by Drew Ellenwood | May 8, 2018 | Fantasy & Theology
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...
by Drew Ellenwood | Aug 2, 2014 | Fantasy & Science Fiction, Fantasy & Theology
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,...
by Drew Ellenwood | Mar 12, 2014 | Fantasy & Theology
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...
by Drew Ellenwood | Jan 15, 2014 | Fantasy & Science Fiction, Fantasy & Theology
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...
by Drew Ellenwood | Oct 10, 2013 | Fantasy & Science Fiction
Let’s talk about fantasy worlds from various sources. I’m going to start, of course, with C.S. Lewis’s Narnia, a world simple enough for children and complex enough for adults. Magic Magic infuses Narnia from the beginning when Aslan sang it into being. But for the...