Author Archives: JE

About JE

James Enge is the author of the World-Fantasy-Award-nominated novel Blood of Ambrose (Pyr, April 2009). His latest book is The Wide World's End. His short fiction has appeared in Black Gate, Tales from the Magician's Skull, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and elsewhere.

Facebox

Facebork has put me in Facebook-jail for the 4th time in 4 weeks. I figure they’re trying to make the experience worse so that people will be interested in paying money for actual customer service. Not sure that’s a viable … Continue reading

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Swords Against Smog: SWORDS IN THE MIST by Fritz Leiber

In summary: This late-60s collection includes what many consider to be the two best stories about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, as well as the earliest complete story about the Mighty Twain. As such it’s essential reading for the sword-and-sorcery … Continue reading

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Turn Up This Cruched Way

Typo of the day is cruch (where I intended to type crush). I figure cruching is like crushing, only with more crunch. And maybe you need a crutch afterwards.

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“Brain and Brain! What Is Brain?”

Some great demonstrations here of how chatbots don’t think. I especially like the bot’s explanation of why a pound of feathers weighs the same as two pounds of bricks. An entity that could think would recognize the issue there. The … Continue reading

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More Morlock

I made a couple of sales in February: “The Venomous Sands of Amas Lamaar” to Tales from the Magician’s Skull (slated for issue 13) and “Evil Honey” to Old Moon Quarterly (slated for issue 3).

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Human vs. Parrot

A great piece by Elizabeth Weil about Emily Bender, who is waging a war of ideas against stochastic parrots. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-chatbots-emily-m-bender.html

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Sticker Shock

Um. Geeze. I guess I won’t be pursuing my interest in collecting Shel Silverstein’s cartoons any time soon.

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Diana in the News!

My partner in crime is interviewed in this piece on improv and therapy in the Toledo Blade. Some people say she’s great; some people say she’s amazing; others aren’t sure, but think ”Maybe both!”. https://www.toledoblade.com/health-well-being/2023/02/26/laughter-best-medicine-some-doctors-say-it-can-t-hurt/stories/20230221075

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The Tedium of Infinity

Maybe the suits at Marvel should have read Niven’s “All the Myriad Ways” before going all-in on the Multiverse. It’s not as if you can’t make a good movie with the concept (e.g. INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE), but it does have … Continue reading

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Romance and Murder: DOROTHY L. SAYERS, HER LIFE & SOUL by Barbara Reynolds

In summary: This is the best biography of Sayers that I have read, or am likely to read.

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