magazine.
You can reach me via Engeblog (my frequently updated blog which now has its comments open). But you can also get in touch with me via Facebook, or Twitter, or Mastodon.
Forthcoming!
My latest story for the Mighty Skull, “The Venomous Sands of Amas Lamaar”, is still slated to appear, but the magazine has changed hands, so the timeline is a little foggy at the moment. In it, Morlock and the phoenix plunge deeper into the southern continent of Qajqapca.
Meanwhile, another Morlock story, “The Ember-Eyed”, is slated to appear in issue 7 of Old Moon Quarterly. This one is part of Morlock’s trip into the deep south of his world, and the editors commissioned a mind-blowing piece of art from Daniel Vega, depicting Morlock’s first confrontation with She Who Dwells in the Fire.
I continue to put together a couple of Morlock volumes: a heterogenous collection of uncollected stories, and a more organized set that will constitute a continuous if episodic narrative about Morlock’s adventures with the phoenix, beginning with “A Book of Silences” (one of the first Morlock stories to appear) and including some of the stories from issues of Tales from the Magician’s Skull. That’s tentatively titled The Arch. I’m not sure when it’s likely to see the light of day.
I’m almost done with another collection of Morlock stories, which I’m calling Evil Honey: stories of Morlock Ambrosius. It’ll contain all the Morlock stories already published that I haven’t yet folded into one novel or another, and also excluding the stories I’m reserving for The Arch. It’ll be a solid volume, well over 100K words. I’ll send up a flare here when it’s available. But selling the title story to Old Moon (see below) pushed back the release date a bit.
Available Now!
I have the honor to share a ToC with the great Howard Andrew Jones in the 60th epic issue of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. Mine is, you won’t be surprised to hear, is a novelette about Morlock, “City of Dreadful Light”. This one will eventually be part of The Arch (see above).
Paula Guran picked “The Hunger” (F&SF May/June 2022; see below) for the second volume of The Year’s Best Fantasy (due out in August 2023).
A Morlock story appears in issue 6 of Old Moon, a great quarterly magazine of dark fantasy (paying pro-rates, you writer types will be interested to know). In this one Morlock runs afoul of the god of bees and is forced to enter a society stained by evil and madness. So it’ll be just like, you know, reading the news.
“Three Festivals” (about Morlock searching for his lost phoenix in a doomed city) appeared in issue 9 of Tales from the Magician’s Skull. It’s another great issue from the Mighty Skull, and I’m not just saying that because I’m in it. Check out that wonderfully pulpy art from Chris Arneson.
My story “The Hunger” appeared in the May/June issue of F&SF… and my name appeared on the cover for the first time (although the cover art by Alan Clark illustrates Norman Spinrad’s fine story, “The Canopy”). In “The Hunger”, a runaway slave runs into trouble with a Vancean thief named Thrangulio, a forest full of hungry skeletons and, worst or best of all, a wanderer named Morlock.
Issue 8 of the Mighty Skull contains a Morlock story with my pulpiest title to date, “Sky Pirates of the Savage Clouds”. The contents of said story might be a little pulpy, too.
Issue 7 of the Mighty Skull contains (among other awesome stories), my own “Beasts of the Bluestone Hills” with some pretty great art By Samuel Dillon.
among other good reads by other Legionaries of the Mighty Skull.
Once available only to Kickstarter backers, now to all interested: issue zero of Tales from the Magician’s Skull, with non-fiction from writers who have appeared under the banner of the Mystic Skull. My offering is “Your Illustrious Ancestors”, about the forbears and (werebears) of heroic fantasy
It seems to have passed here without comment for some reason, but I achieved a lifetime ambition in 2021 when I had a story appear in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It’s “Drunkard’s Walk” in the May/June issue.
As it says on the label, there’s a Morlock story in the issue 6 of Tales from the Magician’s Skull. In it, Morlock sets out to find a drink on New Year’s Eve and encounters a monster who is also looking for something or someone to drink. The issue features a brand-new adventure of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, authorized by the Leiber estate and penned by sword-and-sorcery veteran Nathan Long, along with a new Dhulyn and Parno adventure by Violette Malan and a bunch of other great stuff.
In my story in the ZNB anthology Portals, Morlock finds himself hurled through space and time into a bizarre and alien city, called by the mysterious and oddly formed name of Minneapolis.
There’s a new Morlock story (along with a lot of other great reading) in each of the first six issues of Tales From the Magician’s Skull, the sword-and-sorcery magazine from Goodman Games. More may be forthcoming subject to the whims of the marketplace and of my sordid Muse. (The skulltastic cover art for issue 1 is by Jim Pavelec.)
I’ve also got a Morlock story in the ZNB anthology Guilds & Glaives. The theme of the anthology is assassins and guilds; in my story Morlock runs afoul of a guild of necromancers at the eastern edge of the world. The anthology will also feature great stories by Esther Friesner, Howard Andrew Jones, Violette Malan, and others. The cover art is a beautiful wraparound image by Justin Adams.
Ambrosii: Three Stories
Unicorn-killers, corpse-eating ghouls, unsavory family members–the world of the Ambrosii is full of magical menaces. Three stories set in the world of the World Fantasy Award nominated BLOOD OF AMBROSE.
Monsters: Four Stories
A quartet of dark fantasies featuring vampires, ghosts, murderers, and Morlock Ambrosius.
Pirates: Three Stories
Three stories of mayhem, magic, and weird science.
A Tournament of Shadows
By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end–
Methinks it is no journey.
—Tom O’Bedlam’s Song
III. The Wide World’s End
The tale of the early days of Morlock Ambrosius—master of all magical makers, wandering swordsman, and son of Merlin—concludes!
From beyond the northern edge of the world, the Sunkillers (undying enemies of everything that lives and breathes and is an individual) are reaching into the sky of Laent to drain out its light and warmth. Their hope is to scrape sky, land, and sea clean of mortal life and return to where they once dwelled, before the first rising of the sun. Against them stand only the Graith of Guardians, defenders of the peaceful anarchy of the Wardlands. But the agents of the Sunkillers are abroad even in the Wardlands: plotting, betraying, murdering among the Graith.
Married now for a century, Morlock Ambrosius and Aloê Oaij will take different paths to counter the threat. As Aloê ferrets out the enemy within the Graith, Morlock joins forces with his sister, the formidable Ambrosia Viviana, and crosses the monster-haunted plains of the deep north to confront the Sunkillers in their own realm. Morlock and Aloê think their parting is temporary, but it is final. They may or may not save the world, but they will not save each other, or themselves.
“Adventure, intrigue and straight-up exuberant sword and sorcery remain hallmarks of this enjoyable series.”–Publishers Weekly
II. Wrath-Bearing Tree
Into the Unguarded Lands . . .
The masked powers of Fate and Chaos are killing gods in the land of Kaen, facing the Wardlands across the Narrow Sea.
Vocates Aloe Oaij and Morlock Ambrosius go into the Unguarded Lands, on a mission to find the reasons for the godslaying, and to avert any threat to the lands the Graith of Guardians has sworn to protect.
After crash-landing on the hostile coast of Kaen, they will face vengeful frightened gods, a calmly murderous dragon, a demon called Andhrakhar, and a bitter old necromancer named Merlin Ambrosius.
Amid these dangers they will find that they can trust no one but themselves—and each other.
[sample chapter here]
“… contains some highly entertaining stories, and provides a great chance to spend some more time with Morlock, who is one of the most entertaining characters in sword and sorcery.” –Benjamin Wald at SFRevu
I. A Guile of Dragons
It’s dwarves vs dragons in this origin story for Enge’s signature character, Morlock Ambrosius!
Before history began, the dwarves of Thrymhaiam fought against the dragons as the Longest War raged in the deep roads beneath the Northhold. Now the dragons have returned, allied with the dead kings of Cor and backed by the masked gods of Fate and Chaos.
The dwarves are cut cut off from the Graith of Guardians in the south. Their defenders are taken prisoner or corrupted by dragonspells. The weight of guarding the Northhold now rests on the crooked shoulders of a traitor’s son, Morlock syr Theorn (also called Ambrosius).
But his wounded mind has learned a dark secret in the hidden ways under the mountains. Regin and Fafnir were brothers, and the Longest War can never be over…
[sample chapter here]
“…the perfect blend of original ideas, beautiful prose and action. It’s a book I found myself taking my time feasting on.” —The Qwillery
Morlock in Exile
Blood of Ambrose
Behind the king’s life stands the menacing Protector, and beyond him lies the Protector’s Shadow…
Centuries after the death of Uthar the Great, the throne of the Ontilian Empire lies vacant. The late emperor’s brother-in-law and murderer, Lord Urdhven, appoints himself Protector to his nephew, young King Lathmar VII and sets out to kill anyone who stands between himself and mastery of the empire, including (if he can manage it) the king himself and his ancient but still formidable ancestress, Ambrosia Viviana. When Ambrosia is accused of witchcraft and put to trial by combat, she is forced to play her trump card and call on her brother, Morlock Ambrosius–stateless person, master of all magical makers, deadly swordsman, and hopeless drunk.
As ministers of the king, they carry on the battle, magical and mundane, against the Protector and his shadowy patron. But all their struggles will be wasted unless the young king finds the strength to rule in his own right and his own name.
[sample chapter here]
Nominated for the World Fantasy Award, 2010
This Crooked Way
Morlock Ambrosius returns!
Travelling alone in the depths of winter, Morlock Ambrosius (bitterly dry drunk, master of all magical makers, wandering swordsman, and son of Merlin Ambrosius and Nimue Viviana) is attacked by an unknown enemy.
To unmask his enemy and end the attacks he must travel a long crooked way through the world: past the soul-eating Boneless One, past a subtle and treacherous master of golems, past the dragon-taming Khroi, past the predatory cities of Sarkunden and Aflraun, past the demons and dark gnomes of the northern woods.
Soon he will find that his enemy wears a familiar face, and that the duel he has stumbled into will threaten more lives than his own, leaving nations shattered in its chaotic wake.
And at the end of his long road waits the death of a legend.
[sample chapter here]
“…a smart and entertaining read. I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to recommend This Crooked Way to my friends and James Enge is certainly an author I would keep my eye on in the future.”–Dominic Cilli at SFSite
The Wolf Age
“Spear-age, sword-age:
shields are shattered.
Wind-age, wolf-age:
before the world founders
men will show mercy to none.”
Wuruyaaria: city of werewolves, whose raiders range over the dying northlands, capturing human beings for slaves or meat. Wuruyaaria: where a lone immortal maker wages a secret war against the Strange Gods of the Coranians. Wuruyaaria: a democracy where some are more equal than others, and a faction of outcast werewolves is determined to change the balance of power in a long, bloody election year.
Their plans are laid; the challenges known; the risks accepted. But all schemes will shatter in the clash between two threats few had foreseen and none had fully understood: a monster from the north on a mission to poison the world, and a stranger from the south named Morlock Ambrosius.
“Enge’s elegant prose perfectly captures Morlock’s terse and morbid nature, which thrives in the vicious, honorable werewolf nation. Numerous intimate, complicated, and contentious relationships provide depth and gravity to the grim tale, which will enthrall fans of the dark and sinister.”–Publishers Weekly (starred review)