Erotica, fantasy, and horror writer.

Most commented posts

  1. The Worm Ouroboros
    [Reading Challenge 2018]
    — 7 comments
  2. The Lady of the Green Kirtle (Part I) — 5 comments
  3. The Wild Lands of the North
    (and a bit about Giants)
    — 4 comments
  4. All Things Charn (Part I) — 4 comments
  5. Worldbuilding Wednesday 8/30/17: Mundane Fare — 3 comments

Author's posts

Ultraseven Vintage

Some vintage Ultraseven record and publication covers from Japan done in that inimitable colorful 1960s style, heavy on the primary red, blue, and yellow. Look closely at the first image, where Ultraseven has a mouth with a lower lip, and it is open! He also has human eyes behind his hexagonal ones. I wonder if …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 5/4/22: Canadian Provinces

Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Yukon, and Nunavat are some of the most colorful names in North America, with origins in the languages of the Native peoples of Canada. They, along with the names of certain cities (Saskatoon, Athabasca) are easy for those in the U.S. to make fun of and for years served as comedy shorthand to …

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Ultraseven Sneakers

Ultraseven’s sweet marketing deal with Converse!

Ultraseven [Review]

Ultraseven Tsurubaya television series 1967 – 1968 Originally shown on Tokyo Broadcast System (TBS) and later syndicated I was eight years old when I was introduced to the original Ultraman, which ran midafternoon, after school hours, on a now-defunct UHF station from Philadelphia. Ultraman was a creation of Eiji Tsuburaya, the special effects guru who …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 4/27/22: The Best of Twittersnips (Cocktails)

Cocktail parties still haven’t come back yet. But here’s some that have yet to be concocted, culled from my Twitter feed.   Cocktails Smashing Sheila (this originated in Sydney, Australia) Guinness Lemonade Golden Mickey Goose Sucker Glass Slipper Ballbuster Orange Slum Muddy John Juicy Jackson Vengeance from Hong Kong Rocky Surf Sleepy Cobra Pumpkin Nipple …

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Nontraditional Chimerae

As I said in my post about traditional artistic depictions of chimerae there was little doubt to the creature’s appearance, which remained iconic over hundreds of years. The written descriptions, however, differed in the particulars. Artists of the Medieval age and beyond, depending on which writer they had access to, created different beasts from the …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 4/20/22: Recreational Drugs (Fantasy)

Wherever there’s a fantasy world, there’s probably some sort of fantasy drug. Robert E. Howard’s Conan had Black Lotus, and inhabitants of Phillip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld had Dream Gum to chew. Tolkien gave the Hobbits and Gandalf pipe-weed, or tabac, to smoke, which was likely tobacco and NOT marijuana. If you’re wondering why I included …

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Traditional Chimerae

  It was a single being that had the force of three beasts, the front part of a lion, the tail of a drakon, and the third–middle–head was that of a goat, through which it breathed out fire. — Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2. 31 – 32 (Greek mythographer c. 2nd A.D.)   Chimerae depicted in ancient …

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