Strangers and Aliens: Science Fiction & Fantasy from a Christian Perspective

A special episode for the Year of C.S. Lewis!!!

Heath McNease, a geek philosopher hip-hop/folk musician, sat down to talk with Ben and Steve about C.S. Lewis, being an artists and a Christian, being a musician in today’s economy and with today’s technology, and some geek-stuff, too!

Heath McNease is a uniquely talented musician, whose music covers a wide range of music and subjects. After listening to this episode, we recommend checking out his music at the links below:

Heath McNease can be found here: http://heathmcneasemusic.com

You can get his Weight of Glory album here: The Weight of Glory by Heath McNease

Another of his albums, with lots of geek references: Straight Outta Console: The Nintendo Thumb Mixtape

Ben, Steve, and Dr. Jayce look back on some of their favorite science fiction situation comedies in this episode. Alf, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Mork and Mindy, Red Dwarf . . . and many, many more.

Also, Shazbot’s family makes their first appearance in the show, making this a collector’s item!!!

And we open hailing frequencies and take a look at some of the feedback we have received!

All in all, a fun and unique episode.

As usual, we want to know what you think! Please, contact us through the website, e-mail us at [email protected], or leave us a voicemail that we can play in an upcoming episode at 1-804-37-ALIEN!

Thanks for listening!

In this episode, Ben interviews Allan and Aaron Reini, the father/son writing team behind the Christian sci-fi book Flight of the Angels.

Flight of the Angels is a big space opera military action story, with elements of corporate espionage, that has a spiritual theme woven into the plot.

Ben and the Reinis talk about their writing process, how they approached writing a science fiction book with spiritual elements, self-publishing, and much, much more.

If you want to purchase Flight of the Angels, you can buy it for your Kindle or Kindle app or as a trade paperback:

Highly recommended!

~ Ben

In this episode, we talk about Westerns — a genre that we believe should be filed under “fantasy” when talking about all the other speculative fiction genres.

We talk about why the Western tends to be a genre fans of sci-fi/fantasy enjoy.

We talk about the attraction of the Western to Christians.

We explore titles like “The Man with No Name” trilogy, Gunsmoke, The Postman, and many, many more.

We spoil the ending (sort of) of The Shakiest Gun in the West.

And we ruminate on the metaphors that the Western is uniquely suited to explore.

We had a lot of fun recording this one, and hope you enjoy listening!

Agree? Disagree? We want to hear from you!!! Call us, with your phone — 1-804-37-ALIEN! Email us, perhaps ALSO with your phone — [email protected]! Like on Facebook (using, maybe, your phone) — http://facebook.com/strangersandaliens

 

For this episode, listener feedback!

And a request.

The request: send us a recording, under five minutes, talking about what caused speculative fiction to change for you from something interesting and exciting to something deeper with more meaning?

Email us your recording to [email protected] or call our S&A hotline at 1-804-37-ALIEN and leave us a message! (Messages are cut off at a certain time, so you may have to leave two messages. If you have to do that, don’t worry — we’ll stitch them together as best as we can!)

Just introduce yourself how you feel comfortable (if you have a blog or podcast you want to mention in your introduction, please feel free!) and tell us, and our listeners, what your spec-fic epoch/quantum leap was!

This is the third part of a periodic series we are doing about the Seven Deadly Sins, and this time it’s . . . WRATH!!!

In this episode: Muppet! Bad Shatner impressions! The Bozo Show! Comic book characters! Trek! Wars! Justice, vengeance, grace, love, righteous indignation . . . and the guys figure out in real time, before your very eyes . . . or ears what the opposite virtue might be!

If we missed anything, please contact us! Call us at 1-804-37-ALIEN and leave us a message we can use in an upcoming podcast! Or you can e-mail us at[email protected] (MP3s welcome!) or go to our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/strangersandaliens).

Also, we would love it if you joined the conversation in the comment section below! We want to know what you think! Did we miss a great example? Did we miss an important angle? Let us know!

Other episodes in the Seven Deadly Sins Series:

Part One: GLUTTONY

Part Two: SLOTH

Part Three: WRATH

(Seven Deadly Sins artwork by Tim Baron – http://www.timbaron.blogspot.com)

This episode of Strangers and Aliens, the Christianity and sci-fi fantasy podcast, is a celebration and deconstruction of adaptation! Hosts Ben Avery, Dr. Jayce O’Neal, and Stephen MacDonald take a look at some of the best and worst translations of book to movie, from Lord of the Rings to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy! They also take a close look at the screen adaptations of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books.

 

In this episode, we talk about the huge news that Christopher Nolan may be taking the reigns of the DC Comics superhero movie franchise.

Some of the topics covered:

What was the big news that Ben wanted to talk about that Dr. Jayce squashed?

What were their initial reactions the to Justice League news?

What ringtone does Dr. Jayce use when his mother calls?

Justice League vs. World’s Finest — which style of movie would you prefer?

What Justice League characters are needed? Or NOT needed . . .

What is different between Avengers and Justice League franchises, and what is the same?

And a visit with some old friends as we stroll down memory lane to the Superfriends . . . Zan and Jayna!

If not Nolan . . . who?

And we lay the hate on Green Lantern!

In this episode, the guys tackle some of the biggest questions in faith-based geekdom: is there life on other planets? And if so, what would it mean for Christian theology and Christians in general?

And how does Aslan fit into the conversation?

And what revelation did Ben have about E.T. that made him feel really, really stupid?

They also talking about “shipping,” the fan term for when you want to see relationships form in the show you are a fan of, and Dr. Jayce’s wife sort of makes an appearance as a fan of The X-Files. But is she a “shipper”? Find out!

And they talk about other podcasts! Including:

Geekually Yoked (http://geekuallyyoked.com) — “The world’s best married Christian geek podcast”

Storymen (http://www.storymen.us) — “The intersection of pop culture, theology, and history”

Faith, Hope, and Nerds (http://www.faithhopeandnerds.com) — “A light hearted yet serious look at being creative, being a Christian and, more often than not, being confused.”

The Sci-Fi Christian (http://thescifichristian.com) — “Theology at warp speed” (the episode we referenced is: Episode 125: The SFC Time Loop – Is the Existence of Aliens Compatible with a Biblical Worldview?)

Spiritblade Underground (http://spiritblade.blogspot.com) — “A Christian examination and celebration of geek entertainment”

This episode is an interview with Ryan Dunlap, who is, among other things, a writer, director, editor, actor, producer . . .

We talk about his movie Greyscale, which stars Ryan along with Tim Russ (Star Trek: Voyager) and Doug Jones (Hellboy, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Pan’s Labyrinth). We also walk about Ryan’s self-published novel, The Wind Merchant. Other topics include the steampunk aesthetic, self-publishing, the intersection of Christianity and creativity, and the Save Saeed campaign.

Links Ryan mentioned in the episode:

Fictionsmith — http://fictionsmith.com — Ryan’s personal website, with links to both Greyscale and The Wind Merchant

Things Learned in Monochrome — http://www.tlimono.com — A blog of things Ryan learned while making Greyscale

#savesaeed — http://savesaeed.org — The Save Saeed campaign, where you can find the petition. They are trying to get one million people to sign the petition before the petition is taken to some meetings at the United Nations.

The Greyscale trailer:

The Wind Merchantat Amazon: