Here’s a blog from my daughter Lucy on one of her and my favorite movies, Signs. A great discussion starter. Enjoy. Let me go ahead and offend 95% of evangelical Christians: I do not like Christian movies. I’ll let the evangelicals freak out for a moment…they’re saying I haven’t seen Fireproof. I have. They’re saying […]
Fantasy and science fiction fans are accustomed to extraordinary beings. We expect such things. Star Trek introduced an alien race of blue bipeds. Farscape one upped them with a sentient species of blue plants. How’s that for fantastic? Creatures with tentacles, tails, and antennae have parade by. The general human body is boring. Or not? […]
Hold a book in your hand. Where did it come from? The publisher, of course. The publisher probably got it from a literary agent. The agent represented an author. The author had a story to tell. But where did the story come from? Stories start as a spark of an idea. And a story idea […]
When I think about what makes an engaging character in a book, I begin to think on what it means to be a person. What is ‘me’? In writing science fantasy, I’m not interested in simply ‘human’. Human is a species. I want to know what it means to be a person no matter the […]
Invincibility is a story killer. The magic in fantasy or the technology in science fiction can be so awesome that nothing is able to stand against it. For storytelling, this is bad. Story needs conflict, a way to endure or overcome, a real chance of failure. If the hero is so endowed with greatness that […]
In order to connect with us meager humans in the real world, a fantasy novel needs to have at least a few things in common with life as we know it. Your populace could well have tentacles about their mouths or three arms at the top of their heads or hair on the bottoms […]
Is magic necessary in fantasy? My first inclination is to say, “I hope not,” because my book Curious Origins of a Restless World has no magic. Before you think, “Well, who would want to read that?”, at least stick with me through the end of the blog. Why? Because whether having magic or […]
I was watching a movie a while back and the hero of the story ended up attending a forum between a Christian theologian and an atheist. Yeah, it was about as fun as it sounds. The hero by mid-movie was confused as to what to believe regarding… well, regarding most everything. He had gone to […]
First off, let me be clear: When I say the ‘death of stars,’ I’m talking about celestial fusion reactors that shine in the sky, not modern celebrities that smile or frown on supermarket tabloids. Though the words ‘celestial’ and ‘celebrity’ would seem to have a common root (they don’t) and though the rise and fall of […]
I wonder about the question of universal redemption from evil. It’s the question that started me writing my science fantasy Curious Origins of a Restless World. Here’s my thoughts on the purely theoretical question of fantasy theology… Or is it theoretical? 1. Non-Sentient Let’s first consider a planet with life but no life that has […]
