July tidbits

The author discussed in my previous post, who employs the blogname 'Ernest Scribbler,' has kindly pointed out the fact that the draft of his science fiction novel which I mentioned has long since evolved into a trilogy. You can learn more about it here. His writing blog is also worth checking out, with posts on such topics as names in Rowling and Tolkien, and the latest issue of "Mallorn," the Journal of the Tolkien Society. (He is now the editor.)

Gabriel McKee has a post about Terry Pratchett's clarification of his recent quasi-mystical remarks on the universe. Gabriel also notes that an excerpt from his book The Gospel According to Science Fiction has been translated into Dutch! Gelukwensen!

D.G.D. Davidson has been doing some acquisitions work (sorry - library lingo...) on his science-fiction-and-religion collection. I'm acquainted with some of the books on his list, but not others. One of the books he mentions, Scientific Mythologies, has just been reviewed at length by James F. McGrath over at Exploring Our Matrix. He didn't like it.

Åka speculates about Dracula, or, more specifically, on where Van Helsing got all of his consecrated Hosts.

And last month Anactoria posted an interesting quote from Margaret Atwood (author of The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx & Crake) in which she describes what it means to be a "pessimistic pantheist," and muses on the Genesis creation account.

As for me, I'm reading Something More, by Paul Cornell. Does it contain any interesting scienti-theomological specumalation? Indeed it does.