Fantasy Church

Deliver Us From the Evil Church of Evil

World building is the one element that sets speculative fiction apart from every other category of writing. When designing a secondary world, it’s crucial to establish a foundation of internally consistent principles to help readers suspend their disbelief. With the Easter season upon us, let's zoom in on an often-underdeveloped…
April 10, 202323 Comments
Glencairn Pieta

It Is Finished

So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). Here they crucified him, and with him two others–one on each side and Jesus in the middle. Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened…
April 7, 20232 Comments
Silence & Starsong

Silence and Starsong

Volume 1 of the latest newpub genre fiction anthology magazine is here! The inaugural issue of Silence and Starsong Magazine contains stories in a variety of genres from science fiction and horror to fantasy and action/adventure. There are authors you already know and love as well as promising newcomers. All…
April 6, 2023
Trump Arrest

Hypocracy

Loyal readers know I've said since Biden was installed that the regime would railroad Donald Trump to neutralize his candidacy through lawfare. This is just the most recent example. Yesterday, a High Party DA finally kept a promise the party had been making to its zealot contingent since 2016. Trump…
April 5, 20237 Comments
High Tension

High Tension

Of all the elements that go into a story, pacing is among the most misunderstood. Most writers think they know what makes a book feel fast-paced. A majority of them are wrong. Stringing short, clipped sentences into wall-of-text paragraphs within rapid-fire chapters doesn't always give readers a sense of speed.…
April 4, 202312 Comments
Pope Francis Puffer

The Cure for Francis Derangement Syndrome

Just as it is incumbent upon every son to defend his mother and father from spurious insults, it is every Catholic's duty to defend Holy Mother Church and her visible head on Earth, the Holy Father. In that regard, an ongoing project of this blog has been refuting the steady…
April 3, 202320 Comments
Swords & Maidens

Swords and Maidens

Announcing the new fantasy anthology from authors JD Cowan, Alexander Hellene, and grand master John C. Wright: From magic battlefields where horses fear to tread, to flying fortresses, fantastical otherworlds, a planet infested with eldritch abominations, and lands ruled by fear, heroes will fight for what is worth fighting for.…
March 31, 2023
Pokemon Cards

And the World Laughs With You

"Safety" is a major sacred cow of the secular cargo cult that has seized control of the West. Of course, twisting ordinary, benign words to have peculiar liturgical connotations is the primary way in which Cultists signal their religious affiliation to other Cultists. So they don't mean "safety" as normal…
March 30, 202314 Comments
John Wick 4

John Wick Chapter 4

A flaw common to the first three John Wick movies is that their scripts are all a couple drafts short of the sweet spot. That's especially true of Chapter 3, which dropped the ball on numerous levels. The main complaint you hear about part 3 is that it was unnecessary.…
March 29, 20236 Comments
Tobit

In Defense of the Deuterocanon

Yesterday on Twitter a friendly ecumenical dialogue developed around the Witch Test. The biblical Deuterocanon came up, and the resulting discussion struck me as a perfect teachable moment. If you're not familiar with the Deuterocanon, it refers to the parts of the Bible that Catholics and Orthodox accept as divinely…
March 28, 202318 Comments