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Science fiction is full of first contact stories, but is there a such thing as LAST contact?  Decide exactly what that means, and write about it.

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Harry Potter book covers by Mary GrandPré

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Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up.

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If your two primary goals are impressive Bible knowledge and minimum wrong-doing, then you’re becoming a Pharisee, not a Christ follower. Be the one who wrestles with righteously living out the Scriptures until a change of mind takes place.

Jed Brewer (via unkaglen)

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Even Odder

My brother and I have started a podcast where we talk about stuff! You can find it at www.codedna.me/evenodder

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My favorite things:

- waking up naturally before you have to and feeling well rested

- a cool shower on a hot day

- clothes right out of the drier and still warm

- when you push “shuffle” and hear that one song you didn’t know you needed

- steam wafting off hot food

- finding clothes that fit perfectly

- helping someone else feel better when they’re in a bad mood

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Down here we have faces for a hundred different games. We speak in whispers, look askance, Or speed by, trading glance for glance And name for coded name.

I'm happy to announce that my new blog/website is up at http://codedna.me! Go have a look around.

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Anatomy of a Relient K-sionship

Relient K has written a lot of music about romantic relationships - enough, in fact, to sketch a full-blown fling from start to finish. Given the intensity, I would estimate this happening over the span of at least two years.

There’s a playlist of all the songs in order here. The short version has one song from each album, as listed below - the long version includes more songs to broaden the picture.

Sadie Hawkins Dance - the first spark (Anatomy of the Tongue in Cheek) Mood Rings Over Thinking - internal questioning (Two Lefts Don’t Make a Right...But Three Do) The One I'm Waiting For Sleepin' - long nights together; the relationship starts (Air for Free) The Best Thing Lost Boy - the honeymoon phase (Collapsible Lung) Candlelight Must Have Done Something Right - happiness together (Five Score and Seven Years Ago) Savannah At Least We Made It This Far - empty words, trying to reassure (The Bird and the Bee Sides) Come Right Out and Say It Which to Bury; Us or the Hatchet? - the breakup (Mmhmm) This Is the End (If You Want It) I Don't Need a Soul - picking up the pieces (Forget and Not Slow Down) Empty House 

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5 Fantastic Fantasy/Sci-Fi Stories You May Not Have Heard Of

In no particular order:

5. Shards of Honor (and Barrayar): Lois Bujold is both an MC and a master when it comes to word choice. Her finely crafted prose never outstays its welcome in my book. Shards of Honor is a gripping space opera love story told from the point of view of a 33 year old woman, and Barrayar follows that up with a flawless political thriller centered around her unborn son. Also on the plus side, if you like being invested: Bujold has written something like 20 other stories in this series, so this is something you could get into for a while. (But start with these two)

4. Airman: You may recognize Eoin (pronounced ‘Owen’) Colfer as the author of the famed young adult series Artemis Fowl. What you may not know is that he wrote a steampunk novel set on an island kingdom off the coast of Ireland, and it is beautiful. I would call it an easier to read Count of Monte Cristo. I would...and I just did.

3. Now Showing: I’m not sure if this is available outside the Rogues anthology, but you should get the Rogues anthology anyway because it’s full of amazing stories. One of my favorites is Connie Willis’ Now Showing. In other stories of hers I have gotten tired of her habit of using long lists of names as part of the setting, but Now Showing uses that feature to evoke the frenetic experience of the setting perfectly. Also, it’s probably the least “Fi” Sci-Fi can get.

2. The Emperor’s Soul: If you’re going to hitch your cart to one fantasy author, pick Brandon Sanderson. There may be better writing out there, but none being published as quickly as his. He must spend all his waking moments writing, revising, or at least thinking about his Cosmere, the grand idea that links every single one of his novels. Luckily, you don’t have to care about that to enjoy any of his works, and I believe The Emperor’s Soul is the best standalone short story I have ever read. It weaves a thinkpiece about the definition of art into a mysterious, magical tale featuring a forger...excuse me, a Forger.

1. Schools of Clay: I don’t agree with the title “Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015″ for this anthology, since I would expect more like an 80% hit rate on story likability rather than the 1 or 2 stories I actually enjoyed. Nevertheless, Derek Künsken’s Schools of Clay makes this one worth your time and money. In it, we meet aliens who are truly alien, not just humans wrapped in different skin. And yet their problems and the story’s arc are relatable enough to keep you invested throughout. Also read it for the majestic word pictures that your inner eye can watch.

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200 Word RPG Challenge 2017 - My Favorite Finalists

For those of you who are unaware of what this is, every year since 2015 my friend David has orchestrated a “small” contest where people write and submit role playing systems consisting of only 200 words. This follows the principle of “constraints breed creativity” and has resulted in some beautiful nuggets of gameplay and design.

The 2017 challenge finalists have just been announced, and I thought I’d take time to talk about my favorites, in alphabetical order.

1. Memoriam Ignis

I have come across the idea before of madness as a limiting factor in a magical world - an explanation of why everyone doesn’t do everything with magic. However, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it so well encapsulated in mechanics as in this game.

2. Might Makes Right

A fantastic original idea for resolving conflicts. The only thing that’s more hilarious than arm wrestling your MM to decide the outcome of a conflict is doing it in order to “rescue a space gym from the Evil Beancounter Alliance.” The only problem I can see is that the MM might tire of arm wrestling much more quickly than the players, given that the MM has to take them all on.

3. Nightblind

Oh. My. Goodness. I must confess a penchant for games that let you lie to the other players, even if I may not be that good at them. Somehow, Nightblind manages to flawlessly put that mechanic next to some rich theming and storytelling hooks, all in 200 words. This is the game I want to play IRL the most. 

4. The Human World

One player is a child exploring the (post-apocalyptic) world for the first time, the others are obsessive androids tasked with teaching the child about the world, but limited by their own personality traits, which eclipse all else for them. A powerful way to look at reductio ad absurdum in the context of a game. Also would be great to play on a road trip with friends.

5. VOICE

I disagree with the judge’s reading on this. To me it doesn’t look so focused on privilege. True, It can only experience the things the gods allow It to, but the gods themselves can only experience the world through Its sensations. The gods, though the ones in control of gifts, are as dependent on It as It is on them. Regardless of interpretation, however, VOICE is a masterclass of storytelling.

...oh, yeah, and I’m a finalist as well. Check it out!

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Embrace everybody.

Anonymous asked: I read an article in a Christian magazine about ministering to LGBT people, and I realized that I had my own biases in that area. Do you reach out to gay people in your ministry, and how does that work?

Unka Glen answered: We do have LGBTQ men and women at our meetings.

[our Prayer Captain, Miss Loretta, prays with one of our men at Christmas-time]

In addition to that, many of our men have been molested by other men, and others have prostituted themselves out to other men for money to keep their addiction going, and when Christians talk about homosexuality, those guys think that they’re included in that conversation.

When we let people talk about homosexuality in the abstract, suddenly we hear phrases like “culture wars”, and “values under attack” and “gay agenda”. All of that B.S. (which stands for Biblically Specious) is about manipulating us with a scary boogeyman, so people can grab money for a radio show, or get votes. 

But when an actual person stands in front of you and asks, “Does God really want me?” The only right answer is always: YES!

Nobody ever said getting a gay person into heaven was as tough as getting a camel through the eye of a needle, but Jesus did actually say that about rich people. If you look at the IMPACT of certain sins on the church, you see that greed starves missionaries of resources, pride keeps the focus off of Jesus, and selfishness keeps people from serving and participating.

What’s the worst that homosexuality might do to the church?

Also, who chose this particular issue and these particular people (who are loved by God) to pick on? Also, who started the idea that Christians are in the world to fight sin, as opposed to preaching good news?

Everybody has their struggles. A healthy Christian community recognizes this, doesn’t ask people to hide from it, and embraces everyone, even as we gently nudge them towards a freedom from whatever those struggles are.

For people in the LGBTQ community, their primary struggle likely begins with the mean-spirited behavior of other Christians. And freedom begins when Christians like you and I confess that Jesus would have been more loving.

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Universal Sins of Universe Movies

I love movies; and I love going to theaters to see them, it's not an experience I had very much growing up. However, I have resolved from here on out to neither watch in theaters nor at home any movie from a franchise of more than three. For brevity, we shall call these movies Universe Movies or U-Movies, after the Marvel Universe whose unprecedented success set the tone of such franchises from 2012 onwards. There may be some exceptions - watching with a large group of friends, for instance - but on the whole my mind is set: no more Avengers, no more Star Wars, Star Trek, or Harry Potter. I would mention the DC Universe, but I was already not watching that. "But wait!" my inner critic cries. "You need to be aware of the culture! You can't just put a blanket ban on movies that haven't been announced yet! Think of how many good movies you'll miss!" And it's right. I will miss a lot of good movies. I've already missed Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, as well as Star Wars: Rogue One, and I only saw the new Star Trek movie (Beyond?) because I was on a plane with nothing else to do. So why am I doing this? Well, to save money in part; but also because I'm fed up with un-innovative, uninspiring sequels; action/adventure movies that are all action and no adventure; boring, routine storytelling and cliched camera shots. Here, for your perusal, shall I list the 5 Universal Sins of Universe Movies:

1. Theme park effect I read a great article, and I'm upset that I can't find it again, about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the screenplay that's acting as a "Book 8" in the Harry Potter series. It pointed out that in Cursed Child, story took a back seat to spectacle: a lot of things were put in for fan recognition - "Oh, I remember this!" The author of that article called it something like a theme park story. What happens doesn't matter as much as the fact that you're in the same place you were before. And I get it, I get the longing to be back in Harry's England or Gotham City or what have you. But the reason we love those places in the first place is the characters we learn about there, the stories that move us to better ourselves; and in U-Movies those things are often gone, poorly replaced by brand recognition.

2. Character undeath One of the worst features Marvel and DC took from comic books is that heroes often seem to be immune to enemy attack. Or, if they do fall, they are resurrected somehow, or it was a faked death, or...you've heard it all before, I'm sure. It's a cheap bait-and-switch for storytelling: all the drama and loss of death without having to end the story arc! This tactic has been used so many times that it's all but certain now that main character deaths are not real. Part of why Game of Thrones is so refreshing is that most people in it stay dead. I remember watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens when it came out (spoilers, btw). Poe and Finn's ship crashed in the beginning, and Poe was apparently dead, but I had a sinking feeling he would be popping back up later; and when the expected reveal did happen, I was disappointed. J.J. Abrams had a chance to do so much character building based on Poe's death, but chose the cheap thrills instead. This topic also leads into

3. Escalating or dangling plot lines *Old man voice* Back in my day, movies used to have a beginning, a middle and an end. Now, they're all middle! </Old man voice> For real, though, when you know a character /needs/ to be alive for the sequel, or there's a whole lot of backstory that props up the character interactions in a movie, it feels like you're watching a TV Show with breaks of epic proportions in between episodes. 2 to 3 hours should be enough to start and resolve a plot; but in a U-Movie there needs to be a teaser of what's coming next, some unresolved issue to use as a cliffhanger. There's only so long movies can say they're going to resolve everything and then don't before I start getting suspicious.

4. Unclear directive vision Universes in and of themselves are not bad. There are, presumably, stories it would take many movies to tell well (see: The Lord of the Rings). But many Universes these days exist only to make money, because other people are doing it, or it was successful in the past (see: The Hobbit movies [why is that a plural what were you thinking Pete]). The thing about long franchises is that at some point, the director you've hired will die or stop making movies and you'll have to find another one. Same for characters in your franchise. Hence Spiderman is more like schizo-man because he's been remade so many times.

5. Sameness I left The Force Awakens theater with a bad taste in my mouth. It had been a perfectly good movie, but it was almost exactly the same, plot point for plot point, as the original Star Wars: A New Hope. It was then that my desire to cease seeing these things was born. Why did the American wizard school in Fantastic Beasts have to have four houses with creature names? Why did The Force Awakens start with John Williams music and a title crawl? Why do all the Star Trek movies end with the original show's introduction voice-overs? Because producers and directors have mistaken style with formula. And as long as money keeps falling into their laps, they will remain convinced that Star Wars IS the hero's journey or Star Trek IS Captain Kirk going against orders. U-Movies are safe bets for production companies - why innovate and ruin a good cash cow?

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Math can represent a lot of things. For instance, the image above is the mathematical representation of a limerick. How, you ask? Read on!

My favorite podcast, Hello Internet, recently hosted a limerick competition which I entered without much hope. I was surprised, therefore, to be listening last night and hear one of my limericks being read out on the shortlist!

Here it is in it’s entirety (it’s #17 on the list):

There once was a fellow named Tim Who downloaded H.I. on a whim. As he sat on his flight, He received quite a fright: Plane crash corner was mentioning him!

I suppose a brief explanation is in order (Hello Internet in-joke spoilers incoming). In an episode long ago, one of the hosts was talking about an interest of his in plane crashes, why they happen, and the stories around them. He joked that he would start a “plane crash corner” on the show to talk about them every week. The other one joked that there was probably someone on a plane who would be horrified to listen to that. The hosts then spoke directly to this hypothetical person, naming them “Tim.”

Two things resulted from this. The first was that eventually, all HI listeners were referred to as Tims. The second is that plane crash corner is alive and well, still cropping up from time to time (Tim to Tim?)

All that to say, if you’re reading this now, go vote for #17!

Limericks are great.

Oh, you’re still wondering about the equation? It was devised by Leigh Mercer, and reads like this:

A dozen, a gross, and a score Plus three times the square root of four Divided by seven Plus five times eleven Is nine squared and not a bit more.

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The Catalyst, the Clown, and the Cynic

The internet (a.k.a. an enormous semi-coordinated collection of human beings) can do great things, both beneficial and terrible, in the real world. It can also do big things that have little to no impact on the real world, except for propagating silly or clever ideas through the minds of those who come across them - in other words, memes. The Old Reddit Switcharoo is one of the latter.

A little knowledge of the way Reddit works is required to understand this beast. Suffice it to say that a "post" is a topic for discussion, pulled from somewhere else on the internet or out of the mind of the Original Poster (OP). "Replies" are threaded below the post, forming a sort of tree: many replies to the post, many replies to each of those replies, and so on. Multiple conversations can happen under (and usually relating to) a single post. For a more thorough introduction, CGP Grey's video may come in handy.

The Old Reddit Switcharoo is based on a particular kind of joke that someone (/u/jun2san to be precise) noticed popping up frequently on Reddit. It consists of two parts: the Catalyst makes a post with two subjects ("Scots have 421 words for snow - more than Inuits"), and then the Clown pretends to misunderstand the statement, switching the subjects ("Why, how many words do they have for 'Inuits'?").

The Switcharoo is meant to bring attention to the tired, repetitive nature of this joke. It accomplishes this by linking the joke to a previous manifestation of it by somebody somewhere else on Reddit, and linking that joke to an older one, etc. The ideal Switcharoo is long chain of the exact same joke in different contexts, which someone could follow for hours or days before reaching an end.

This chain has grown over time, and has given rise to a third party on the joke: the Cynic. After the one who set up the joke and the one who made the joke comes the one who points out the formulaic nature of the joke by linking a previous switcharoo ("Ahhh, the ol' reddit Eskimoroo"). Full disclosure: I took the idea of this three-part nature and its example verbatim from this wonderful graphic depicting the Roo Tree as it was in 2015.

What interests me most are the "sub-memes" that have grown around the Switcharoo. For instance, the Cynic almost always couches his link in the form "Ah, the old Reddit [noun]aroo," to which some other Redditor often replies, "Hold my [noun], I'm going in!" (As in real life, once one starts going down the tree it is surprisingly difficult to stop). "Hello, future people!" is another common reply, since as this particular node gets older and older, people from further and further in the future will be visiting on their way down. There are even people who spend time moderating the Switcharoo, making sure the chain is as long and unbroken as possible (remember, even Reddit is only semi-organized).

If you're looking for a lesson of some sort here, I'm sorry to disappoint. But the internet, like life, doesn't always have a lesson to offer. Sometimes all it has is a curiosity, a complex machine doing almost nothing, a wave to ride.

Hold my book, I'm going in!

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The Right Hook

If you know me personally, as many if not all of you do, you will not be surprised to hear that I spend a lot of time reading novels, particularly science fiction and fantasy. But no matter how hard I try, there are and will always be endless stacks of books I haven't read - and one of the avid reader's main problems is how to pick what to read next. Lists are made, friends are queried as to their reading experiences, authors of well-liked previous books are revisited, catalogues and prologue chapters are perused, sometimes for longer than the story actually takes to read.

Knowing this, any author who wants their book to do well needs to immediately draw readers in. Give away the drug for free first, then start charging when the addicts come back for more. Narratively, this often means starting with a vignette light on character and setting and heavy on action or emotion; the metaphorical "charge" comes later when more complicated stories are told that require knowledge of characters and settings already defined. For instance, J.R.R. Tolkein's widely famed "Lord of the Rings" requires a huge amount of buy-in for (I would say) an equally huge reward of story and scope - so it starts by inflaming the reader's curiosity and empathy by describing and idealizing hobbits. We don't need to know any specific characters to feel from the outset that the Shire must be preserved and protected, and that is where the real story starts. This kind of introduction is known, as in music, as the "hook."

Today, I would like to examine the first paragraph (really, the first two) of Jim Butcher's "Furies of Calderon", first in the Codex Alera series. I have previously read the first six of another series of Butcher's, the Dresden Files, and found them quite enjoyable. The Codex Alera was brought to my attention by a friend of mine on Facebook, and I thought it would be a fun exercise to see what I could glean from just the title and the hook, without any other knowledge of the series.

Amara rode atop the swaying back of the towering old gargant bull, going over the plan in her head. The morning sun shone down on her, taking the chill out of the misty air and warming the dark wool of her skirts. Behind her, the axles of the cart squeaked and groaned beneath their loads. The slave collar she wore had begun to chafe her skin, and she made an irritated mental note to wear one for a few days in order to grow used to it, before the next mission. Assuming she survived this one, of course.

- Jim Butcher, "Furies of Calderon" (Codex Alera Book 1) 

So, title. The title contains two words that do not currently have meaning in English: Calderon and Alera. This suggests fantasy or science fiction immediately. "Calderon" also conjures images of boiling pots, heat, conflict. This pairs well with "Furies," which serves a double linguistic purpose of "rage" and "mythic creatures hunting for vengeance." "Codex" is not technically English, but it carries the meaning of a collection of words, as a dictionary or storybook. Therefore, "Alera" could be a place, a culture, or an event about which this series tells.

As with many, many hooks, we are dropped "in medias res," in the middle of the action. This is indicated by the use of the definite article "the" to refer to "bull," "plan," "cart," and "slave collar," as well as a few other nouns. This usage is promisory: go along, assuming these things already in place without explanation, and the author will explain them later...especially when it comes to "plan" and "slave collar."

The word "gargant," unknown to me, shows up in the first sentence. There are two likely interpretations: "gargant" is used as an interesting stand-in for "big" (backed up by "towering" and my previous knowledge of the word "gargantuan"), or "gargant" is an adjective unique to this made up world, in which case I will learn more about it later - again, promisory.

Even though character and setting are not central to the hook, the author is helping us learn as much about them as possible in order to keep us engaged when, inevitably, those things become more important. Right away we learn of a female character named Amara (probably a [or the] protagonist), who has "the plan;" and indeed, is used to executing plans frequently, as shown by the phrase "before the next mission." At first it looks like she might be a slave, but then we learn the slave collar is part of the plan, a disguise which she is unused to wearing. "Morning sun" and "misty air" paint a picture of a setting not unlike our world; "dark wool of her skirts" and "axles of the cart" hint at medieval technology.

The one sentence paragraph also makes an appearance here. Butcher is fond of this device, at least in the works of his I've already read. The fact that the statement floats as a separate paragraph gives visual impact to the words, brackets them off in the reader's brain as important. I think it can be overused, leaving the reader distrustful of dramatic statements, but its use here serves an important function. It raises the tension - in this context, it introduces a feeling of doubt and a possibility of death.

One might say all of this is overanalysis. I might agree - but I think practiced readers get used to picking this information up subconsciously. The thousands of data points that accumulate throughout a story are what come back as tone or feeling, what makes one made-up world different than the next. And all stories, whether based on history or not, are in some way made up.

(If you're interested in this topic, I recommend Brandon Sanderson's lecture series on how to be a fantasy/sci-fi author, especially #4 on World Building)

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A Moan about Moana (and the Disney Princess Problem-Solving Method)

Spoilers for Moana, Star Wars, and Inside Out. Enter at your own risk.

Yes, Moana is a good movie. The music is nice and rhythmic, just the way I like it, and it has Lin-Manuel Miranda’s fingerprints all over it, to the point where I think a fan of Hamilton could figure out without having known beforehand who was behind “You’re Welcome.” The animation quality, as usual, is top notch.

It is the story that I take issue with - not even the entire story, but its central conceit. I call it the “Disney Princess Problem-Solving Method,” and it goes something like: “I long for a life outside of my current existence. I begin my journey and fail. Perhaps there is a montage where I learn some new skills. At the climax I realize that the ability was inside me all along / I just needed to believe in myself / I am special!”

This narrative is in a LOT of Disney movies. Off the top of my head: Finding Nemo, Finding Dory, Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Toy Story, Treasure Planet, Zootopia (by no means is this an exhaustive list). To be clear, none of these movies are bad! They just all contain some elements of this “willpower wins” mentality.

Now, there’s a reason this mentality is part of so many of these stories - it fits well in the Hero’s Journey arc and it taps a sort of generic goodwill. Everyone watching is rooting for the hero, we know they’re special because all our attention is on them, and so when they discover that they are indeed special it feels like something True...and something that could happen to us. Anybody’s dreams can magically come true; the power is inside!

The problem as I see it is that in real life no power comes from within. Wish on that star all you want, nothing is going to change UNLESS you’re doing work to change it.

For instance, Moana has no sailing experience. She meets Maui with the ocean’s help and some luck. Maui teaches her how to sail in a montage (ah Rocky, you have a lot to answer for). And then when Maui “Han Solos” with his loot, as he was bound to do, Moana’s Old Sage (dead grandma) helps her discover that her identity as a wanderer was inside her all along! I guess her ability to be a sailor came from that, not from the days and days of learning from Maui under a pitiless sun with little to eat and less to drink! (sarcasm, in case you were wondering)

The actual personal growth is there, but this magic trick keeps happening where the actual work vanishes in a puff of sparkly "born this way” and feel-good self-empowerment narrative. That’s not to say the stories should focus on the work, because that would be a boring, tedious mess of a movie. But the work should get its due credit as the source of the change, the difference between defeat and victory. Moana thanks Maui for swooping back in (the Solo is strong with this one) but not for the training without which Lava Dude would have ended her long before said swoop.

As a counterpoint, let me hold up Inside Out, my favorite Pixar film to date. The main character, Joy, goes on a hero’s journey, but her character does not change very much from the start to the end. She does not learn that she just needs to try harder to be joyful and that will fix all of Riley’s problems. Instead, through her journey, through the beats of the story itself she comes to understand why her counterpart Sadness exists and what Sadness’ role in the Emotion Team is. It is this hard-earned knowledge that lets Joy be victorious in the end, by surrendering control to Sadness, in essence giving up her idea of herself as the hero that will fix everything. That’s the kind of subtle lesson that is so worthwhile in the real world.

Moana is a good movie. But this tired wish-upon-a-star theme is beginning to grate on me. Consume with caution.

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I think the memes about why it’s bad are funny but tbh it never bothered me that much that Harry named his son after Snape because to me it was poignant not because I was like “:) I’m happy for Snape and them honoring his memory” but because of how intrinsic it was to Harry’s character. Like his ability and willingness to pity and empathize with everyone.

Snape was a terrible guy and also was hated by everyone and had a miserable life, which kept getting worse and worse until he finally died horribly. Harry was tortured by this guy for years and saw his life story and it made him sad. He also forgave the Dursleys, and he also felt bad for Voldemort.

Harry had a huge sense of righteousness and, despite all the ways Snape ruined his parents’ lives, had Snape lived Harry would have wanted to thank him and make amends, even if mostly out of pity. But he couldn’t because nobody learned Snape’s story until after he was dead. Being able to make this grand gesture to name his child after him and tell everyone he was a great man was the way Harry found to put a cap on this thing that would have haunted him forever. Like at the end of the day Snape didn’t deserve it at all but that’s mostly why it was so touching that Harry wanted to do it.