I have been continuing my read of Christmas Books of Dickens. There is a genre of Christmas entertainment – songs, movies, stories – that has been called “Christmas bubblegum”: high on sugar, low on substance. Dickens’ stories, for all their sentiment, could never be classed in it. They have too much sadness, and too much…
Month: December 2011
Christmas Books of Dickens
Two nights ago, in honor of the season, I picked up Christmas Books of Dickens, a volume I bought at my library’s fall book sale. The first story was, of course, A Christmas Carol. I last read A Christmas Carol a year or two ago, and reading it again I was struck anew by what…
CSFF Blog Tour: Tinkerbell vs. Elrond
Modern fantasy was weaned on J. R. R. Tolkien. Among the precedents he yielded to us is that of the tall, beautiful, wise Elf. This Elf’s principal rival in modern culture is the Fairy – the Pretty Butterfly Fairy, glittery and about fifteen inches tall. You would ask the Elf what to do with a…
CSFF Blog Tour: Aion, Aslan, and Balder
Many Christian fantasy worlds have, as their right religion, a simple monotheism. Characters will speak of, and pray to, the One God – the Maker, He is sometimes called, or the Creator. But holy books are elusive, the places and practices of worship are vague, and redemption is a belief rather than the finished work…
CSFF Blog Tour: Corus the Champion
The sky was yellow with a strange storm. That was their first sign. Their second, less subtle sign was the messages the ravens dropped at their feet. “You have been chosen,” they read, “for a life of great purpose. Adventure awaits you in the Hidden Lands.” Now the four Barlow brothers are in the Hidden…
Blog Tour: Worlds Unseen
The past comes back. Forty long years ago the Council for Exploration Into Worlds Unseen came apart, ending tumultuously after an all-too-brief quest for hidden truth. Its members scattered, took up new lives. Died, a few of them. Now, four decades after they knocked at the door of worlds unseen, the worlds unseen are knocking…
Dreaming At Speculative Faith
Last Friday I made a guest post at Speculative Faith. It was an essay called “Dreaming at the Crossroads,” and it focused on the intersection of Christianity, transhumanism, and speculative fiction. Here are the first couple paragraphs: Nietzsche once declared that God is dead. Later he added that Man ought to be. “Man,” he wrote,…