Category: science-fiction
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Hopeful Apocalypses
Though I don’t have the pedigree to write voluminously on hopeful apocalypses, a friend of mine earned his doctorate in ancient apocalyptic literature from the University of Edinburgh and, with luck, we’ll get him on here sometime in the future to write a series entitled either Age of Apocalypse or Apocalypse Now, we haven’t really…
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Hamlet’s Moral Philosophy: The Key to Unlocking Shakespeare’s Own Ethics
Little is known about Shakespeare’s personal life or his own beliefs. Most of what we know is derived from his expansive catalog of plays; the consensus is that the character of Hamlet is most similar to the Bard himself. “In recent years, studies of Shakespeare’s plays have concerned themselves with everyday objects and ‘matter’ rather…
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Magic Reveals the Author’s Metaphysics
Today for BOTH Legends, Folklore and Tall Tales, I’m posting a recording of a panel I was on at Heliosphere 2019 on how Magic Reveals the Metaphysics of the Author within fantasy and science fiction novels. The panel featured Carole Ann Moleti, Alex Shvartsman, Ken Altabef, Lorrain Schein. We ventured into philosophy, religion, politics, and…
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What I do is me: the sonnet
I recently attended a Jeffersonian dinner where we all brought sonnets and read them aloud in turn. We had a lovely time with Shakespeare, Keats, and a crowd-sourced cento. I might or might not have asked the class—er, table of adults—what the two types of sonnets are. I’m incorrigible. To wit: the sonnet is a…
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Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch is as Bad as Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone Reboot Will Be
The highly anticipated, recently released full-length interactive film from the makers of the provocative and disturbing British sci-fi television series Black Mirror, Bandersnatch, is a failure in many ways. It’s a confusingly, convolutedly, frustratingly, and unnecessarily complicated plot wrapped up in an innovative but disappointing format, where viewers have to make random and only occasionally…
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Creative Disciplines : One Resolution for Artists
As I work with artists, innovators, and makers I find that creative disciplines are lacking both among this sector of society AND in the rest of society as well. Both creatives and non-creatives seem to think creative disciplines do not exist. Which is unfortunate because making a habit – a discipline – of creativity is…
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Book Club Suggestions : How To Run One
Often people will search for book club suggestions online looking for lists of suggested reading, but really what they’re looking for is guidance for how to run a book club well. This particular post will offer book club suggestions in the realm of how to talk through the books you’ve read: specifically what do they mean?…
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Liberal Arts Definition and the Role of Literature
Today’s guest post working towards a Liberal Arts Definition as regards The Role of Literature comes from the ever-brilliant, ever-humble Dr. Anthony Cirilla, The Boethian Acolyte. I can remember asking some very awful English teachers (and some very good ones) not only for a liberal arts definition, but also “when am I going to use this in real life?”…
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Sitting at the Feet of the Hogwarts Headmaster
Sgt. John Granger of the United States Marine Corps (stationed in Japan) was proud to say that he was perfectly normal, thank you very much. He was the last person you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious — especially invocational magic — and the last person you would expect to become a Hogwarts headmaster…
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Palliative Care for Imprisonism Literature
In the last few decades it grew popular for critics to predict and mourn the death of the novel. The death of the novel is really the death of their particular kind of novel: imprisonism literature. It’s as if someone said at their father’s funeral: “Fatherhood is dead to me” or before their own suicide…
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Introducing the Vale Megacosm : The Universe in which I Write
I’m writing this post about the Vale Megacosm for those of you that have followed me from the beginning. I mean the very beginning. As a beta reader myself for a handful of authors — and as someone well familiar with the slow output of many epic writers — I know it can take forever…
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Writing Tools VS. Story Craft
In June I will again join the Ozark Creative Arts Academy for high schoolers to teach some writing tools and story craft seminars. This year I plan to shape my talk out of the overflow of a conversation I had last year with Dr. Giltner and Dr. Cirilla at the Niagra Falls retreat. It goes something…