First World Problems

As step one in my vast reorganisation of my web empire, I have now shut down my website, at least temporarily; I was never really happy with it, and had enough trouble blogging regularly without worrying about keeping another website fresh...

It was only after I had shut down the website that I started to realise just how many internet profiles and suchlike were linked to email addresses from the same domain.... So I've spent a couple of nights going through all the various things I've signed up to over the years - some still useful, some never used - and figuring out how to change the email addresses. This is usually a tedious process which involves trying to remember or locate the password for that particular website (as the normally helpful 'Forgotten password?' button invariably sends a new password to a non-functioning email address), trying to find where in the myriad settings you actually change the email address, and having changed it, waiting for the confirmation email to arrive so you can click a link and hopefully Bob's@youruncle.com.

And then, after all this tedium and needless hassle, I pay a visit to the Writing Excuses podcast, and see that their latest writing prompt is 'Do a retelling of a Bible story in a science fiction space setting'. Wait, what? You mean, sort of like an Old Testament... Space Opera? Wow, that sounds like a neat excuse to post a comment with a sneaky link back to my... oh. Right.

*sigh* It really sucks to be me this week.

Long Walk 2011

It is a tradition over at the Daily Audio Bible to take July 7th off, go somewhere beautiful, and spend the day with God. My intention had been to do a slight variation on the theme, and go for a long drive, take the Mini off into the countryside for the day. (The reason for this stems from Wild at Heart, something John Eldredge says about men getting closest to God when they feel most 'alive'; for him it's all manner of outdoorsy stuff, for me, it's a back-lane Mini blast.)

Unfortunately things were not as easy as all that: first there was a hospital appointment on July 7th (for my daughter) which would have taken half the day out. Still, no matter; July 8th was booked off work and the Long Drive was on. Except the aforementioned daughter was taken ill this morning. Not only that, but the rain did not look conducive to a back-lane Mini blast.

Still, as it turned out I was not required to make the trip to see the doctor, and was able to slip off for a somewhat shorter than planned walk, getting myself lost in the rolling hills of, um, Staffordshire.

I had no real idea what I was doing; I mean, the theory was simple enough - go somewhere quiet and listen to God. Easier said than done, obviously. But did I come away with anything? Well, maybe, although I'm not sure what it means, if anything.

I found myself surrounded by ferns, and as I looked at the repeatedly dividing pattern of the leaves, it occured to me that the closer you look at a fern leaf, the more detail you go into, the more accurately you can measure its outline, and the longer its outline will be.

Sass that hoopy frond

Taken to its extreme, you end up with the fractal theory argument that Britain's coastline is infinite. Plainly nonsense in practical terms, but an interesting point, that the closer you look, the more anything - a fern, a country, a person - approaches infinity. At some level, the Infinite is present right at the heart of everything.

Green Lantern, and a Leviathan

Has anybody got a couple of hours to listen to some excellent podcastery on the subject of religion and science-fiction? Well if you have, I have a couple of nice little links for you. And if you haven't, I recommend you make some :)

Firstly, the Leviathan in question is That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made, a Nebula winning novelette by Eric James Stone, and you can hear it on Starship Sofa Episode 194. It's a very neat little tale about some of the potential problems of bringing human religion (in this case Mormonism) to a decidedly alien race (in this case, a group of solar cetaceans living inside our sun). And this all seems to be going well for our protagonist, Harry Malan, until a swale member of his congregation confides in him about what Harry believes to be a case of sexual assault.

There follows a lot of discussion between Harry and cute scientist Dr. Juanita Merced about how human/Mormon sexuality and morals can't be applied to creatures older than human culture, and then when Harry tries to put his point to the oldest swale in our sun, things get even more interesting...

That Leviathan... is a well-written story, makes some thought-provoking points in an interesting setting, and all adds up to a fascinating exploration about the intersection of religion and 'other' cultures, definitely worth a look (or listen) if you're interested in those things.

Elsewhere in the podosphere, purveyor of Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy, Paeter Frandsen, has been geeking out over Green Lantern, who apparently is a comic book hero turned movie icon, or something. Anyway, as part of his Green Lantern special podcast he pulls some interesting Biblical parallels from comic book superheroes and wonders what the New Heaven and the New Earth will be like. Such ponderings gave me cause to wonder what kind of stories I'll be writing in the New Earth.... presumably they'll have to be set on the old one, as there won't be a lot of conflict in the new one, as I understand it....

Anyway, that's also worth a listen for an alternative angle on some Biblical stuff, and on some comic book stuff, or if you've just been overcome by Green Lantern fever....

Linky Goodness:
Starship Sofa No 194 (direct link)
That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made (text)
Spirit Blade Underground Podcast - Green Lantern Review Special (direct link)

Greg Mitchell, and a strange quote

For those who followed the CSFF Blog Tour for The Strange Man a few weeks back, you might be interested to check out the interview with author Greg Mitchell on the Spirit Blade Underground Podcast last week. At the time of writing it's still queued up on my mp3 player, but apparently it's a 'great conversation about approaching the taboo genre of horror in a Christian publishing market'. So if that (and indeed general discussion of all things speculative from a Christian perspective) sounds like a good way to spend half an hour, hop on over and take a listen.

Oh, and, Doctor Who quote of the week: 'Reverse the jelly baby of the neutron flow!'

News from the podosphere

OK, a couple of items of note from the podosphere (which, if you look, is just across the cyberstreet from where you are in the blogosphere):

First, Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing 2.0 has been up and running for a couple of weeks, with an improved website and regular podcasts. Not sure about the new cheesy music, but the talky bits are usually worth a listen (and the next season of Stargate Universe sounds well worth a watch too!).

Second, and more importantly, it somehow slipped my attention for about a week that Starship Sofa, which for some time has been all flushed with excitement at being the first podcast ever nominated for Hugo award, only went and actually won the thing. So congratulations to Tony C Smith and the Sofa crew, and to both my readers, get on over and have a listen some time :)

Starship Sofa and God in a box

'Putting God in a box' seems to be one of those weird Christianese expressions we all know and tolerate, but what if you actually could put God in a box, and carry Him around with you to dispense useful advice throughout the day?

That is the premise of Personal Jesus by Paul Di Filippo, which you can catch on the latest Starship Sofa podcast. In the story, the discovery of some form of quantum handwavium makes possible the invention of the godPod, a portable device which allows the deity of your choice to speak directly to you through the trendy earbuds of your choice.

Allowing for some suspension of disbelief (for instance of the dubious notion of all the world's faith groups, not to mention the atheists, accepting the godPod), it raises some interesting points. The post-godPod world is Utopian; everyone follows the godPod's advice, and everyone lives harmoniously. In theory, Christians are already that connected to God, albeit many of us take our earbuds out for a lot of the time. Which no-one ever does in this story. There is a brief mention of the conflict between predestination (which always reminds me of third year Geography) and free will (which doesn't), but as in real life the subject is best glossed over before it makes your brain hurt.

Of course, a story like this gets the writer in me thinking: what if this were a more Christian story? What kind of responses would a godPod receive from across the spectrum of Christianity? What if more people started to ignore it? What if God suddenly did decide to use our gadgets to communicate with us? What place is left for faith without those rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty? And so on...

It's one of those stories that reminds you that fiction - even weird futuristic science fiction - does have the capacity to tell us something about faith and God, or just to make us think about those things. So if you have a spare half hour, dip into Starship Sofa and have a listen to the story, see what you think. If you have a spare couple of hours, why not listen to the whole episode!

SpiritBlade Underground

Allow me to take this post to apologise for a terrible oversight on my part. I don't think I have made enough mentions of the work of SpiritBlade Productions here, which is really quite poor when you think that the purpose of this blog is to discuss Christian Sci-Fi and Fantasy.

So I guess I'll mention them here: SpiritBlade Productions specialise in full cast audio dramas on CD and download. I've been a bit slack I must admit, and only listened to the first SpiritBlade so far, although I think I'm going to have to dip into Pilgrim's Progress soon...

Anyway, the reason I mention it now is that there is now a SpiritBlade forum... a cool place for Christian geeks to hang out! Yay! Oh yes, and you'll probably have noticed the podcast in the sidebar here, if you're in the habit of scrolling that far.

Was that enough of a plug? Go check it out anyway, and if you like what you see, maybe I'll see you on the forum. You'll recognise me, I'm sure.

Mr Penumbra's Twenty-Four-Hour Bookshop

I have much I want to say about this that I don't think I'm going to have the time or energy to say right now, so I'll leave you a recommendation until I do:

Read this, or, if you prefer, listen to it on Escape Pod. It's funny, it's weird, it's sci-fi, it's fantasy, it's topical, and it has Google in it. More thoughts on it later in the week.

Blog Quote of the Week

We interrupt your regular scheduled blogging because this quote just tickled me a lot:

The film could have easily made its point about a sexually driven culture without contributing to one.

From Paeter Frandsen's review of Gamer. It sounds even better on his podcast!

I want one...

August 29th was the 25th Annual Awards Ceremony for the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest, and I've been listening to interviews with winners on The Sofanauts and Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing podcasts, and I want to go to that award ceremony!

OK, there is a possibility that the whole affair is masterminded by high-ranking Scientologists, and just a plot to brainwash some unsuspecting sci-fi writers, but I guess I'll worry about that when I win. In the meantime, it's something (theoretically) achievable to aim for... I have, after all, been writing short stories lately, although they fall some way short of the contest's 17,000 word maximum (like 16,000 words short).

More to the point, two of the authors getting awards last week, Mike Wood (Risqueman) and C L Holland (The Reflection of Memory), achieved second place on the first time of entering the contest. And both are British. Obviously the hottest new talent is on this side of the Atlantic, so I must be in with a chance of doing the same.

Trust me, my logic is flawless. My writing, on the other hand, could probably use some more work...

Podcasserole

I'm still lagging behind a little in my podcast listening since my cheap and nasty mp3 player imploded a while back, but there's a few things out in the podosphere at the moment worth mentioning here.

First, Adventures in Scifi Publishing is back in production! Yaaay! The first post-hiatus episode features Greg van Eekhout, who having had short fiction published in all the big sf zines, narrated on Escape Pod, and nominated for a Nebula award, has just published his first novel. Norse Code - for that is what it's called - is the tale of Ragnarök happening in contemporary Los Angeles. Yep, that's right, a Viking Left Behind! A Mr van Eekhout hasn't taken it that seriously, it sounds like it could be fun. If you have three minutes to spare, check out his story Taco on Escape Pod too.

On the subject of Escape Pod: The Legend of St Ignatz. This is a nice, slightly dark, story of Catholicism spread across a universe populated not only by humanoids but insectoids, squidoids, and quite possibly super-intelligent shades of the colour blue. A universe which has birthed the Sirius Heresy, which holds that 'Homo Sapiens was too weak in body and corrupt in mind for its form to harbor the Son of God'. (Discuss.) Well worth a listen, or if you'd prefer, a read on ideomancer.

And finally, everybody's favourite Geekette Mur Lafferty is in the process of putting out Season Five of her contemporary fantasy audiobook series Heaven. I'm planning to dig in to the earlier seasons again first with a view to reviewing them all here some time. In the meantime, the whole sequence is available at podiobooks.com.

So what are you still doing here? Get clicking!

Tuesday Tunes: Windfarm Radio

Not just tunes today, but a whole internet radio station... Windfarm Radio is an extension of the Daily Audio Bible podcast, a kind of 24 hour virtual prayer room, and opened its doors for the first time today.

I don't know how the whole prayer room thing is going to work, but I tuned in for a while earlier and in between the prayers there was a nice mix of Christian tunes (which actually seemed to be the bulk of the main feed).

What I do know is that there's a lot that's bad about the internet, and it's nice to see someone making use of the technology for God's purposes.

I dare say I shall be tuning in quite a bit over the coming days and weeks and watching how it (and the rest of the DAB's online community) develops.

Both radio station and podcast are definitely worth checking out if you can.

I've gone off the idea of progress.

Specifically, I've gone off the idea of MP3 players. More specifically, I've gone off my Aigo A215 MP3 player, which died yesterday. Well actually, it didn't really die. It still shows signs of life, but it's definitely flapping about like a carp out of water. Until I try to upload anything onto it, because neither my XP nor Vista PCs recognise it.

Still, life goes on; there are still podcasts to be listened to, and lengthy drives on which to listen to them, so a replacement must be drafted in, bearing in mind the lessons to be learnt from this little experience. Those lessons being:
You gets what you pays for. 'Cheap and nasty' is not a cliche without good reason.
Professor Google has much to offer when buying stuff. Googling Aigo A215 will instantly bring up a long enough discussion among people who have found this piece of kit to be a bit rubbish to put me off getting one.
So, Messrs Aigo and Sons, welcome to my blacklist.


On a tangentially related note, one of the last things the aforementioned device allowed me to listen to was one of this year's Hugo nominees on Escape Pod. Readers of this blog might well get a kick out of Article of Faith by Mike Resnick.

Short sf readers/listeners will probably have come across Mr Resnick, the most awarded short sf writer in the world, apparently. I don't believe he professes any religious faith, but he has written some great stories about religion, or featuring religious themes, and we should probably look at some of his work in more detail here in future.

Meanwhile, Article of Faith is in part about robot religion, and in part about tolerance in general. And if your MP3 player has also gone to Silicon heaven, you can also read the story on Mike Resnick's website.

Podcastle: Cup and Table

Regular readers may recall that I don’t get fantasy. Nonetheless, I do keep half an eye on the feed for Podcastle, just in case a story comes along that straddles the genre borders or otherwise grabs my attention.

Cup and Table by Tim Pratt was one such story. It caught my attention primarily for being a Holy Grail story, and turned out to be just such a genre-straddling stories – it has a dash of time travel, and with the addition of some spandex it could have been a superhero story – but at heart it’s the sort of urban fantasy that Joss Whedon made me a fan of all those years ago.

I liked the world, I liked the anti-heroes of the Table, and I think I liked what it said about God. But what sticks in my mind, apart from the ending, is the character of Carlsbad. Here is an entity made up of the collective evil of mankind. I’ve no idea how original that concept is in fantasy literature, and I don’t really care. It appeals to me. It appeals to me as an obvious parallel to so many things in the real world, like the porn industry, an entity whose existence depends on the collective lust of mankind. Same goes for drugs, weapons… ours is a world stalked by Carlsbad and many others like him. I guess that’s another idea to add to the story stew constantly bubbling away in my head…

Anyway: Cup and Table. If you’re prepared to accept that it’s a story entirely about bad guys, and has a bit of swearing in it, it’s definitely worth a listen. And, Tim, if you're reading, I could definitely stand to hear more from this world. ;)

Podcasserole

I think I've finished tinkering with my sidebar for the moment, the latest addition being a second blog roll, one for the podcasts I regularly listen to. A podcast roll. Or a podcasserole, if you like.

There's a mix of sci-fi, writing and the Bible in there - it's like a podcasty microcosm of this blog, or at least, what I originally intended this blog to look like. Ho hum.

I recommend all of them, if you have the time. If you haven't got the time, just do Escape Pod and the DAB.

Miscellaneous Podcastery

First, following on from Friday's review, if Robin Parrish's Dominion books, or Heroes, are the sort of thing you like, you may well have discovered Mur Lafferty's Playing for Keeps. It's a podcast novel along similar lines, the story of a bunch of, well, rubbish superheroes, I guess, who find themselves stuck in the middle of a titanic battle between superheroes and supervillains. The last podcast went out a couple of weeks ago, so I guess I owe Mur an apology for not plugging it earlier. My Third Wave power would be 'shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted'. There's PDFs too, for purists who prefer the written word. :)

Second, I believe Mir speaks quite highly of Carole McDonnel. So, for Mir's benefit if nothing else, she has a story on Escape Pod this week. EP is always worth checking out, so if you haven't got round to it yet, there's your reason - I could be wrong, but I think this was the first time I've heard Steve Eley use the word 'Christian' in his intro. It's a bit different from their usual fare - I like a good alternate history, but I didn't really get that much of a feel for the world in this story. And although the story centred on racial politics, it did hint at Christians getting a raw deal elsewhere in the reimagined USA, which would have had more relevance to me.

Finally, a couple of quickies to check out: Starship Sofa are podcasting the nominees for the BSFA Best Short Story Award 2007 this week, so that should be good; and I've been getting into the Daily Audio Bible just lately, for anyone interested in listening to the Bible over the course of a year.

The Pale Thin God

It's not really science fiction, but I like this story, by Mike Resnick, the world's most decorated short sf author.

I mention it today because the crew at The Sci Phi Show deserve a shout out for putting together an audio presentation of it. Personally I'm not sure the voice effects add anything to it, but there are versions available with and without the effects available for download here.

I definitely recommend checking it out. It'a a worthwhile way to spend 7 minutes 59 seconds anyway.

More short stuff

For those who may be wondering, I do intend to give writing short fiction a bit more of an effort. There are, after all, markets, especially for short genre fiction. (Interestingly, I hear that Fantasy & Science Fiction is short of science fiction and humour...) And there are always plenty of short story competitions to enter. Most are not spec-fic related, but I've been playing with some of the themes, and twisting them into a speculative story seems like it could be fun. I suspect it will frighten or at least bemuse the judges, but when that happens, there's always this blog to post it on.

Now, the reason for my sudden interest in the short story is partly that, while plundering the extensive back-catalogue of Escape Pod, my current source of short sf, I have come across a number of stories with some kind of religious content or theme. And I'm getting a taste for how some of these things might be dealth with in a more overtly Christian story.

I've said this before, but for those of a podcasty nature, I recommend Escape Pod. I like the amusing way the stories are all rated: 'Contains profanity, sexual situations, and the undead, in various combinations' or 'Contains battle scenes, Imperial propaganda, overenthusastic chemistry, and bad poetry.'

And I like some of the readers: host Steve Eley's female character voices always make me smile, and Mur Lafferty - well, she hasn't read one for a while, but something about her voice would make me hang on every word of the phone book. Actually, perhaps that's not the best thing to listen to while driving...

Normal service will resume shortly...

...in the meantime, here's a few things I've missed, just in case you have too.

Jesus loves Sci-fi. Well, we knew that, but it's always good to find someone else who knows it.

And from there I followed the linky goodness to The Gospel According to Buffy. Well, who could resist that, eh?

And for those with time to listen to podcasts, The Sci Phi Show has a little series on Science and Religion that may be of interest. I haven't got round to listening myself. (I've been pre-occupied, remember?)

Oh yes, and the Lost Genre Guild have meandered off in a podcastwardly direction too. (I haven't listened to that either!)

Um, anyway, we now return you to your regular scheduled blogging.

Miscellaneous Poddery

I'm still a bit new to the whole podcast lark, but since I recently figured out I could plug my MP3 player into my car stereo, I've started catching up with a few on those long business trips.

A sci-fi favourite is Starship Sofa, which I might eventually catch up with. Of interest to readers of this blog might be the show on Religion in Science Fiction. They don't cover much that won't be familiar to, say, regulars at Elliot's blog, but they cover it in a more irreverant style, and with different accents. Oh, and they managed to namecheck a certain blog, so it only seems fair to return the favour anyhow.

Another one that might be of interest is The Sci Phi Show. The main subject here is a philosophical discussion of science fiction, but host Jason Rennie is a Christian, so the occasional religious topic does poke its head above the parapet.

Both of these have forums attached, which I have as yet utterly failed to participate in, but if you have time for that sort of thing, tell them I sent you anyway. ;)

And on the fiction side of science fiction, I have dabbled in Escape Pod a bit, and also Podiobooks has a few titles that sound like they may be of interest to this blog, though I have yet to sample any. I'm expecting to drive to Devon next month (about a 440-mile round trip) - some reviews may well follow thereafter.