Category Archives: Fictional Worlds

Why Did Star Wars Stick? #MayThe4thBeWithYou #StarWarsDay

As much as we wonder about it, it’s a question that is not perfectly easy to answer. Long before technologically precise blockbuster films, Star Wars had cheesy lines, over-the-top acting, and zippers up the back of the monster’s costume. How … Continue reading

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Thoughts on Classic and Contemporary SF vs. Fantasy Hugo Best Novel Award Winners while Failing to Write a Review of a Great Book that was not Nominated

Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb Series is a discovery from my stint as a Hugo Award panellist in 2020 and 2021–the years that Gideon the Ninth (book 1) and Harrow the Ninth (book 2) were nominated. As much as I loved these books–and … Continue reading

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My Conference Papers this Week in Canada and K’zoo on C.S. Lewis’ Constructed Language and Intertextuality, with a Note on the Impostor Syndrome

In an intriguing confluence of events, this week is Canada’s annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Congress2022–what scholarly Canadians used to call “the Learneds”–and is at the same time as the International Congress on Medieval Studies, hosted by … Continue reading

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L.M. Montgomery’s The Story Girl, “Such Stuff as Dreams are Made On”: Chapter Reading, the L.M. Montgomery Readathon, a Montgomery Conference, and Other Things I am Working On (Friday Feature)

I thought I would use today’s “Feature Friday” segment of A Pilgrim in Narnia to highlight some L.M. Montgomery adventures this spring and in the months ahead. My Chapter Reading for the L.M. Montgomery Readathon For the L.M. Montgomery Readathon … Continue reading

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The Literary Magic of L.M. Montgomery’s Storied Domains: The King Orchard and The Story Girl

While Lucy Maud Montgomery was a prodigious journal-keeper, leaving us thousands of pages of material to study in the decades after her death, she was far less dedicated as a memoirist. Thus, it is sometimes hard to know how to … Continue reading

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The Sloo/Slow/Sluff of Despond: Today’s Word of the Day and a Spiritual Truth in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress

Today’s word of the day arrives as I am rereading John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress: I do not always find the Word of the Day terribly enlightening, in part because Merriam-Webster only gives a brief etymology. And it is the stories … Continue reading

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The Heroic Gideon and Harrowing Features of Living in the Ninth: Thoughts on Tamsyn Muir’s Necromantic Dream Vision (Blogging the Hugos 2021)

In our 2020 Hugo Award roundtable, I was tasked with presenting Alix E. Harrow’s gorgeous gateway fantasy, The Ten Thousand Doors of January. Though I chose the book simply for its name and cover design, I came to love the … Continue reading

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Hugo Award 2021: Best Novel Signum Roundtable (Sat, Dec 18th, 6pm Eastern)

As I announced in my “Blogging the Hugos 2021” series launch, I am once again joining Signum University’s Hugo Award Best Novel Roundtable. In a gala zoom event that no doubt will rival the Worldcon ceremony in DC, I will … Continue reading

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N.K. Jemisin’s Super Strange Urban Apocalypse in The City We Became: Part 2: The City I Can’t Become (Blogging the Hugos 2021)

N.K. Jemisin is clearly one of the science fiction greats of the generation. Time will tell if she will stand with the all-time greats, like H.G. Wells, Robert A. Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Ursula … Continue reading

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N.K. Jemisin’s Super Strange Urban Apocalypse in The City We Became: Part 1: The Allegory That is Born (Blogging the Hugos 2021)

I first encountered N.K. Jemisin’s “Great City” series in her bracing, breakneck-speed short story, “The City Born Great,” which (in an edited form) is the prologue to The City We Became. Jemisin is one of this generation’s great speculative fiction … Continue reading

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