An interesting article by Dr. Alan Snyder that appears here. In my ongoing preparation for teaching C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia at my church, I’ve now completed five of the seven books, the latest being The Horse and His Boy. This book is unique as being the only one where no one from our world…
By S. Dorman A few years after my beginning efforts at formal creative nonfiction, a high school English teacher informed me that, categorically, there was no creative nonfiction. I supposed he meant nonfiction with fiction sifted into it. I did not argue. However, one may use the techniques of novelists in a totally factual way.…
A fascinating look at an early sf author: Meet Lady Margaret Cavendish. BY NATALIE ZARRELLI SEPTEMBER 16, 2016 Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle. (Photo: Public Domain) NO ONE COULD GET INTO philosophical argument with Lady Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and walk away unchanged. Born in 1623, Cavendish was an outspoken aristocrat who traveled in circles of…
What is it about that word? Aroostook. The County, they call it here in Maine. A word is a tiny thing, a written word. It is smaller than a leaf—a word printed on a page. Rarely as big as a blade of grass. Don’t even bother comparing its size to a tree. And yet…. Words…
L. A. Smith of A Traveler’s Path has kindly agreed to let us take a look at some of her thoughts on Lewis! I have never read Abolition before. I knew it was an important work, but its subtitle, Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools, didn’t inspire me…
Over at Bruce Charlton’s Notions, the good professor shares some Ork-related humor: A simple household candle… or is it? Few have yet noticed the sinister resurgence of those who revere the name of Saruman. I became aware of the problem some years ago when a shiny black pillar was erected near to my place of…
Post by Carlos Carrasco There is a prejudice in modern SF so nearly ubiquitous that it can be considered a trope. I’m talking about the assumption that the more technologically advanced a civilization becomes, the less religious it will be. While this prejudice is normally implicit in a lot of science fiction, the assumption was stated…
If J.R.R. Tolkien liked to write satire, the satire he wrote was secured in what he loved. He loved languages, of course, importantly. But I’m not learned enough to say if his languages are in anyway satirical. I can say however that he employed his love of language in his satires. What did he love…
How best to go about telling a Bildungsroman for the son of Arathorn II, for a youth who would become the Good King Elessar? Achieving qualities Tolkien so carefully evoked in his great cosmology and Lord of the Rings stories, the landscape, map, and texts of Middle-earth provide answers, addressing formal and structural concerns…