Christian fantasy literature, and commentary on assorted subjects
From June 20, 2013
Did I read that sign correctly?
TOILET OUT OF ORDER. PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW
In a Laundromat:
AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES: PLEASE REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT (??????)
In a London department store:
BARGAIN BASEMENT UPSTAIRS
In an office:
WOULD THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE STEP LADDER YESTERDAY PLEASE BRING IT BACK OR FURTHER STEPS WILL BE TAKEN
From October 4, 2013
There’s a new movement in fantasy literature, summed up as “Gritty is good” by my fellow blogger, James, at “Fantasy in Motion” ( http://fantasyinmotion.wordpress.com/). James defines it: “[T]he current trend in fantasy is to practically brutalize your heroes before letting them win (or die).” And, “Our heroes now are almost anti-hero in nature. We’re meant to root for the thief, the assassin and the mercenary.”
Not me, pal.
James holds up Game of Thrones as the exemplar of “gritty” fantasy. I think Game of Thrones is dreary. I mean, the bad guys always win. That’s not fantasy. That’s New Jersey politics.
If I want “gritty,” I can just look out my window.
Gritty is the gavones next door cursing each other and pounding each other until the cops come to cart them off.
Gritty is your town, your state, and your country being “governed” by thieves, liars, perverts, and swine.
Why, as a fantasy writer, would I ever want to create a place like Camden, NJ? There already is a real Camden, and it’s horrible. Why, as a fantasy reader, would I ever want to collect ugliness, cruelty, treason, etc? I can read about it all I want to in the newspapers. Turn on the TV or the radio, and there it is.
Here’s something that I do like–gritty on the outside, but gold underneath. Toshiro Mifune was a genius when it came to playing characters like that. Remember Strider, in Lord of the Rings, who turns out to be Aragorn, the king?
In all too much of real life we get grit on the outside and not gold, but grot underneath: dirty on the outside, and even dirtier on the inside.
I don’t want it in my fantasy.
From May 12, 2013
Which movie is a more telling metaphor for the secular humanist enterprise–Jurassic Park or Laurel and Hardy in The Music Box?
In Jurassic Park we see what happens when very smart people with unlimited money behind them think that if they spend enough money, and employ powerful technology, they can do anything, no matter how impossible it seems. Says the park’s owner, John Hammond (played by Richard Attenborough), “Creation is an act of will!”
Well, yeah–if you’re God. Otherwise it’s just a bunch of idiots playing God and getting into trouble. Hammond’s motto is, “We spared no expense.” As if you could buy omnipotence.
In The Music Box–released in 1932, and going on to win an Oscar–Laurel and Hardy have to transport a piano to a house located atop a very long and very steep flight of concrete steps. Actually, this could have been done fairly easily. But Stan and Ollie continually create their own problems, defeating themselves at every turn. It’s only 30 minutes long, and if you haven’t seen it, you’ve missed one of the funniest half-hours ever filmed.
But the lesson is that problems that could be solved don’t get solved–not when the people handling those problems are nitwits. With God all things are possible. With the current leaders of the Western world, no things are possible. Laurel and Hardy’s piano-moving business has expanded to branch offices in Washington, Brussels, Peking, and every other world capital. What they did to Billy Gilbert‘s living room, their descendants in Congress are doing to our national economy.
Every so often, the wheels fall off the humanist go-kart, and we get a world war or a depression. Sorta like the dinosaurs getting loose in Jurassic Park and eating everybody. And what do we hear from our leaders? The same as we hear from John Hammond: “Next time it’ll be perfect!”
And if that doesn’t work, they can always fall back on, “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!”
I spent most of today getting in my own way.
Had a great deal of trouble accomplishing anything.
Of course the weather didn’t help. I can hear some of you groaning “Oh, she’s on about the weather again”, but hear me out. It went up to 80 today. Two days ago I was wearing my down puffer coat. It’s kind of hard on the ole body (at least my ole body) to deal with.
Then, when I went to the store, I discovered my cars a/c didn’t work. The blower is working–it blows like a son-of-a-gun-but it blows hot air. Please, let it just be a fuse.
Other than that, all is OK.
Tomorrow I have 2 things that I must accomplish.
Anything over that is a bonus.
Pray for our troops.
God bless everybody.
Patty
Here are a couple of my friends at Arthur’s court. They let you take pictures now.
From September 4, 2015
I read somewhere that an author can sell more books if he’s had an interesting life. I have decided that makes sense. Herewith is my enhanced biography, full of stuff you never knew about me.
I was born at an undisclosed location, and it was not until recently that I learned my true origins, which I am not at liberty to disclose. To know that I walked the earth would be a mortal disappointment to a certain powerful government.
I was a Navy Seal when they were still known as Walruses. You could look it up. In 1968 we kidnapped Mao Tse-tung, but the White House made us give him back. This incident made me cynical, so I quit government service and went on to visit countries that are not supposed to exist, but do.
For two years I advised the Steward of Gondor, and if he’d taken my advice, they would’ve all saved themselves a lot of trouble. I have been a vacuum cleaner salesman in Narnia, not one of my more lucrative enterprises, and an estate manager for Lord Greystoke, aka Tarzan of the Apes, in the country just north of Opar–places you won’t find on any map.
I have learned the name of him who comes when you whistle for him, O my lad, and I have visited most of the royal courts mentioned in The Mabinogion. At the court of Arthur, Kay threatened to expose me as a mountebank. Unwilling to change history by damaging Sir Kay, I wandered until I drifted into the country of Obann. There I heard the Bell of King Ozias sound from the summit of Bell Mountain. I return to Obann as often as I can.
I haven’t mentioned any of this stuff in interviews. John Carter says he’ll feed me to the Green Martians if I do.