Book-Bat
Exploring the world of fantasy from a Christian perspective!
Time to nerd out! When is a superhero story not a superhero story? Jason is given the chance to gush about one of his favourite subjects as he and Karlissa J discuss movies, shows, comics, Batman, Spiderman, and even Shadow the Hedgehog.
What is your favourite superhero story? Let us know in the comments!
Jason takes over to ask the question: why does the way a story ends matter so much to us? Are we being fair by judging the story by its ending? Or do we miss out on the journey by emphasizing the end? Karlissa and Jason give some insights into their own writing process, explore thoughts on genre, and reflect on what they read growing up.
Spoilers for Treasure Planet (Disney)!
Karlissa has recently read Watership Down (Richard Adams), so we’re going to talk about novels with animal protagonists, with a focus on the rabbit tale – including thoughts about the movie!
New vocabulary: Animal Xenofiction (stories told from the perspective of an animal)
Books Mentioned: Warriors (Erin Hunter), Redwall (Brian Jacques), Guardians of Ga’Hoole (Katherine Lasky), Silverwing (Kenneth Oppel), The Incredible Journey (Sheila Burnfield), Jim Kjelgaard books, Walt Morey books, Sonic the Hedgehog stories, The Ark, the Reed, and the Fire Cloud (Jenny L. Cote), Runt the Brave (Daniel Schwabauer), The Green Ember (S.D. Smith).
What is your favourite animal-led novel? Let us know in the comments!
What would it look like for Christian fantasy to tackle more difficult subjects and questions? We give some ideas, like drawing from deeper history and acknowledging complex emotions. We also give writing updates, and thoughts on how Christian norms affect our writing.
SPOILER WARNING for Tales of the Diversity trilogy (Karlissa J)!
CORRECTION: in The Great Divorce, Lewis does mention that the mentor ghost is George MacDonald.
Mentioned: Thinking Out Loud podcast with Cameron MacAllister and Nathan Rittenhouse (toltogether.com/podcast); Lilith (George MacDonald); The Divine Comedy (Dante); The Great Divorce (CS Lewis).
In a subgenre – Christian fantasy novels – largely aimed at youth, is there even room or desire for tackling difficult or complex subject matter: like mental illness, tragedy, or denser theology?
What are the Christian expectations for fantasy novels? Why don’t more people know about or read C.S. Lewis’ adult fantasy stories: The Cosmic Trilogy and Till We Have Faces? How ought authors to challenge their readers, and can the Bible give us some ideas on how to approach mature storytelling?
We move from early 2000s Christian fantasy to works from classic authors as we sort through our thoughts on this topic.
Mentions: Till We Have Faces (CS Lewis), Children of Hurin (JRR Tolkien), Tales of the Diversity trilogy (Karlissa J), The Cosmic Trilogy (CS Lewis) including Out of the Silent Planet; the CS Lewis podcast (with Allister McGrath); The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings (Philip and Carol Zaleski); and the Bible Project series on Parables.
Does Christian fantasy need more ‘mature content’? What IS maturity? What is the role of spiritual maturity, difficult themes, and deeper thinking in fantasy? We will be exploring these questions and more in our series on mature content, as we take a look at classic literature and what authors like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien can teach us.
Don’t worry, this episode’s content is suitable for all ages!
Quote from C.S. Lewis comes from his article “The Lord of the Rings,” which can be found in his book On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature.
This episode is from back when the Book-Bat podcast was focused on Christian fantasy books. Visit book-bat.com/about to learn more about who we are and our goals for the podcast!