The Christmas season is over. If you subscribe strictly to the church calendar, the season might linger on until Saturday. But as a general social rule, the Christmas season is effectively over after New Year’s Day. Now it’s time to get back to life and start the new year (2019: What Could Go Wrong?). So…
Shannon’s Blog
The Saving Mystery
Last time I came by this way, I talked about Coco‘s demoralizing portrait of the afterlife and how it casts a pall over the movie. Today, I want to move that discussion to a more general question of how the afterlife ought to be portrayed in fiction. My concern is not the gate to heaven…
A Fatal Flaw
Amid all the sequels Pixar has been rattling off the assembly line, last year’s Coco comes as something of a relief: original and visually brilliant, funny and tender in the good old Pixar way. Disney can’t handle two living parents; Pixar can handle a whole clan, in the capable, work-roughened hands of a fiery matriarch….
A March of Stereotypes
Last week, Becky Miller discussed the tendency of modern SF to stereotype women as aggressive protagonists who do what men do, only in heels. Her well-made points turned my thoughts to the treatment of women in speculative fiction. The portrayal of women has varied greatly from era to era and from author to author. It…
Blog Tour: Beyond Her Calling
Welcome to the blog tour of Beyond Her Calling, a new Christian historical romance written by Kellyn Roth. I am pleased to introduce Ena Owen, one of the people who populates the Scottish village of Keefmore. Ena Owen Bio: Ena Owen is a mother and widow who now runs the general store in the…
A Simple Line
Now that Amazon has acquired film rights to Lord of the Rings, and Netflix has licensed all seven Chronicles of Narnia, it is time to stop and ask ourselves: How much do bad adaptations of our favorite books really bother us? I am not saying, mind you, that the adaptations will be bad. But the…
In ‘The Twilight Zone’
There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition … So The Twilight Zone opens, solemnly making it clear that you, the viewer, are not in…
Spotlight: A Great Light
On Tour with Prism Book Tours Book Tour Grand Finale for A Great Light By Jennifer Ball We hope you enjoyed the tour! If you missed any of the stops you can see snippets, as well as the link to each full post, below: Launch – Note from the Author Welcome! I’m so excited to…
A Dark Little Tale
Last week I discovered that my Amazon Prime subscription includes several seasons of the original Twilight Zone. So I came to watch “Judgement Night,” an episode that opens on a civilian ship creeping across the Atlantic Ocean in the unhappy year 1942. I would be reluctant to recommend this dark little tale to many people;…
A Girl and Her Father
Of all biblical stories, Esther is among the best-known and most retold. There is good reason for this. It is a complete and satisfying tale, with peril and victory, with an underdog who wins, a villain who gets his comeuppance, and a brave, beautiful heroine. Its attraction is enormous, but a curious pattern emerges among…