Category Archives: fantasy

No Maps of Hell

Posted on February 19, 2025 by JE

Saw the article below on Bluesky and felt the irritation that almost always accrues when scrolling through social media. But this irritation was really specific. Demanding a historically accurate version of a myth is like trying to find the zip … Continue reading →

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What Are the Óðs?

Posted on February 19, 2025 by JE

I was thinking the other day about Hengist and Horsa, the two Saxon chieftains/gangsters who show up to assist and then overpower the usurper Vortigern in the run-up to King Arthur’s origin story. Horsa (Horsus in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Latin) … Continue reading →

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Call Him Poul (if you can pronounce it)

Posted on February 18, 2025 by JE

A judicious review by Paul Weimer of a great NESFA volume linked below. I liked this book a lot, but for me the most distinctive feature of this series is the one that I like least: the stories are a … Continue reading →

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Worlds on Worlds Are Rolling Ever…

Posted on February 18, 2025 by JE

I realized this weekend that one of the pleasures of inventing a Martian language was coining new names for all the planets. (Including ones that don’t really exist, like Vulcan, Antichthon, and the Lost Planet that was once supposed to … Continue reading →

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I’m Going to Mars

Posted on February 13, 2025 by JE

I was posting on a corporate social media site this AM and I blithely wrote something like, “My New Year’s resolution this year is to blog more and post on corporate social media less.” This was kind of a lie, … Continue reading →

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Don’t Myth Out

Posted on January 25, 2025 by JE

I’ve been looking forward to John Wiswell‘s Wearing the Lion since I heard about it, and even more so now that I’ve seen more work by the illustrator, Tyler Miles Lockett. Bold, colorful, imaginative stuff.

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Longish, Re Dilvish

Posted on January 23, 2025 by JE

Roger Zelazny was unquestionably one of the great American fantasists of the 20th century. That’s not to say he was perfect. His woman characters were often 2-dimensional, and he paired an unwillingness to work with an outline (“Trust your demon” … Continue reading →

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Horrible Old Men

Posted on January 13, 2025 by JE

I used to hold the unproven and unprovable belief that old age magnifies moral qualities, so that past a certain point you become more and more evil as you age, or the opposite. I’m not noticing any haloes when I … Continue reading →

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Outlaws, Were-Bears, and Skunks

Posted on September 28, 2024 by JE

I’ve been reading the Gesta Herwardi (“The Deeds of Herward” a.k.a. “Hereward the Wake”), one of the original outlaw stories from England (although it’s written not in English, but in Latin—because, no doubt, Everything Is Better With Latin!™). The Robin … Continue reading →

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Creepypasta

Posted on September 23, 2023 by JE

Seen on Bluesky: Gustaw Gwozdecki’s “Evening Melancholy”, c.1905. I didn’t know it on sight, but somehow it felt familiar. I wonder if I saw it a long time ago and it re-surfaced from my subconscious when I needed a creepy … Continue reading →

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