James Enge

Blood of Ambrose: a Cross Between Robert E. Howard, Joe Abercombie, Monty Python, HP Lovecraft, and Sam Raimi

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Robert Thompson, of Fantasy Book Critic, on James Enge’s Blood of Ambrose. This is the second comparison to Joe Abercrombie in as many reviews, which is heartening to me, as it’s a similarity that I found very strong when I was initially reading the manuscript and thinking about acquiring it for Pyr.

“Combining elements of sword & sorcery, pulp fiction, the Arthurian legend, humor and horror, James Enges’ debut novel, Blood of Ambrose, is like a cross between Robert E. Howard, Joe Abercombie, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail with a dash of H.P. Lovecraft and Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead sprinkled in… For fantasy lovers, there are plenty of familiar elements… but because of the humor, the cynicism, the trickery and the horror elements, the familiar quickly becomes unfamiliar. …skillfully written and a very fun, imaginative and unique reading experience. In short, I had a blast with Blood of Ambrose and can’t wait for more…”

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Podcast: James Enge talks with Jon Armstrong

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Jon Armstrong has uploaded the latest podcast in his marvelous show, if you’re just joining us. This one is an interview with Blood of Ambroseauthor, James Enge. Jon says, “James and I talked about his pseudonym, sci-fi and fantasy, writing, unicorns, and talking squids.” There is a direct link here, and the podcast is available via iTunes.

“James Enge writes with great intelligence and wit. His stories take twisty paths to unexpected places you absolutely want to go. This isn’t the same old thing; this is delightful fantasy written for smart readers.” —Greg Keyes, New York Times bestselling author of The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series

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A Conversation with James Enge

Tor.com has just uploaded my conversation with James Enge, author of the just-released Swords & Sorcery novel, Blood of Ambrose.I’m fascinated by Enge’s world building, and his views on fantasy fiction in general. Check out the whole post, but here’s a taste:

Morlock, as suits his ornery nature, was born out of annoyance. I’d just been rereading Wells’ The Time Machine and I was annoyed because I thought (and still think) that Wells stacked the deck unfairly against the Morlocks. Somehow this merged with a longstanding grievance I have against Tolkien: JRRT worked too hard to make elves the good guys, often at the expense of dwarves. And—because I was reading a lot of Arthurian source material at the time—I realized that “Morlock” looked like a lot of names in Arthurian legend: Morgan, Morgause, Morholt, Mordred. And so this character named Morlock Ambrosius was born, who was supposed to be to Merlin something like what Mordred was to Arthur.

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Morlock Ambrosius Has Arrived!

James Enge’s Blood of Ambrose is now in stock at Amazon,and at B&N.com. Brick and mortar stores will soon follow!

“James Enge’s work is like Conan as written by Raymond Chandler: rich, witty, aware of its genre’s traditions but not bound by them, with a new surprise of plot or turn of phrase every moment.” —Paul Cornell, Hugo-nominated writer of Doctor Who and Marvel comics

Behind the king’s life stands the menacing Protector, and beyond him lies the Protector’s Shadow…

Centuries after the death of Uthar the Great, the throne of the Ontilian Empire lies vacant. The late emperor’s brother-in-law and murderer, Lord Urdhven, appoints himself Protector to his nephew, young King Lathmar VII and sets out to kill anyone who stands between himself and mastery of the empire, including (if he can manage it) the king himself and his ancient but still formidable ancestress, Ambrosia Viviana.

When Ambrosia is accused of witchcraft and put to trial by combat, she is forced to play her trump card and call on her brother, Morlock Ambrosius—stateless person, master of all magical makers, deadly swordsman, and hopeless drunk.

As ministers of the king, they carry on the battle, magical and mundane, against the Protector and his shadowy patron. But all their struggles will be wasted unless the young king finds the strength to rule in his own right and his own name.

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Free Online Reading: James Enge’s "A Book of Silences"

April will see the release of James Enge’s swords & sorcery novel, Blood of Ambrose,an epic work featuring Morlock Ambrosius, wandering swordsman and master of all magical makers. The book is a stand-alone adventure, but Morlock returns in the (already-delivered) follow-up, This Crooked Way, and we’ve just signed for a third Morlock novel, the wonderfully-titled The Wolf Age. But Morlock Ambrosius already has a significant following, as Enge has been chronicling his adventures in short fiction for some time prior to his novel debut. One such tale,”A Book of Silences,” first appeared in the pages of Black Gate magazine. We are pleased to reprint it in its entirety at the Pyr Sample Chapters page. What’s more, we will shortly be presenting “Fire and Sleet,” which follows directly on the events of “A Book of Silences” and is an original novelette that will debut at the Pyr website for the first time anywhere. So, read and enjoy!

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Books Sold: James Enge’s The Wolf Age

As SFScope, agent Michael Kabongo, and the author himself have already reported, we’ve just completed an agreement with James Enge (via the OnyxHawke agency), to publish a third Morlock Ambrosius novel, this one titled The Wolf Age. The Wolf Age is a third stand-alone adventure featuring his wandering swordsman/master maker Morlock, after the forthcoming This Crooked Way, and the coming-really-soon Blood of Ambrose.

These novels are swords & sorcery at its best, and I’m eager to unleash Morlock on the wider world. Meanwhile, there are a host of Morlock Ambrosius shorts and previews online and aggregated here.

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Sturges & Enge: Talk About Fantastic!

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Part One of an interview with Matt Sturges, author of the forthcoming fantasy Midwinter,is up on Newsarama. He talks about his comic book work – Jack of Fables, Shadowpact, Blue Beetle, House of Mystery, etc… – as well as his long association with Bill Willingham and Chris Roberson.

It wasn’t until I was in college, when my friend Chris Roberson, who is now a novelist and is also the guy who’s writing the new Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love mini-series this year, was the person who introduced me to comics. And the things he liked at the time were Legion of Super-Heroes and all the stuff that would become Vertigo. And because the Legion of Super-Heroes, at the time, made no sense to me, I sort of went for the Vertigo stuff.

Not that I didn’t learn to love superheroes, but for a beginner, the Vertigo type stories were more self-contained. This was the late ’80s, so this was when a lot of great stuff was happening in comics. One of the first things I read was Watchmen, followed by Sandman, then everything Grant Morrison was writing at the time. So those were the books that really formed my sensibilities about what comics could be and should be, and the potential of what you could do in a comic.

Meanwhile, James Enge, whose Blood of Ambrosewe publish in April, is on Rogue Blades talking about the character of Morlock Ambrosius, and the short story “The Red Worm’s Way,” which forms part of the backstory for the novel and appears in the anthology Flashing Swords Presents: The Return of the Sword.

I did a little fencing in high school, so I have some sense of how some parts of a sword fight might work. On a couple of occasions I’ve walked through part of a fight, just to have a sense of whether the footwork was possible. But I try not to over-identify with my viewpoint character: my job as the storyteller is very different from his.

Both are very interesting guys, set to make a spalsh in fantasy when their respective novels debut in just a few short weeks. Hmmm. Maybe they should read & interview each other?

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Can Fix-Ups Be Fixed?

James Enge on the “episodic novel“:

It’s easy to see why an episodic novel might not work. The narrative rhythms of an effective short story are wholly different from those of a novel. Suppose we have a series about the Star Smasher. In the first story, the Star Smasher confronts the ultimate challenge of his career when he faces the searing radium-stars of the Nebular Ninja. In the second story, the Star Smasher confronts the ultimate challenge of his career in the savage star-claws of the Galactic Leopard. In the third story, to introduce some sadly needed variety, we send the Star Smasher on vacation, where he discovers the nefarious plots of the Cruel Concierge of Cassiopeia K. In the fourth story we reveal that the Star Smasher is the secret identity of Glurk Franduel, a minor character who has appeared in the series before. The fifth story is a plotless postmodern meditation on suffering and secrecy where Glurk Franduel and his Star Smasher persona argue at length and with many gratuitious high-cultural allusions in an obvious and somewhat futile attempt to snag a literary award. There is no sixth story because the magazine folded or the editor regained his sanity.

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Unicorns: Have they been mylittleponied into blunt four-color rainbows?

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Every time James Enge pontificates about fantasy fiction, I am fascinated. Here, on the new Black Gate Group Blog, he pontificates about unicorns:

…unicorns have been used and imagined and reimagined so much that their emotional halo has been mylittleponied into blunt four-color rainbows. They’re overfamiliar. …In a way, this is inevitable. Any symbol, if it penetrates deeply into a culture, attracts parody and appropriation—it’s one way you can start to actually see the thing again, as opposed to scanning past it and saying, “Yeah, I know what that is.” …But it seems as if the poppification of the unicorn has gone beyond this, banalizing the image so that it is almost impossible to use it in a semi-serious context, even in fantasy where, one would think, an occasional unicorn might find an unspoiled field to roam in. Can the unicorn be saved? Or is the image just used up and does it need to lie fallow for a century or two before it’s usable again?

Now, “mylittleponied into blunt four-color rainbows” is just priceless.

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