Monthly Archives: May 2006

Let’s Get Ready to Rumble!

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Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost wants in on some of the traffic that blog brawls bring, so he posted a wicked funny jab at some of the major players in the Christian ghetto of the blogosphere. I think this barb needs some clarification, though.

"Jason, Scott, Bret, and Gene (Fide-O) — On their blog is a picture of a Rottweiler over a quote that begins “Be meek for the meek shall inherit the earth.” If your confused by such a dissonant juxtaposition keep in mind that these guys are to the Five Solas what the Jesuits are to the Pope. (And now that I’ve used them in a comparison with Catholics I’ll probably need to enter the Godbloggers Relocation Program.)

Does he mean the Jesuits of old or modern Jesuits? If the Fide-O folks are faithful 5-point Calvinists, they should probably take umbrage at the comparison to the Jesuits. Anyhow, I wonder if we could convince them to trade in their rottweiller for a German shepherd. 😉

Joe also took a shot at St. Blog’s Parish.

"St. Blog’s Parish — With such numbers on their side you’d think the Catholic wing of the Godblogosphere would be primed to invade on evangelical turf like the Bloods moving in on the Crips (or at least the Sharks invading the space of the Jets). But we hear nary a peep out of them. We could even throw out vicious insults—’The Pope wears a funny hat.’–but they wouldn’t even notice since they don’t read our blogs. It’s almost like we don’t exist or something. This apathy toward us may explain why we end up squabbling with each other, rather than with those Christians we might have substantial disagreements with. (By the way, he really does. The Pope. His hat. It’s kinda big and goofy.)"

Perhaps if evangelicals stopped rabbiting on about conferences we’re neither invited to nor particularly interested in, and occasionally linked to one of our posts, we might take notice. Also, I think the squabbling is more a cause of apathy than a result. I mean, who wants to interrupt a dysfunctional family while its bickering? 😉

Pentecost Novena

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As we celebrate today the Solemnity of the Ascension, we likewise commemorate the first novena. After the Ascension the Apostles gathered together with the Blessed Virgin, praying nine days until the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Church recalls this event with a novena, especially that novena promoted by Pope Leo XIII for the reunification of Christianity. Because Pentecost is the birth of the Church, we take this occasion to implore that the full number of the faithful be brought into the "one fold". There are links below for a popular novena to the Holy Spirit (although any novena will do) and the ancient Hymn "Veni Creator" (with translation by Oratorian Fr. Caswall). Join us in prayer for the unity of the faithful, and that this Pentecost may be an occasion of great grace.

novena
Veni Creator Spiritus music
Veni Creator Spiritus mp3
Come Holy Ghost (translation by Edward Caswall, CO)

N.B. There is a partial indulgence attached to any public novena before Pentecost. If this blog community is saying it, is this novena "public"? Oh, who knows. Do it anyway.

Fantasy & Science Fiction Review

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The nice people at Fantasy and Science Fiction sent me a copy of their July Issue, on the condition that I blog about it. I am happy to oblige.

As an overall assessment, this is issue is a lot of fun. I subscribed to this magazine for about a year in college before being broke and swamped with three majors knocked me out of the habit. But I do have fond memories of reading F&SF on Saturday mornings in the Oakland Bruegger’s Bagels. This issue took me back to those good memories, and is a nice change from the grim turn that so many stories have–I like a good dystopia, but a lot of the stuff in Gardner Dozois’ more recent Year’s Best Science Fiction anthologies are really sad, and I can use the periodic break!

For starters, we have a novella by Ysabeau S. Wilce entitled "The Lineaments of Gratified Desire", which is a very trippy adventure set on a sort of Halloween night where magickal currents run high and a magickal grandson of a ruling family must track down Tiny Doom, his wife and heiress to the Pontifexa’s reign. It’s a very funny, intelligent story.

Terry Bisson’s "Billy and the Unicorn" has his classical warped sense of humor where a boy gets a magical companion to keep him company at his dysfunctional home and at school. Matthew Hughes tells us about a world in the far future where someone discovers a magical spell that can tell you a person’s salience action in life, your purpose, as it were. Now the question is do you really want to know?

Now onto the SF side of issue’s offerings.

Robert Garcia y Robertson delivers a novelet called "Kansas, She Says, Is the Name of the Star", which is an SF takeoff of the Wizard of Oz series. I don’t want to say more, but it is neat to see how he makes the classic mythos work.

"Just Do It" is a satire by new author Heather Lindlsey about a society where marketers use chemicals to trigger cravings and behaviors in people walking around town, and a woman who is trying to destroy the industry. Some nice, tart commentary on modern society made that story a pleasure to read and reread. Robert Onopa’s first-contact story,  "Republic" was very evocative, but he left so many tantalazing hints about the alien culture that I really hope he’ll write another story about them, perhaps even a novellas.

Steven Popkes takes us to the lives and times of replicants of a Central American dictator who were built just before America captured him. One of them may be the real guy. Jerry Seeger has a tale of espionage and assassination that seems inspired by the classic Dark City movie from several years ago. The former was a nice little puzzle story, and while the latter started strong, it seemed like an incomplete mystery. Maybe the author was more concerned with the world he built and the struggle going on than with any mystery per se. One doesn’t usually say this, but maybe he should have expanded the story a bit.

To sum up, the issue is very strong–stronger than most of the issues I’d seen in the past. I can see why they spread this among bloggers, because I can heartily recommend it to you when it appears on shelves next month or so.