Category: Fantasy Criticism

‘Now I’m Cheesed Off’ (2020)

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Once you go down there, you’ll never come back up.

I don’t know what you have to do to shake off certain publicists. They just won’t take NO! for an answer.

Here’s a publicist trying to get me on board for “Bible stories without God (see the original post from 2019, ‘Bible Stories Without God’)… after I’d already said no.

Now I’m Cheesed Off!

Sometimes I just can’t fathom the sliminess that’s out there. I don’t know why some of these people just don’t spontaneously combust. Obviously they have no fear of God. Is that due to evil, or to profound, bottomless stupidity?

‘Was C.S. Lewis Wrong to Allow Magic in Narnia?’ (2015)

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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Edmund and the White Witch: Picture Book (The Chronicles of Narnia): -: 9780007206063: Amazon.com: Books

I understand: C.S. Lewis was an academic, a scholar, he had all that learning that he wanted to use in God’s service, and over the years he’d gotten used to thinking like a college professor… because, after all, he was one. So it’s unlikely that this problem could have been avoided.

Was C.S. Lewis Wrong to Allow Magic in Narnia?

Well, his friend J.R.R. Tolkien warned him–all that “magic” stuff is going to turn some people off your books.

It makes me wonder: to what degree can a writer put himself in the reader’s shoes? And to what degree should he?

If you’re a writer, it’s a question that just will never let you alone.

‘HBO Presents–Filthworld’ (2015)

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Don’t be fooled! It’s a killer robot.

(Question: Is HBO still in business? I’ve never had a pay-TV station, so how would I know?)

We’d resent it if the Dept. of Sanitation dumped garbage into our living room. But cable TV companies and movie studios do it all the time–and we pay them to do it!

HBO Presents: Filthworld

Yeah, HBO took Michael Crichton’s science-fiction thriller about the theme park from Hell (this was before Jurassic Park) and packed it chock-full of aberrant sex. And no, I didn’t watch it. I can still read descriptions when I put my mind to it.

We keep thinking culture-killing is a recreation which we can get away with indefinitely. Someday someone will write the history of how our alleged civilization destroyed itself.

Don’t say the Bible didn’t warn ’em.

My Newswithviews Column, Aug. 9 (‘Disney’s Debacle’)

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HAUNTED MANSION | Majestic Neighborhood Cinema Grill Tempe | Movie Theater

Not an original thought in all the house…

[The eye doctor didn’t dilate my pupils this morning, so I’m ready to get back to work.]

Will there still be a Disney Corp by 2026? At the rate they’re losing money, it wouldn’t surprise me if the whole thing went belly-up. “Too big to fail” can easily turn into “Too big not to fail.”

Disney’s Debacle

What is the point of alienating your customer base? What is it about normal people and their normal lives that incites the Disney cult to double down on Woke sermon movies? Do they not care that all these box-office duds are losing money? They act like they don’t care a bit.

Is there anything left in America that Far Left Crazy hasn’t corrupted?

 

‘Four Outrageous Fantasies’ (2011)

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Twenty-eleven seems an awfully long time ago, and yet these fantasies are as fresh as onions. I don’t have to update this essay.

Four Outrageous Fantasies

First I was a political scientist, then a newspaper reporter, and now I write fantasy novels. Somehow they all seem to be part of the same thing.

If you can believe the fantasies doled out by our ruling class, you should have no trouble with fire-breathing dragons and invisible flying men.

‘An Open Letter to My Critics’ (2013)

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I used to get a fair amount of heat from readers who objected to “all the religious stuff” in my Bell Mountain fantasy novels. As in, “Leave us alone to be our own gods!”

See that raspberry up there? That’s for you.

An Open Letter to My Critics

Sorry, but I just never got the hang of “winsome.” I don’t like their books any better than they like mine. I don’t like what they’re doing to my country, and I don’t like what they’re doing to the world. As for their fantasy novels, they can take their Invincible Female Warriors, All-Knowing (crusty but benign) Wizards, and Insatiably Oversexed Barbarian Big Guys and conduct them in a long walk off a short pier.

 

‘Writing a Novel Is Like…’ (2014)

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The Glass Bridge (Bell Mountain, 7) by Lee Duigon | eBook | Barnes & Noble®

Book No. 7–that’s Queen Gurun in the bows.

Let me tell you what it’s like, writing a novel.

Writing a Novel is Like…

Probably almost everybody can learn how to put a novel together. And almost everybody thinKs he or she can write a novel. “If only I had the time!”

Lately a question has arisen in my mind: how many publishing execs, editors, marketing consultants, or reviewers could write a decent novel if their lives depended on it?

Coming Attractions: My ‘Jurassic World’ Parable

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Way too late to write this tonight, so be sure to tune in tomorrow sometime–I don’t know when, Monday is errand day–because we’ve watched all the Jurassic World movies, all three… and they have suddenly shaped themselves into a parable.

Now watch, someone in another time zone will write it all up before I can–but that won’t make it any less a parable.

Even from crazy movies, we can learn.

‘How to Write a Fantasy Novel’ (2010)

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Paperback Bell Mountain Book

This was one of the very first posts to appear on this blog. Originally published in Chalcedon’s print magazine, Faith for All of Life, “How to Write a Fantasy Novel” is meant to shed some light on what we call–without devoting much thought to what we call it–“Christian fiction.”

https://chalcedon.edu/magazine/how-to-write-a-fantasy-novel

After I read Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings in high school, the only thing I ever wanted to do, as my work in life, was to write fantasy novels. It took me some fifty years to accomplish that.

Anyway, I’ve picked up knowledge along the way, and if you’re interested in trying your hand at writing fantasy, what I’ve learned through experience is encapsulated for you here. (I don’t believe I’ve had the opportunity to use the world “encapsulated” in any of my books. But you may want to.)

Fantasy Cliches I Have Tried to Avoid

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It’s almost enough to send you back to Serious Mainstream Literature. Or reading the backs of cereal boxes.

I think we ought to have a chat: which fantasy cliche do you find the most odious, the most soul-deadening, imagination-killing, boring old pap? The crusty but benign wizard? The invincible female warrior? The thief with the heart of gold?

(He runs screaming to the sidewalk…)

Fantasy Cliches I Have Tried to Avoid

One of the purposes for which this blog was originally set up was to advertise my fantasy novels and hopefully to get people to buy them.

But we should have a chat. Which fantasy cliche really frosts your buns? Here’s your chance to vent! Which particular cliche moved you to drop-kick that book across the room? C’mon, tell me–I really want to know.