Category Archives: Uncategorized

On balance, I liked 300. I decline utterly to interpret it as a political allegory for the war in Iraq, or whatever Procrustean bed of pseudosymbolism some commentators are trying to fit it to. It just doesn’t seem like it’s … Continue reading →

As far as magic goes, in fantasy fiction, is less actually more? I’ve been mulling this over lately, apropos a thread at the Black Gate forum (starting about here). On the one hand, I think a magic-intensive narrative faces the … Continue reading →

My son alerted me to the new movie The Last Mimzy, which adapts Lewis Padgett’s Henry Kuttner’s “All Mimsy Were the Borogoves.” The trailer is available at the movie’s official website. It looks like an okay movie but I’m pretty … Continue reading →

Paul Jessup proposes a new line of public domain classics in affordable editions. Sounds like a blast!

An interesting discussion of plot here at Steve Goble’s Swords Against Boredom, and a discussion of plot vs. character in fantasy, starting here on the Black Gate message boards. More later, maybe, as this has been much on my mind … Continue reading →

It’s been a long wait, but the preview for Black Gate issue 10 is up. The magazine itself is due out in March. As always, I’m impressed by Chuck Lukacs’ take on Morlock. Also, I wonder what the horse is … Continue reading →

I succumbed to temptation and put up an egomaniacal shrine a website at https://jamesenge.com/. The motivating factor was that, with Pitch-Black dead, one of my “published” stories is likely to be seen by almost no one. So I coded it … Continue reading →

In a recent post at Deep Genre, Constance Ash quoted a NYT film writer’s passing mention of genre in movies: My point is not that these movies are interchangeable, or that their similarities betray a lack of imagination on the … Continue reading →

I’ve been flipping through Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style (2nd ed., 1972), prompted by a glance through Weird Tales‘ guidelines. I’ve owned the book for roughly 30 years and hated it continously all through that time. I don’t … Continue reading →

Another unexpected day off in the middle of the week. As I was kicking my way through snowdrifts, on my way downtown to buy some flowers for the One, I realized the storm had been a little more severe than … Continue reading →