The Tour Within

Looks like a return to form here then... another missed post and now a token contribution to the blog tour. I'm striken by plague, and I can't even bring myself to create an amusingly off the wall post for the tour.

So, in the unlikely event that you've stumbled in here from somewhere unconnected to the tour, why not take a look at Wayne Thomas Batson's Door Within trilogy: The Door Within, Rise of the Wyrm Lord and The Final Storm.
Or visit The Door Within web site and the author's blog.

And when you've done that, check out some of the other blogs on the tour. I particularly recommend the interview with Aidan Thomas (star of the trilogy) at Unseen Worlds. Nice idea for a post, might have to pinch it if I can persuade one of my characters to co-operate.

Your tour continues this way:
Jim Black
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
Karri Compton
Frank Creed
CSFF Blog Tour
Gene Curtis
Chris Deanne
Janey DeMeo
Tessa Edwards
April Erwin
Linda Gilmore
Beth Goddard
Marcus Goodyear
Todd Michael Greene
Leathel Grody
Karen Hancock
Katie Hart
Sherrie Hibbs
Sharon Hinck
Joleen Howell
Kait
Karen
K. D. Kragen
Tina Kulesa
Lost Genre Guild
Kevin Lucia and The Bookshelf Reviews 2.0 - The Compendium
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Caleb Newell
Eve Nielsen
John Otte
Robin Parrish
Cheryl Russel
Hannah Sandvig
Mirtika Schultz
James Somers
Stuart Stockton
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Daniel I. Weaver

Space-filling post of the month

Sorry, Wednesday's post got lost somewhere as I was too busy messing about with 'new' Blogger's bells and whistles. Not that I've really started using them yet, but I'll get round to it.

Anyway, some fun stuff I've been noticing:
Speculative Catholic, having returned from sabbatical a while back, has gone all Martian on us. Some interesting links about Martian calendars and liturgy, if you're into that sort of thing.
And over at the Lost Genre Guild, Andrea Graham wonders why we can't place King David in the midst of a high-tech future, in outer space, or even on another planet? Biblical science-fiction? Almost like sort of a, um, Old Testament Space Opera, maybe? Finest idea I've heard in a while....
Oh, and I've been watching the blog of Chris Walley lately. You know, my nemesis. (Not sure he knows that, mind!) And, much to my disappointment, it reads like he might actually be a decent bloke. He says some funny things. He's frustrated with Britain's Christian so-called-booksellers (and him, a proper author and all). So, since I can't really dislike the man for anything other than being Welsh, I guess I'm forced to admit that I'm just plain jealous.
Grrr.

The Patron Saint of Plagues, by Barth Anderson

You know those books where nothing much seems to happen, but you keep reading because the characters become real and the writing is just so darn good?

This is not one of those books. This is one of those books where nothing much seems to happen, but you keep reading because you promised to review it on your blog.

That's not to say it wasn't well written - there are flashes of brilliance, especially in the couple of chapters that describe the progress of a cells as they travel through the human body, and some of the insults from 'cuss-poet' Isabel Khushub are, well, cuss-poetry.

Anyway, the story. It's about 2050, the US has collapsed in on itself and Mexico is rising under a sort of Catholic/fascist dictatorship. Into all this enters a bio-engineered plague, targeting native Mexicans, and all-American hero Henry Stark, who, assisted by his former flame the aforementioned cuss-poet Khushub, obviously sets out to save the day.

There are a few good sf ideas thrown in too; as well as the obligatory flying motorbikes, the pilone network and associated 'wetware' - a sort of internet browser hard-wired into the brain - plays an integral part in the story. Whether the tell-tale scar left behind by its installation is in fact the mark of the beast, has nothing to do with the story at all and is just an interesting thought that occurred to me.

I think I may have missed the point with this book. All the Spanish words and catholic stuff may just have switched my brain off, but it failed to grip me. The characters failed to engage me, and ultimately I don't think there was enough going on to fill 370 pages.

Barth Anderson, by all accounts, is a short fiction author of some renown; unfortunately I think this, his debut novel, falls short of its potential. Must try harder!

Who is This God Person Anyway? (Fit the Second - Genesis)

In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
Many races believe that it was created by some sort of god, though the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the entire Universe was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being calle dthe Great Green Arkleseizure.
However, the Great Green Arkleseizure Theory is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI and so, the Universe being the puzzling place it is, other explanations are constantly being sought.

I suppose, to a radical atheist, this may not seem much more bizzarely improbable than 'God said "Let there be light," and there was light.' But the Universe according to Hitchhikers got into its current state through evolution, which is referred to repeatedly, from the throw-away gag:

Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

to the creation of the super-evolutionary Haggunenons, who will 'quite frequently evolve several times over lunch', and the disruption of evolution on Earth by the arrival of the Golgafrinchans on the 'B' Ark.

But I'm not going to embark on a creation/evolution debate - personally I don't care how the Universe was created, the fact is it's here and we've got to deal with it. Instead (and I may end up jumping forward a bit here) consider:

"...you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

- Genesis 2:17, NIV

and consider the fact that, in trying to establish the Question to the Ultimate Answer, Arthur Dent ultimately secures his own death. Although, of course, it is a well-established fact that the Question and the Answer cannot both exist within the same Universe, presumably because such knowledge would lead to certain death on a cosmic scale. And finally, another quote from DNA on the subject of knowledge:

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

Incidentally, I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep up follwoing the books of the Bible - any suggestions for what Leviticus should cover will be gratefully received.

On Precogs and Prophets

So, following on from watching Minority Report, I thought I would take a quick look at the 'meantal powers' sub-genre - that branch of science fiction which tells of Homo superior in all its forms, endowed with powers including telepathy, telekenesis and precognition.

Centuries ago anyone claiming to have such powers would have been burnt at the stake, condemned by the Church as a witch. Although demonic assistance isn't credited quite as publicly as it might have been 300 years ago, anyone claiming to be able to move an object purely by the power of his mind is generally considered to be either a bit mad or some kind of occultist (assuming that we discount stage magicians, of course).

So, are we treading on thin ice if we consider these subjects in Christian fiction? Well, apparently not; I'm currently reading Kathy Tyers' Firebird trilogy, in which the pseudo-Christian good guys are chock full of funky mental powers. Precognition, however, is seen as something of a dark art even among the Sentinels.

It might be interesting to take some of science-fiction's ideas on precognition - Can the future be changed? Is any such vision destined to become a self-fulfilling prophecy? - and mix them in with a theme of divine prophecy. Would the same rules apply to a divine prophecy? And how would anyone know what is from God and what is from a genetically-enhanced human? What if God used a genetically-enhanced human as his prophet? And so on.

In the world of the Old Testament Space Opera, meanwhile, Joseph (he of the posh jacket and the dream-readings) becomes some kind of telepath or precog; this gives those around him cause to turn on him, and him the ability to survive what might befall him when they do.

There are other super-human abilities that sf has given us too: levitation, transportation, mind-control... and that's before we dig into the world of the comic-book super-hero...

Who is This God Person Anyway? (Fit the First - DNA)

Douglas Noel Adams was famously an atheist. He was fascinated by religion in all its forms, but did not consider his atheism in terms of belief or non-belief. He was, in his own words, 'convinced that there is no God'. Which could be why, in the first sentence of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series, we are introduced to Oolon Coluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters: Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes, and Who is This God Person Anyway?

I've long fantasised about writing a book with that last title. A volume on theology, perhaps, in the style of Hitchhiker's. A sort of Hitchhiker's Guide to Eternity. The Gospel According to Zaphod Beeblebrox, that sort of thing. Maybe I should give up on science fiction and set about my own trilogy of philosophical blockbusters. For now, though, I'll settle with this little series of posts.

Douglas' facination with religion is apparent throughout the Hitchhiker trilogy, from that opening sentence to the wierd missionary antics of Huma Kavula in the movie version, and then overspills into the world of Dirk Gently. And that Hitchhikers has at its heart a quest for the meaning of life almost goes without saying. Some of his writings seem to have been adopted into atheist folklore:

...if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language.
Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

The argument goes something like this: I refuse to prove that I exist, says God, for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.
But, says Man, the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.
Oh dear, says God, I hadn't thought of that, and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

It's hard to fault the logic there, and Adams has brilliantly twisted a 'theist' argument to suit his own atheist worldview. This is, of course, a load of fetid dingoes kidneys, not least because God has never, to my knowledge, refused to prove his existence, or used the 'proof denies faith' argument in his own defence. On top of which we could always use the counter argument - that proof does not deny faith, but in fact confirms it.

It is just possible, of course, that Adams used this illustration simply for the sake of a joke, as the passage finishes:

Oh, that was easy, says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

Well, that about wraps it up for atheists, it would seem.

Further musings on the Gospel according to Douglas Adams will follow next week, in the meantime you can get an insight into his beliefs (or convictions) in his interview with The American Atheist here, also published in The Salmon of Doubt.

Evil Santa, Alien Pop and the Apocalypse

So, Christmas has been and gone, and with it, Doctor Who sealed its place as part of it. After just two Christmas specials, the good Doctor is almost as traditional as the Queen.

The most recent special wasn't as good as the previous year's homage to Hitchhiker's, but the evil Santa's were back, there was a star-shaped spaceship over London, and (this being TV-land) it snowed on Christmas Eve. And the good Doctor saved the world while dealing with the loss of Rose, which happened immediately prior to this episode. There was even a subtle nod towards Torchwood, which also ended its first season this week.

At its best, Torchwood has been great viewing. Unfortunately it has had more than its fair share of mediocre episodes, and really, someone should tell the makers that adult TV doesn't have to include sex every week. Or, in fact, at all.

For me, Torchwood is at its best when trying to be the Welsh Angel. And sure enough, the season ended with a barely averted apocalypse straight out of the Buffyverse. I have to mention the ending, but I don't want to spoil it, so highlight the next bit if you want to know why.

The final episode starts with Ianto reading from the book of Daniel, as an introduction to the coming apocalypse. Imprisoned under the rift, and inadvertantly released in the last episode, is Abaddon, a big scary monster that instantly kills anything its shadow touches. Up to and including Captain Jack, who sacrifices his apparently immortal self to save the world. Gwen, still believing him to be immortal, spends 'days' with his corpse in the Torchwood morgue, until he awakes only to be spirited away by a passing TARDIS.

You can see why I had to mention it.

There are plenty of loose ends, and a second series has been commissioned. If we're lucky, the series will find its identity and Captain Jack and his crew will become more than two-dimensional characters who do little more than work and sleep with each other.

Elsewhere in the Whoniverse, it being the holidays, I managed to catch the pilot of the Sarah Jane Adventures. I wouldn't normally comment on childrens TV - and it was sillier than the most kiddy-friendly Doctor Who stories - but it seems the people in the Doctor Who spin-off department have swallowed a Bible, or at least a book on end-times prophecy. So we end up with Mrs Wormwood, a nasty alien come to take over the Earth by putting alien DNA in fizzy drinks. Oh, and there's an all-knowing kid created in a laboratory who may have some important role to play as the thing pans out.

Just another Christmas in the Whoniverse then...

2007 and all that...

Right, so, I'm back, and hopefully will manage to keep things ticking over on the blog front. I'd make that a new years resolution, except I actually want to keep it up.

So, what can we expect from the new year at OT Space Opera?

If all goes to plan, I can resume three posts a week, to keep the place fresh while still, hopefully, having enough relevant stuff to comment on. You may even find a semi-regular review slot.

One interesting thing that has cropped up once or twice over the life of this blog is the treatment of religion by atheist writers - for instance, Joss Whedon's creation of Shepherd Book for Firefly. For a while I've thought about taking a closer look at the concepts of god and religion as featured in the works of Douglas Adams. So I've decided to just that, because, well, it's my blog and I can do what I like. :-p

In between which I will, no doubt, pass comment on other science fiction related matters, and if I really put my mind to it, write some sf myself. No promises there though.

Oh, and the CSFF blog tour will stop by here too, of course, adding the occasional mention of fantasy into the mix.

Hey, that almost sounds good... now how am I going to keep it up?

December CSFF tour: a semi-relevant post

Giants, sorcerors, talking birds, magic cloaks... what is this, a Harry Potter post?

Well, no, actually, because all these things appear in the Birthright Project, a Christian science fiction series. It does have numerous fantasy elements in it, and is aimed at the same teenage audience as young Harry, but at the same time blurs the line between sf and fantasy.

Set on what appears to be post-apocalyptic Earth, the sorcerors are using what remains of science to create transmogrified creatures - including some unfortunate humans, who become the even more unfortunate gigants. The birds don't really talk, but can be understood by the birthrighters, and therefore act as a sort of messenger service. Like a carrier pigeon with better security. And the magic cloaks? Well, it seems God has been good enough to provide the birthrighters with a magic spindle, with which they can create 'out of time' fabric, which renders them invisible, impervious to the passage of time, or, apparently, whatever the plot seems to require. Arguably this is a cop-out, but this is Christian spec-fic, which by its nature assumes the existence of an all-powerful God who can, should he see fit, produce from thin air a talking donkey, a never-ending Mars bar, or even a magic spindle. So why not.

Anyway, I promised semi-relevance, and semi-relevant I intend to be.

As is my usual slacker way, I haven't read the book in question. I have, on this occasion, read the first book in the series, Outriders, on which this little intro to the world of Trackers has been based.

So I suppose it would be semi-relevant to add a few words about Outriders.

Well, it's got post-apocalyptic decay, genetic mutants and hints of sci-fi technology hidden in the ark. It's got sword and sorcery coming out its ears. It's got angels and demons battling over the lives of our heroes. In fact, you'd be hard pushed to squeeze much more into a Christian science-fantasy story, really. Oh, and don't forget to throw in some teen angst, questioned faith, and romantic dilemmas. That's not to say it suffers from cramming all that in. Most of the time it all seems to fit together in a way that makes sense, and the action clips along at a decent enough pace to keep the interest up.

Young adult novels such as this are not normally my thing, but that is actually the only reason I can come up with not to go away and read Trackers some time soon.

Is it that time again already?

Hello? Um. Is this thing working? Right. Where did I leave everything? OK. Sorry, I took rather longer off than I expected. Still didn't finish that NaNo mind. Tsk, eh?

Anyway, here I am, ready for the final day of the December CSFF blog tour. Ooops. Still, seems as good a time as any to drag myself back into Blogoland, especially since I have something semi-relevant to post this time round (shock!).

This month the tour is looking at Trackers, the second volume in the Birthright Project sequence by Kathryn Mackel. So here, as a sort of prelude, is a list of links. (This is not the semi-relevant thing.)

Kathryn Mackel's website
Birthright Project website
Trackers on Amazon
Outriders, volume one of the series, on Amazon

and, of course, your fellow blog tourists:
Jim Black
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
Frank Creed
Gene Curtis
Chris Deanne
Janey DeMeo
April Erwin
Beth Goddard
Mark Goodyear
Todd Michael Greene
Karen Hancock
Elliot Hanowski
Katie Hart
Sherrie Hibbs
Sharon Hinck
Joleen Howell
Jason Joyner
Karen and at Karen¹s myspace
Oliver King
Tina Kulesa
Lost Genre Guild
Kevin Lucia and The Bookshelf Reviews 2.0 - The Compendium
Terri Main
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Caleb Newell
Eve Nielsen
John Otte
Cheryl Russel
Hannah Sandvig
Mirtika Schultz
James Somers
Stuart Stockton
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Chris Walley
Daniel I. Weaver

An apology to Landon Snow

Mr Snow,

I know you are more than worthy of comment here on my humble little blog. But the thing is, you see, your timing's all wrong. It's November - it's NaNoWriMo, and I'm doing really badly at keeping the pace with that too.

I've had a poorly one year old to look after, which meant I had at least a day's work to catch up on in NaNo & blogging time. And then she gave whatever it was to me, so I was completely useless over the weekend. I even went to bed before Torchwood. That's how bad it is.

So, I'm sorry, Mr Snow, that I don't really have time to comment on your exploits.

Apologies also to R K Mortenson, for not being able to plug his latest book.

Don't worry though, there are a few people out in Bloggoland doing just that. Lucky escape for me there are more reliable folks like Jim Black, Jackie Castle, Valerie Comer, Frank Creed, Gene Curtis, Chris Deanne, Janey DeMeo, April Erwin, Beth Goddard, Todd Michael Greene, Leathel Grody, Karen Hancock, Katie Hart, Sherrie Hibbs, Sharon Hinck, Joleen Howell, Jason Joyner, Karenee, Oliver King, Tina Kulesa, the entire Lost Genre Guild, Kevin Lucia, Rachel Marks, Shannon McNear, Rebecca LuElla Miller, Caleb Newell, John Otte, Cheryl Russel, Hannah Sandvig, Mirtika Schultz, Stuart Stockton, those nice Speculative Faith people, my nemesis Chris Walley, and of course Daniel I. Weaver.

Further apologies to anyone who has just read all this.

Sorry.

Quick NaNo note

As I may have mentioned, I took the lunatic step of signing up for this, and in fact got off to a good start. Whether I'll keep that up or not is a different matter.

Anyway, if I'm not around much over the next few weeks, well, you probably won't notice any difference, but this time there is a reason.

I'll be mucking about in the Bermuda Triangle of fiction that lies between Jasper Fforde, Robert Rankin and Douglas Adams.

So far Per Ardua ad Chipping Sodbury has an impressive 4004 words - some of which actually make some kind of sense - and occasional snippets will be posted here, so as not to lower the tone of this blog. The prologue is there now.

...and Angels

What first came to mind for "angels" is the moment when Kosh reveals himself to save Sheridan, and he looks like an angelic being. But that's only because Mir jumped the gun yesterday. Nice to get a Bab5 reference occasionally though.

Anyway, Angels. Messengers of an almighty God, purveyors of Providence, proof of the unprovable, denizens of a supernatural spiritual reality. So goes the DKA blurb for them, anyway. And in Christian fiction you can put them anywhere (well, within reason). I've got them in Countless as the Stars.

Spiritual warfare made real was pretty much the mainstay of Christian spec-fic a few years ago thanks to Frank Peretti, and still crops up here and there, if usually in a smaller, less in your face way.

I've seen sf stories that take the Nephilim as their inspiration - would those 'sons of God' who paired off with the daughters of men have been angels? Or aliens? Are angels aliens? Are aliens angels?

Oh, my heads spinning with wacky ideas again. And that's before we even mention fallen angels. Is it NaNo time yet?

But as far as science fiction and angels go, I reckon the Simpsons had the start of a good story.

Now, all that remains for thos month's blog tour is for me to give you a little nudge in the direction of these other participants:
Jim Black Jackie Castle Valerie Comer Kameron M. Franklin Beth Goddard Todd Michael Greene Leathel Grody Karen Hancock Elliot Hanowski Katie Hart Sherrie Hibbs Joleen Howell Jason Joyner Karen and at Karen's myspace Oliver King Tina Kulesa Kevin Lucia Rachel Marks Shannon McNear Rebecca LuElla Miller Caleb Newell Cheryl Russel Mirtika Schultz Stuart Stockton Speculative Faith Frank Creed Christina Deanne Lost Genre Guild John Otte

...Knights...

Knights in science fiction?

Um.... errr....

With swords and everything?

Hmmmm.....

What, some sort of laser sword, perhaps?

Ummmm.....

No. Next thing you know you'll be giving them magic powers and stuff. It'll never work.

Dragons...

OK, we know that Dragons, Knights and Angels is just a name, and that stories appearing in it don't have to feature dragons, knights, or angels. After all, as Johne Cook says in the DKA vision, that would be silly. Which really is tempting for someone like me who happens rather to like silly.

But that's another post. Or perhaps a DKA submission. Or a NaNo project, even.

This is the blog tour, and an opportunity for me to take the subject and ramble off on a tangent. If you want to know about DKA, go off and read Mirathon. You want intelligent discussion sparked by the subject, Becky's got it. You want to try and cram dragons, knights and angels into sensible science fiction, well, I'll give that a go. But bear in mind, I do like silly.

So, dragons.

At first glimpse the exclusive domain of the fantasy tale, how do we get these mythical creatures to play a sensible role in science fiction?

This would be one of those areas where sf and fantasy overlap, as in Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern sequence. Here a world which wouldn't look out of place in a fantasy novel is created by colonists from Earth, who create a race of dragons by genetic manipulation. Sounds like science fiction to me.

As a child, I was briefly fascinated by the 'science' of dragons. The biology of how such a thing could actually exist. That was before I knew anything about biology, of course, like how boring the lessons were. But it is science, and if someone were to dig up a dragon's remains somewhere, you could have fun exploring the science of dragons. You could always dig up a live dragon, in a Reign of Fire sort of way.

So how do we bully all this into a Christian story? There's plenty of Biblical monsters to choose from - the Leviathon from Job, Jonah's big fish (well, have you ever seen a dragon?), and dragons (be they physical or metaphorical) in Revelation. You could throw Christians to the dragons like a Roman Emperor. And the 'dragon as a representation of general nastiness' theme was donw by Frank Peretti a while ago in The Oath.

'Here be dragons' they wrote on maps in days of yore, and who knows, maybe those early spacefarers will use the same phrase, harking back to their ancestors, to denote areas of as yet unexplained danger. The dragons could be anything. And that (he says, miraculously returning to the point) is the way DKA see them. Johne Cook says:

To my way of thinking, dragons represent the mystical, the unknown world, dangerous and magical and huge beyond reckoning.

And in science fiction, that leaves a lot for the imagination to play with.

Introducing the October CSFF blog tour

Yes, it's time for the increasingly popular CSFF blog tour again. This time round, a whole bunch of people will be commenting on the Christian spec-fic webzine Dragons, Knights and Angels. I'm on sort of a mission now to find out how any of those three entities wind up in science fiction stories - I'll report back tomorrow.

In the meantime, why not pop over and take a quick peek, then come back and see what these nice people have to say about it:
Jim Black
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
Kameron M. Franklin
Beth Goddard
Todd Michael Greene
Leathel Grody
Karen Hancock
Elliot Hanowski
Katie Hart
Sherrie Hibbs
Joleen Howell
Jason Joyner
Karen and at Karen¹s myspace
Oliver King
Tina Kulesa
Kevin Lucia
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Caleb Newell
Cheryl Russel
Mirtika Schultz
Stuart Stockton
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Frank Creed
Christina Deanne
Lost Genre Guild
John Otte

The recipe for perfect telly sf

• Take one of Joss Whedon's spare Hellmouths, and place under a British city. Say, Cardiff.
• Add one part X-Files and two parts Men in Black.
• Create a Scooby gang including at least one technical guru and one, um, Xander, led by a mysterious, handsome (apparently) stranger with a dark side. If he once died and came back mysteriously immortal, so much the better.
• Give them a Batcave, whose entrance is protected by a Somebody Else's Problem field from Hitchhikers.
• Place the mix into a pre-heated sf universe. (Note: Doctor Who is popular at the moment.)
• Make occasional throw-away references to this show, but do not depend on it.
• In fact, distance yourself from its key fanbase by taking a distinctly adult sf plot (say, Species) and plundering it for Episode 2.
• Before serving, take the name of the parent show and sprinkle the letters over the title sequence.

Enjoy Torchwood. I did.

miscellaneous bloggery 7

Yes I know. I'm copping out more frequently than I'm writing proper entries. So sue me.

But to stay remotely on topic, I like these, pointed out by Elliot recently. They just sent my little writer's mind into a bit of an idea-frenzy... maybe something new might be on the NaNo cards yet?

In the open space has some thoughts on another TV sf show that hasn't made it into my life yet, Battlestar Galactica.

If you haven't wandered over to The Lost Genre Guild yet, here's the link. (There I go, diverting my readers to somewhere that does this Christian sf comment thing so much better than me...)

And for a smile, Mir suggests The Town Drunk, and having just briefly perused a couple of stories, I have to agree. If I can knock up a faintly amusing Christmas story in the next two weeks, look out for me there in a couple of months... don't hold your breath though.

Maybe I should start a little series of Hitchhikers or Red Dwarf posts. I also might nick Becky's idea and explore the many sub-genres within science fiction (which I kind of started way back when, before I started running out of time to blog properly...)

What was I thinking...

...when I signed up for NaNoWriMo?

I was actually thinking I've got all these WIPs on the go, but none of them really seem to be going anywhere... so I thought I'd join in, in the hope that it would inspire me to knock one of these half finished ideas together into something approaching a usable first draft.

At the moment the idea I'm planning to use is the sequel to Countless as the Stars, but my main problem with this is that I only know it as 'the sequel' - it doesn't have a title, nor any sign of developing one any time soon. I can see myself getting hung up on that and not writing anything until I have a title...

So I may well have a change of heart in the next couple of weeks and pick one of my other ideas (most likely a comic fantasy, because they don't even have to make sense!). Most of them are little more than ideas and characters at the moment - I've titles without stories too, come to that - so either way the actual writing will be started from scratch.

I've never done a NaNo before either, so the whole thing is a new experience for me. Hopefully I won't get too involved in technicalities or forumming and forget to actually write anything.

My plan is to plot my NaNo progress on my other blog, so that I can continue uninterrupted coverage of Christanity in sf over here. But now that I write that, it also seems pretty unlikely.

Anyway, on the bookshelf, by popular demand (sort of) is near-future bilogical thriller with prophetic nuns The Patron Saint of Plagues. Expect a review sometime after NaNo.

So many books!

My copy of Firebird has arrived, and currently sits between Barth Anderson's The Patron Saint of Plagues and The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell.

Also on the reading list is a tatty second hand copy of Lord Foul's Bane, (The First Chronicle of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever) by Stephen Donaldson, which I picked up cheap having had it recommended to me eons ago.

I haven't decided which to read first yet though. If anyone would like to suggest which they want to see a review of first, I'm open to a quick straw poll :)