An Update (Intermission) Post of a Talented Fantasy, Historical, and Sci-Fi Writer

Though my next scheduled post on famous women forebear writers is due soon,  I couldn’t resist offering an intermission here covering the works being done by a talented and imaginative writer whose blog I’ve covered before when it was under another title.  D. James Fortescue is the writer in question, and for his territory he has carved out the broad areas of historical fantasy, fantasy, and science fiction.

The first story of his I would like to mention is currently completed, and is entitled “Mune and Mura.”  It is a historical work about two Japanese swordsmen, actual historical figures who in reality were from different eras, brought together by DJ as friends and accomplices.  This story is a tribute to friendship and an energetic and insightful view into feudal Japan and its history.  (I’m not going to tell what happens finally in any of the tales, in this case because I don’t want to spoil the fun and in the case of the next two stories to be described because I don’t yet know what the endings are and wouldn’t want to spoil them in any case.)

A work which DJ has nearly finished and has been posting in segments is a work of fantasy named “Sayeh and Zia.”  It’s yet another fine work, this time set in ancient Persia and Egypt, concerned with the merchant and cavaranserai cultures, and composed largely of fictional characters from DJ’s rich imagination, though real people and historical places are mentioned.  In both this and the aforementioned swordsmen historical tale, magical objects figure importantly, in “Mune and Mura” magical scrolls and swords, in “Sayeh and Zia” magical masks.  I leave the reader to unearth how these objects are used and their pertinence to the characters involved.

Another work which DJ has nearly finished is “On Venusian Cloud Colony Number Nine,” a work of science fiction which explores the relations between people and between peoples nearly as much as it does between planets.   This work is as gripping and suspenseful as a whodunit, which in a sense it is, because when one of the members of the mining team on Venus comes down with strange symptoms, “whodunit” is indeed the pertinent question, not why.  I won’t say more, but this tale, in its trip from Venus to Earth and back to Venus, is my favorite of the short fictions DJ has given us, though they are all three meritorious and worthy of respect.  I eagerly scan my mail every day for signs that “Sayeh and Zia” and “On Venusian Cloud Colony Number Nine” are being continued for me to read, and I sometimes imagine that I am like an old-time reader of Charles Dickens’s serially published works, waiting for the next installment to come out, or like an aficionado of the radio in the old days when cliffhanger endings were provided for each on-going radio adventure series.

As well, DJ is engaged in writing a lengthier WIP which seems to have stalled sheerly because his brain is teeming with so many good ideas at once that he has been rushing to put them down for us to read.  The three aforementioned short stories are a case in point.  As well, he not only takes time to mention the works of others and pay tribute to published authors, of whom he keeps up a rigorous reading schedule and posts on his site the names and some assessing information about the works he reads, but he also generously covers the works of others like himself whom he calls “aspiring fellow writers,” of which I have been lucky enough to have been one, even though we don’t write similar sorts of fiction.

In all of these ways, DJ has clearly thrown his hat into the ring to be considered a serious and valuable addition to every reader’s library from the ‘net, and I hope you will travel across to his site and have a look at all the work he has done and what he has accomplished:  I promise you won’t be disappointed.