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# Shannon McDermott

Christian Author

## Sitemaps

- [XML Sitemap](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website.

## Posts

- [The Arc and the Epilogue](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=5746) - In the beginning, Pixar made Toy Story, and it was good. In the beginning, Pixar made Toy Story, and it was good.
- [Coming This Summer ...](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=8597) - When the world is ending - but first, you'll have coffee.
- [A Tale of Two Holidays](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=8583) - Easter used to be a lot more like Christmas.
- [A Story For An Impoverished Holiday](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=8574) - New Year's should have a story.
- [Hanging in the Stars](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=8567) - AI is a genie released from its bottle, and it is too late to go back.
- [What is a Person?](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=8554) - The question here raised is, What is a sufferer? You might as well ask, What is a person?
- [The New Babel](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=8545) - AI is the newest tool in the old business of spirituality. AI is the newest tool in the old business of spirituality.
- [The Heart of the Revolution](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=8541) - #post_excerptThe crux of the AI Revolution is what will be outsourced to our thinking machines.
- [A Labor-Saving Device](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=8533) - AI is performing intellectual labor in private life. Labor is labor, whether physical or mental, and AI is a labor-saving device. Labor is labor, whether physical or mental, and AI is a labor-saving device.
- [It was Automation](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=8516) - A new wave of automation is rising, and it holds a threat.
- [ARC Reveal](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=8502) - The arcs of SINGULARITY have been printed! The arcs of SINGULARITY have been printed!
- [cover reveal!](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=8484) - I am excited to reveal the cover of Singularity, the second book of the Eternities series.
- [title reveal!](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=8466) - I am pleased to reveal the title for my upcoming release.
- [A Dark Little Tale](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=8462) - “Judgement Night" is a dark little tale that demonstrates the power of stories.
- [The Art of Evasion](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=8454) - Six devices of the art of evasion.
- [Keeping Christmas](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=8448) - The Ghosts of Christmas taught Scrooge to keep Christmas with charity; they also taught him to keep it with joy.
- [Patience Obtains](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=8437) - For the past few years, I have had a quotation from St. Teresa taped on my desk: Patience obtains all things. I took it in the way of a hope rather than a promise. Now, with the publication of The Time Door, I have been thinking about patience, and what it obtains. I began work With the publi #cation of THE TIME DOOR, I have been thinking about patience, and what it obtains.
- [A Brief Fairy Tale](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=4193) - This brief fairy tale, originally written for the Prism Book Tour, is based on the story world of The Valley of Decision. One deep night, a mother of Alamir tells her child the story of another night, long, long ago ... One more tale? All right, my love; just one. Long ago, the great father One deep night, a mother of Alamir tells her child the story of another night, long, long ago …
- [In the Beginning](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=4425) - This (nearly) past year saw the publication of my second novel The Valley of Decision - the culmination of a long process that began six years ago. At that time, I had finished the manuscript that became The Last Heir and I needed a new project. I had never written fantasy, had never planned or
- [Happiness is an Aesthetic](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=5985) - There is a scene in Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday where an English detective, impersonating an anarchist, is joined in a "foul tavern" by another English detective, impersonating a nihilistic German professor. The second undercover detective ordered a glass of milk, in keeping with the habits of the Professor de Worms. But he rejected,
- [A Little Thing](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=4468) - When I was writing one of the earliest scenes of The Valley of Decision, I came - while hastening to the main point, which was the introduction of Keiran, the Captain of the Hosts - to a bit moment where an officer clears the way for the army's highest commanders: "Way for the ..." For
- [The Northmen](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=4511) - I am bringing down hobgoblins from the mountains, Men from the Coldlands. The Valley of Decision The Men of the Coldlands were barbarians. That is the first thing to understand. They wore animal skins, sang of their war gods, and knew nothing of letters or runes. They forged bronze rather than iron into weapons, and
- [Appendix of Names](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=4673) - During the earliest development of The Valley of Decision, I established this pattern of naming: of Gaelic origin, unusual enough that the names would not be common in our own world, but not too unusual. I avoided names like Ruairidh because it just looks too foreign. Who would care to guess how to pronounce it?
- [Another Few Highlights](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=5869) - A few months ago I highlighted those books that, in my two years reviewing for Lorehaven Magazine, were most memorable. These highlights were mostly flash reviews with a slight turn of book recommendation, if you want to take them that way (I disclaim). I decided to reprise the idea and broaden it - not highlights
- [Lazarus, Come from the Dead](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=5918) - I am Lazarus, come from the dead,Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all. - T.S. Eliot, "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" In the last glimpse we catch of Lazarus, he is sitting at a dinner held in Christ's honor, the object of the crowd's curiosity and the target of a
- [A Cheerful Holiday](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=5852) - The New Year is a cheerful holiday. It's more trifling, perhaps, than the sacred holidays and even weighty days of remembrance like Memorial Day and July Fourth. But if more trifling, it's also lighter, and that also has its charm. The turn of the year is a hopeful time, turning people to the future, to
- [The Most Dangerous Words](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=6135) - The most dangerous words are the ones that you think you understand. This is a trap of old books, where familiar words often hold strange meanings.
- [The Feast of Hallowmas](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=6093) - You can tell the strange disconnect between the holidays of October 31 and November 1 by the fact that the first is popularly called Halloween, and the second All Saints' Day. Hallowmas and All Hallows' Day are among the other names for the church feast of November 1, and from these names, of course, Halloween
- ["God Knows"](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=6119) - And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: "Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown".
- [What the People Want](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=5859) - You have to take success where it comes, even if it happens to come on Netflix. That can be a little galling if what you really wanted was success on the silver screen, all across the United States. I learned that from Martin Scorsese, who has received a great deal of acclaim for The Irishman
- [A Few Highlights](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=5769) - So you all know about Lorehaven, right? Great. I began writing reviews for Lorehaven about two years ago. Lorehaven reviews are most often short, no more than 150 words, and their purpose is to help you know whether the book in question is the sort of thing you would like. Whether it is the sort
- [Not Always Popular](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=5882) - Today we are going to discuss three distinctly Christian subgenres of speculative fiction and why they are not always popular with Christian readers of speculative fiction - such as myself, and possibly you. Feel free to share. First, a disclaimer is in order. I am not, in principle, opposed to any of these genres, and
- [The Departure From Normality](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=5908) - Two weeks ago, life was normal. Back then you could go to the theater, or set up camp in a Starbucks with a laptop and a latte, or go to the store with breezy confidence of finding toilet paper. The churches were open. Remember that? Now we are all waiting for a return to normalcy.
- [An Icon of Melodrama](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=5932) - If you consider the facts from a certain distance - objectively, even analytically - you would have to conclude that the image of a woman tied to the railroad tracks is grim. Tragic, even, if the evident intention is realized. We take it to be comical, but we're not really to blame. The damsel in
- [Somewhere Out There](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=5939) - On the chance that anyone is not finding current events sufficiently bizarre, the Pentagon released UFO videos. Some people concluded from the imagery that aliens have already surreptitiously visited Earth and are probably planning an invasion that will end life as we know it. Pessimists, though, suggested that the so-called UFOs are really just afterimages.
- [Redundant Redundancies](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=5951) - Today's topic is redundant phrases. We have all had it drilled into us that redundancy is bad and clean, effective communication excises the pointless. We also have ingrained into us our civilization's stock of well-worn and oft-used expressions, which did not undergo a strict vetting by licensed grammarians and therefore contains redundancies. Like Orwell's animals,
- [The Crux of the Tragedy](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=5965) - Shakespeare is the greatest writer in the English language. I know because everyone says so. Like most of you, I was compelled to experience his greatness in school, and I did not particularly enjoy it. (It was Othello. I could not work out the math by which the Great Handkerchief Scandal resulted in murder.) Earlier
- [The Decision of Meaning](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=5973) - The happiest person in Romeo and Juliet is Rosaline, who had the good sense to be uninvolved. Romeo spent his initial scenes declaring her matchless beauty, his undying love, that there would never be another woman for him, etc., up until he met Juliet and immediately began saying all those things about her instead. Romeo
- [A Critic's Phrase](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=5994) - I didn't pay much attention when Rise of Skywalker was released. I had already decided, skipping the trouble and expense of actually seeing it, that the movie was better than The Last Jedi but not exactly good. There was, of course, too much talk about the movie to entirely miss it. A word kept recurring
- [Past the High Point](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=6007) - Genuinely compelling villains, although always too few, exist in fair abundance. Much more rare is a compelling villain who charts a convincing and satisfying redemption arc. Rarest of all is a compelling villain who, at the end of his satisfying redemption arc, does not promptly die. It grows predictable and, occasionally, rather bleak. Why can't
- [An Acquittal](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=6017) - Dostoevsky's Devils is a 700-page epic of spiritual lawlessness, conniving, and singularly poor decisions. For most of the novel, this plays out in long conversations, awkward domestic scenes, and some very unfortunate social events. At the climax, everything joins in a conflagration of murders and suicides, with two or three natural deaths for variation in tragedy.
- [Two Classics](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=6027) - I read two classics this past summer: Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and Dostoevsky's Devils. I was maybe two hundred pages into Devils when I realized, with a measure of surprise, that the book reminded me of Jane Austen. Not the political revolution, of course, or the atheism and murder; the book's conclusion, in which Dostoevsky
- [A Thanksgiving Thought](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=6035) - In Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton turned to fairy-tales for an analogy and made the following remark: If the miller’s third son said to the fairy, “Explain why I must not stand on my head in the fairy palace,” the other might fairly reply, “Well, if it comes to that, explain the fairy palace.” If Cinderella says,
- [The Principal Point](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=6042) - In a sign that nature is healing, Disney is once again blitzing the world with Marvel content. Disney released the trailers (and dates!) for its Marvel shows that have been coming and coming and may, in 2021, actually arrive. I will focus our attention particularly on the Loki series, it being an incontrovertible truth of
- [Back](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=6089) - Well, I am back. I could, I suppose, go over where I have been, or possibly where I am going--but for the moment, I will focus only on where I am. I am currently reviewing books with Lorehaven. You can find me on the crew manifest, though it would be more interesting to explore the
- [Charles Dickens' First Drafts](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=6127) - We are reading Dickens’ first drafts.
- [The Quality of Love](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=6099) - When King Lear begins to realize the truth of his daughters’ love, he exclaims, “Ingratitude! Thou marble-hearted fiend!” He never understood the quality of his own love.
- [Contract Signed!](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?p=6113) - I am pleased to announce that I have signed a book contract with Enclave Publishing.

## Pages

- [Home](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/) - These are days of hardship and catastrophe, but we are the fighters and we are the winners. - Singularity (Book Two of the Eternities Duology) The Time Door A RECKLESS LAST MISSION ON MARS, A CRUSADE FOR JUSTICE ON EARTH… Reuben Jackson is the only one who still cares about Mars. In the shambles of
- [About](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?page_id=8414) - About Shannon Shannon’s Bio More About Shannon Shannon has always been a fan of science fiction. She was a long-time contributor at SpeculativeFaith, and currently reviews speculative fiction as a staff writer with Lorehaven. The Time Door, her first novel with Enclave Publishing, was released in October 2024. Her earlier works include “Jack and I” (Once Upon a Future Time: Volume
- [The Time Door](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?page_id=8424) - The Time Door The Eternities Duology: Book 1 The Time Door Reuben Jackson is the only one who still cares about Mars. In the shambles of the Great Collapse, Earth has abandoned the Mars explorers to their fate. But Reuben will make a stand for the Mars team—even against the powerfully united politicians and scientists.
- [The Valley of Decision](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?page_id=7622) - The Valley of Decision Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!Joel iii.xiv Far away, beyond the Northwood and the Black Mountains, Belenus rules the kingdom of the north. How many centuries, how many thousands of years, he has held the north, no one knows. But when our distant fathers came over the mountains, he was
- [Previous Works](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?page_id=6292) - Previous Works The Valley of Decision A SAGA OF SLAVERY, FREEDOM, AND CHOICES. Where the Black Mountains pierce the sky, they divide the south from the north, Alamir from the kingdom of Belenus. Belenus, the undying master of the north, commanded Keiran – the Captain of the Hosts – to conquer Alamir. But the Captain
- [Blog](https://www.shannonmcdermott.com/?page_id=6411) - Shannon's Blog

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