Just on the side of the road, as you enter the little town in the mountains, there is a sign: Beckon: You’re here for a reason. And I can see why they chose that. It certainly beats out: Beckon: There is something seriously wrong with these people. It’s a pity, you know, that the sign…
Tag: blog tour
CSFF Blog Tour: Character Profiles: The Autobiographical Insert
I sighed and put my head down on the steering wheel. “I hate shrinks. But I guess I could take you to see Dr. van Pelt.” I had to start seeing Dr. van Pelt after my first book, Imaginary Jesus, came out. With all the hallucinations of Jesus and time travel and talking donkeys, my…
CSFF Blog Tour: My Imaginary Jesus
Many people have, I suppose, believed in an imaginary Jesus – taken from the pages of Scripture and then quietly tailored to their own psyches. But Matt Mikalatos is uniquely privileged in being able to see his imaginary Jesus. He is even more uniquely privileged in having the Apostle Peter show up to expose his…
CSFF Blog Tour: Night of the Living Dead Christian
If you discovered that one of your neighbors was a werewolf, what would you do about it? If you answered, “Move”, you are not Matt Mikalatos. He would decide to kidnap and cure the werewolf or, at last resort, kill him. Then – because silver bullets are so hard to buy and even harder to…
Reports for Those who Worry (About Planet Earth)
I said in my last post that the CSFF blog tour would be this week. Well … The tour normally starts on the third Monday of the month. I thought, then, that the blog tour would run this week, but as is painfully clear, I was wrong. I would’ve (should’ve, anyway) posted on this earlier,…
CSFF Blog Tour: When Pop Culture and High Fantasy Collide
In my review of Realms Thereunder, I said that Ross Lawhead was like D. Barkley Briggs in rejecting the ideal Elves of Tolkien for the ambiguous fairies of folklore. There is another way in which they are similar: Both invoked pop culture in their fantasy novels. I’ve been pondering this. Is it a bad idea…
CSFF Blog Tour: The Realms Thereunder
He’s a homeless man living on the streets of Oxford, trying to eat and yearning for the realms thereunder. She’s an Oxford student with a lifetime of lies and an abundance of compulsions – dreading every day the realms thereunder. It’s hard to say which of them has the bigger problem. As children, Daniel and…
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…