Whatever happened to the good old days when we recognized that some things are ugly, some things are monsters and you can't fix them?

In this episode, I address the increasingly prevalent phenomenon of cute monsters in fiction and why it is a symptom of a more significant breakdown of a concrete worldview in society. Monsters without teeth are really just a way to say that there is no such thing as evil; there is only misunderstanding.

The minimization of all monstrosity to nothing but a lack of tolerant understanding removes the task of human self-examination, seeing the potential of evil inside of us, and having the hope for redemption.

Malevolence is a force, simmering under the surface of all humans, and it is real. 

Should we avoid violence in media? Are certain portrayals of violence in media better for us than others?

This week I continue our discussion on violence as I examine Mat Reeves’ The Batman. Every iteration of Batman is an expression of very different eras of American history, from the campy, sometimes silly Batman of the 60’s to the bleak and, dare I say, hopeless Batman of 2022.

We live in a very strange time, and Reeves’ depiction of Batman directly reflects the zeitgeist in which we find ourselves. A loss of institutions, social capital, and shared stories has left us with a dark reality; however, as we see, any kind of encounter with the darkness cannot be successfully overcome, except by an act of self-sacrifice. 

Perhaps there is hope after all. 

Time, despite my best efforts to conquer it, has, yet again, conquered me! In all of my busyness, I wasn't able to sit down and record my next podcast so, in lieu of a fresh episode this week, I figured I would take this opportunity to share an audiobook chapter from my Raven Son series.

Here is a description of the book:

An evil omen clouds the sky. A song of power returns. Can one man's quest save the world?

Isn't empathy a good thing? Well, yes. In moderation. But we seem to live in a world where immoderate empathy is causing widespread victimhood. And our stories are reflecting this strange reality.

In this throwback episode, I officially get publicly and loudly angry about The Last Jedi. Seriously, though, paying homage to those masters who came before you is probably a better strategy than... whatever the heck the Last Jedi was... But this is more than Star Wars, people. I'm talking about the best new Sci-fi series I've read in a long time, the thing I WISH Star Wars would be more like. It's called The Sun Eater series by Christopher Ruochhio. 

In this wide-ranging conversation with YA author Vesper Stamper, we talk about the power of story, the ways trauma can lead to suffering, but how it can be a gift and can make the sufferer a gift to others. We talked about falling into stories you never expected to write, about the wisdom of children in dark times, and about dealing with distraction and learning to be present for creativity. Believe me, you don't want to miss this conversation.

Generally, I like to focus on the ways that fantasy stories help form us and make us into better humans; but, is it possible for certain types of fantasy to be bad for us? In this episode, I unpack a recent trend to abandon the traditional hero's journey of pleasant catharsis for a new embracing of the beautiful chaos of reality - specifically, I focus on this trend in the film, The Green Knight. 

I don't know about you, but the reality I see in the world around me is, often, anything but beautiful. Opponents of the traditional view tend to criticize the characters for being morally simplistic and lean into the complexity of the individuals we may encounter in life. When we turn to fantasy, isn't part of the experience the safe fall into a world that gives us hope and life? Sadly, many of these "beautiful chaos" stories head only in one direction . . . death. 

No thanks, I'll just re-read Lord of the Rings for the 20th time. 

Let's be honest: it's a golden age for speculative fiction. The most fantasy and sci-fi streaming shows in ages! But then again, there's the Last Jedi and Star Trek: Discovery... Thank goodness for books. And one of the best new series I've read in a long time is Christopher Ruocchio's Sun Eater. In this interview, we talk about his influences, why sci-fi is such an important genre for our time, why Jordan Peterson helped him write and live better, and what it means to be human in an increasingly post-human age.

C. S. Lewis's final novel Till We Have Faces is a novelization and adaptation of the Roman myth "Cupid and Psyche." Rather than tell the story from Psyche's perspective, Lewis tells it from her sister's, a character with no name in the original myth. In this multi-layered and very difficult novel, the main character hears a strange pronouncement about her fate from the god of love. "You are also Psyche."

This short sentence is one of several short pronouncements that acts like keys to unlocking the layers of meaning of the novel, which sometimes are multiple layers deep. I couldn't understand it for a long time. But then it hit me.

Till We Have Faces is a novel about becoming truly human. Its answer to the "how" of that proposition is shocking, even provocative. But it is ultimately a hopeful one because it is the resolution of every journey, both of the hero and the heroine.

In this episode of "Fantasy for our Time," fantasy author Nicholas Kotar tackles the difficult task of addressing the war in Ukraine. As a creator of epic fantasy stories inspired by Russian fairy tales, and as someone with deep Russian roots, the complex narrative of the conflict has served to be a point of extreme internal tension. 

How can we resolve such internal tensions in a society of isolation, with no communal mechanism for inner healing and catharsis? Kotar explains how the stories we love can inspire us to go on our own hero’s journey, pass through heaven & hell, and come out slaying dragons - internal and external. 

Listen and see if you’re ready to take the hero’s journey and go back into your own community to be a source of communal catharsis!