Category: science-fiction
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Sense of Wonder : Awaken and Enliven
As I’ve now said in Art and Fear, in Carefree Art, and in The Hipster Fallacies (and as was implied in the quote on Science and Agnosticism) it is the job of the artist to awaken the sense of wonder in the world, to use their imagination as the organ of meaning and connect the…
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Sound of Silence : Doors of Stone Prep
Apologies for delaying this reread of Kingkiller since OCTOBER. Still anxious to get it all read in preparation for whenever Doors of Stone comes out in the distant future (don’t want my intentions to get misconstrued again). But I’m mainly anxious to get it reread because rereading books we love is fun. To explain the delay:…
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Doors of Stone release prep : Kingkiller Reread Intro
Ten years ago, I read Name of the Wind and felt captured by a kindred spirit who cared deeply about the state of the world, the fantasy canon, and the capacity of prose to be poetry and myth. Five years later, I read Wise Man’s Fear and the feeling compounded as I started noticing layers:…
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The Best 40 Tor Online Stories since 2008
Went through the Tor online archive today. While there, I drummed up what I think are the best forty stories published at Tor online since 2008. They move from the most recent to the least recent, with #1 published in 2017 and #40 published in 2008. The best Tor online stories includes tales written by…
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Small Stories for Kids: SCARY DRESS UP by 8-year-old Harry Neuenschwander
It was a cold night when suddenly Jack heard something. So he went downstairs. “It was coming from the kitchen,” he said as he walked in. Then he screamed and ran out of the kitchen. “Ahhh!” But it was actually his big brother Sam dressing as a ghost. “I just wanted to scare you so…
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Mr. Two Face Dark Knight : Meeting Jongluers and Troubadours in my Dark Knight Rewatch
I could be called Mr. Two Face Dark Knight when it comes to analysis and thinking — reflectively — on the films and books I read. I don’t know about you, but I find myself wrong more often than I’m right. Likely that’s because everything we don’t know is infinite. Everything we do know is finite. And…
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Cliché Vindicated: Concessions to Ms. Eberhardt
Two kinds of people argue with themselves: maniacs and metaphysicists. The maniac argues with himself the way a divorced couple argues: hashing up old arguments that lead nowhere simply because he’s in the habit of doing so. In that endless cycle, he becomes unsure of how he exactly he lost his way. The metaphysicist — the…
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Where and How to Sell What You Write
Chapter four in a series on Book and Art Business 101 wherein I show how the solid logic of art business sold me on self-publishing. If you’re too busy for the whole series, download your copy of my Cheat Sheet for Book and Art Business 101. When I went to college, I found myself loaded down with logic and rhetoric…
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The Gateway Drug: Poetry
Chapter two in a series on Book and Art Business 101 wherein I show how the solid logic of art business sold me on self-publishing. If you’re too busy for the whole series, download your copy of my Cheat Sheet for Book and Art Business 101. Let me tell you the way of things: I fell into this gig.…
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Dead Guest Post :: The Fantastic Imagination
Today’s dead guest post is “The Fantastic Imagination.” In this piece, George MacDonald shows how the point of fantasy and science fiction is to change the physical laws of our world so that the spiritual — or moral or ethical — laws behind all worlds come to a sharper point. It’s one of my favorite pieces on…
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A Life of Learning :: Striving for the Striver’s Life
“When am I ever going to use this in real life?” Remember asking that in sophomore Algebra? Here’s the best-kept secret in education: this inevitable question pokes a hole not only in algebra but also in every other subject. Through that hole, a light leaks in from a land much deeper and higher: from a…
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Can a Pastor Write Fiction?
Often in person or in emails I will get a pretty heartfelt question from some pastors. They want to know if it’s kosher for them to write mainstream fiction and still do pastoral ministry in the local church. “Can I be a pastor and still write fiction under my real name?” I received one of…