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.

Renaissance Map

Posted on December 8, 2022 by JE

This is not new, but it’s new to me: a glorious map of the Milky Way as a Renaissance cartographer might have drawn it, from Starkey Comics.

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Alias That Guy and That Other Guy

Posted on November 28, 2022 by JE

This is just a blog post about a TV show, but it does involve some discussion of self-harm. Caveat lector! If you’re in a tough place, remember there are ways to get help, especially by calling or texting 988. One … Continue reading →

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Escape from the Twitterati

Posted on November 28, 2022 by JE

The Muskification of Twitter has gotten me thinking about social media platforms and how they come and go. I’ve signed up for some new ones, and will update my bio when I’m sure which ones I’ll be actually using. Still, … Continue reading →

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The Ygg and I

Posted on July 28, 2022 by JE

Today I’m thinking about Weird water and eggs. Snorri says that the first root of Yggdrasil comes down in Ásgarð and that next to it is the Pool of Weird. The Norns come out to it each day and splash … Continue reading →

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Good for the Gander?

Posted on July 21, 2022 by JE

Apparently the gands that appear in Gandalf and in Jǫrmungandr (the name of the world-girdling serpent in Norse myth) are really the same root. Cleasby and Vigfusson say “the exact sense of this word is somewhat dubious; it is mostly … Continue reading →

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Lang Story Short: Lang’s WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS (1956)

Posted on July 14, 2018 by JE

The movie I watched tonight while mostly avoiding exercise was Fritz Lang’s While the City Sleeps (1956), a melodrama about newspapermen, and the women who sort love them sometimes, during the hunt for a serial killer. I was hoping for … Continue reading →

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Is This Thing On? How About That Other Thing?

Posted on September 16, 2016 by JE

Thing 1: I return to the Blog Gate, writing about Phyllis Eisenstein’s brilliant Born to Exile. Thing 2: I’ve got a little series of e-books going. The first is Ambrosii, out now from Amazon worldwide. The second one, dubbed Monsters, … Continue reading →

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The Late, Late Show

Posted on July 16, 2016 by JE

I was watching TV, and for some reason there was a rather elderly Kim Basinger talking about awkward marriage proposals she’d received in her life. “But the worst,” she said, “was from Maxen Wledig.” This interested me, as Maxen Wledig … Continue reading →

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Crosspost Test from WordPress–please ignore

Posted on March 13, 2015 by JE

Happy Friday 13.

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Aged in Oaken Heroes: Heroic Fantasy & Imagined History

Posted on October 10, 2012 by JE

What is the proper setting for heroic fantasy? Sometimes it seems that the Heroic Age is like the Golden Age of Science Fiction: twelve (according to the now-elderly wisecrack). Anyway, it is widely agreed that heroic fantasy is set in … Continue reading →

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