Erotica, fantasy, and horror writer.

Most commented posts

  1. The Worm Ouroboros
    [Reading Challenge 2018]
    — 6 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

Creepy Elves: Real or Fake?

I decided to have a little fun with my annual post on Christmas horror. Creepy-looking elves abound on the internet creating their own little Uncanny Valleys, and it’s just as easy for AI Art engines to make them as well, whether or not they were intended to be creepy. So I am trying an experiment. …

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Masks of the Snow Queen, Part 1

For many years my favorite science fiction novel was The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge. The book was a comfort read for me. I had read it so often I could quote it, and given a sentence or two from anywhere in the book, I could tell what came before, and what came after. …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 11/30/22: Magic Items of Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt, I’ve found, is so fascinating on its own that for fantasy writers and worldbuilders there isn’t a lot that needs to be created from scratch. The amulets above, for example, were created in about an hour using text prompts and various AI art generators. And ancient Egyptians did love their amulets. Any significant …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 11/23/22: Names of Ancient Egypt

The civilization of Ancient Egypt has enthralled the Western world ever since Napoleon’s forays down the Nile brought it to the attention of European scholars. Part of that was the indecipherable hieroglyphics that covered its temples, tombs, and monuments. Not until the 1850s were these translated into English, using cross-translations from the Rosetta Stone. In …

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Dragon Waffle

I present to you… a waffle shaped like a Chinese dragon! AI art at its greatest.

Worldbuilding Wednesday 11/16/22: Let’s Talk About -ling

A few months ago, back in August 2022, the ARCs (advanced reader’s copies) of a YA fantasy novel, Lightlark, were released to selected readers and reviewers to generate some buzz. The author, Alex Aster, had generated plenty already. Already active on BookTok — the TikTok community centered around reading and authors — she’d been talking …

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Dragon Empress, Empress Dragon

At the top, Dragon Empress; at the bottom, Empress Dragon. Both AI variations on the same source art, with differing word order.

Worldbuilding Wednesday 10/26/22: Hogwarts Houses

Now that Halloween is coming around, let’s talk about a perennial costume: Harry Potter. Either Harry himself, in a black robe (a polyester one used for graduations is available at most thrift stores), scarf, round eyeglasses, and eye-penciled scarf, or one of the other characters such as Snape, Hermione, or a Death Eater. All have …

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She Came from Planet Five

She came from Planet Five I knew it all the time She wore a metal miniskirt As she stood knee-deep in dirt

Worldbuilding Wednesday 10/12/22: Those Damned Ds

The letter D is dandy, dignified, dauntless, darling. Though it looks pregnant, I’d say its gender is masculine.  It has a Medieval vibe; J. R. R. Tolkien was fond of using it in the dh combination, meant to be pronounced as a hard th as is found in the word clothing. Dragon starts with D, …

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