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

Gyron

In the glory years of the Atompunk Age it was customary for major automakers to create buzz by depicted futuristic “concept cars” showing what may be coming down the assembly line in the next few years.  This marvelous illustration not only shows the Ford Gyron with its rocket-like tailight/exhaust piece, but also what were thought …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 3/17/21: The Best of Twittersnips (Off the Map)

You have to look closely at this map until it begins to look a little familiar…. (It’s Europe with water and land masses reversed and relabeled as new countries.) Like the map, here’s some places that currently don’t exist, but could.   Imaginary Places German  cities / towns Ulmesslen, Münrach, Spargán, Amsprechtdanberg, Munsilacht Icelandic  cities …

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Swooning Spaceman

For a change, the BEM (Bug-eyed monster, even though it’s a robot) is carrying away a strapping but unconscious young man instead of a scantily clad young woman. His plight is equally dire as the robot seems none too friendly.

Worldbuilding Wednesday 3/10/21: Let’s Talk About Wakanda

The 2018 Marvel movie Black Panther featured an advanced yet isolated African kingdom called Wakanda which is the birthplace of the titular superhero character, T’Challa, who is its King. Wakanda is powered by vibranium, one of those rare yet powerful imaginary elements favored by comic writers. Vibranium is both a blessing and a curse: blessing, …

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Equal Opportunity

A hopeful Atompunk depiction of the Space Age from the early 1960s complete with  revolving space station and a family of astronauts with jetpacks. Now the early 1960s were likely as sexist as America ever got, and very very firmly into gender roles — boy child has a blue spacesuit, and girl child a pink …

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Exhalation [Review]

Exhalation by Ted Chiang Alfred A. Knopf, 2019   Ted Chiang is a SFF writer who’s been around for a while but has yet to produce a novel. This collection came out in the early days of 2020 and features his work up to 2019. I checked it out of the Seattle Public Library a …

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Atompunk

Atompunk: A retro-futuristic aesthetic centered around the technology of the 1950s extended into the 21st century and beyond. It often depicts “traditionally American” values such as the nuclear family and a suburban lifestyle; conversely, the totalitarian regimes of Communist Russia and its satellites with their emphasis on technological power. I define its heyday as the …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 3/3/21: Fairy Tales III

This illustration by Arthur Rackham appeared on the cover of a book of Grimm’s fairy tales given to me by my parents. I forget the name of the story, but in it, the child hero, who is peeking out of the stove at the illustration’s approximate center, is hiding from the ogre. He has been …

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