Famed scientist Stephen Hawking died earlier this week at the age of 76. He is largely regarded as one of the most important physicists in history. Of course, the tributes came pouring in. While most commemorated his genius and determination to transcend the debilitating effects of ALS, others attempted more nuanced commentary. Like USA Today [...]
NPR recently explored the ongoing popularity of zombies in pop culture. In Why The Zombie Craze Still Has Our Undying Affection they list current iterations of the zombie phenomena and then proceed to conjecture why our infatuation with the undead doesn’t die. Their answers, imo, are pretty lame. First, “pre-eminent zombie scholar” Sarah Juliet Lauro, [...]
My article Why the Popularity of Horror Movies Might Encourage Christians recently appeared at the popular evangelical site The Gospel Coalition. In it, I explore the ongoing appeal of the horror genre (2017 was the highest-grossing year for horror movies in box-office history) and how its continued popularity in culture might reflect “an intuitive, God-given sense [...]
The poor reviews of Maze Runner: Death Cure, the final installment in the trilogy, have lead some to ask whether the genre has finally reached maximum entropy. (The film currently has a 44% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.) In Brutal ‘Maze Runner’ Reviews Prove People Are Over YA Dystopias the folks at Inverse seem intent to write [...]
In the process of doing research for a pending project — Christian Sci-Fi: On the Compatibility of Biblical Worldview and the Science Fiction Genre — I have interviewed several novelist friends about that subject. Why is science fiction written by Christians so sparse? Is science fiction inherently incompatible with a biblical worldview? One of the [...]
CAUTION: Spoiler Alert for Star Wars: The Last Jedi! I liked a lot of things about the new Star Wars, but there are some genuinely eye-roll worthy scenes. One of the most dramatic (and most eye-roll worthy, imo) is when Rose Tico, a young Resistance fighter, saves Finn, another Resistance fighter, from death. However, Finn’s [...]
Both the Bible and Science predict/envision a Singularity[1], a landmark event that will rock the world and redirect the course of human history forever. While Science’s Singularity is the culmination of technological advance, the melding of Man and Machine in an advanced, autonomous artificial intelligence, Scripture’s Singularity is the culmination of spiritual forces, Man’s rebellion [...]
This summer, at a writer’s conference I attended, popular Christian author Ted Dekker described himself as a “Christian mystic.” During that weekend, both in public sessions and private conversation, Dekker reinforced his claim. For example, his next fictional work is entitled The 49th Mystic. He favorably referenced William Paul Young and Richard Rohr, both whom could [...]
Thrilled to be a part of this huge giveaway. This weekend, Requiem 4 is only $0.99 for Kindle. It’s only one of many books offered through the podcast group Lasers, Dragons, and Keyboards for their Black Friday / Cyber Monday sale. Stop by their link to get your hands on some excellent sci-fi, YA, and fantasy [...]
I’ve spent the second half of my writing career unlearning what I was taught in the first half. Like any good novice, it started with “the writing rules.” Now, by “writing rules,” I’m not referring to the Strunk and White type of rules, the standard principles of grammar and composition. There’s “other” rules for contemporary novel writing, [...]
