Category Archives: books

October 23: The Day of Might

Posted on October 23, 2025 by JE

At the Fortress of Engitude, we’re celebrating the Day of Might, proclaimed by the late, unceasingly great Howard Jones as a day for celebrating sword and sorcery, heroic fantasy, and heroic fiction generally.

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Joys of Analogue Media

Posted on October 17, 2025 by JE

One of the long-lost pleasures of vinyl that I’m recently recovering is going through stacks of used LPs at record stores. These are thinner on the ground than they were in the 20th C, but when I find one I … Continue reading →

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This Means Snore: THE WAR OF THE ROSES by William Adler

Posted on September 3, 2025 by JE

I’ve never seen the Danny De Vito film The War of the Roses (1989). It came out during the first Christmas season that I celebrated with my first wife and my first child. I had lots of things to occupy … Continue reading →

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Deus Ex Homine: Brackett’s THE SWORD OF RHIANNON and Zelazny’s ISLE OF THE DEAD

Posted on August 10, 2025 by JE

I’ve been following with interest Steven Silver’s great series of reviews of the Tor Double books at the Black Gate. His latest, scrupulously fair, review of Brackett’s The Sword of Rhiannon+de Camp’s Divide and Conquer reminded me of one of … Continue reading →

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Two Duds: WAS IT MURDER? by James Hilton and A QUESTION OF PROOF by Nicholas Blake

Posted on August 9, 2025 by JE

Fiction set at upper-class British schools was a popular genre in the 19th and early 20th C, and murder mysteries were the dominant form of popular fiction in the early and mid-20th century, so it’s only natural that cross-pollination would … Continue reading →

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This Way to the Egress: IMMORTALITY, INC. by Robert Sheckley

Posted on July 8, 2025 by JE

Executive summary: Immortality, Inc., Sheckley’s first novel, is a fast-moving tour of wonders and horrors, well worth reading, even if its individual parts are greater than the novel as a whole. The novel goes by a number of different names. … Continue reading →

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Where Ignorance Is Blish: PLANET STORIES, July 1951

Posted on July 4, 2025 by JE

If an evil fate cast me back in time to the late 1930s, and I were compelled to join one of the factions emerging in the tempest-filled teapot of early sf fandom, I would probably side with the Futurians. They … Continue reading →

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Bookalanche!

Posted on July 2, 2025 by JE

Past Me is sometimes a deadly enemy. For instance, he only left me two pieces of pizza from the other night so that I could celebrate the first day of True Summer with the Breakfast of Champions–cold pizza and hot … Continue reading →

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Science Fiction and Mr. Brown

Posted on June 6, 2025 by JE

Much of the short paragraph below by Fredric Brown is outdated and/or not meant to be taken seriously. But I like his conclusion about sf, which I would broaden to include fantasy (as sf often did in those now-distant days: … Continue reading →

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Dial D for Diogenes

Posted on June 2, 2025 by JE

Reading Diogenes Laertius through for the 1st time. Before I’d only read specific bios, like his account of Diogenes the Cynic. DL seems to be agnostic regarding philosophic schools, interested in philosophy more from a historical and literary point of … Continue reading →

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