Science Fiction. Fantasy. Philosophy.

Tag: book-review

  • Ender’s Game, A.I., and the Power of Empathy

    Ender’s Game, A.I., and the Power of Empathy

    I was 13 or 14 years old when I first read Ender’s Game. I stayed up nearly all night on a school night to finish it—unheard of for me at that age. I adored it. I have always been a sensitive person, very observant, with deep empathy. I was right in the middle of a…

  • The Theology of Prince Caspian

    The Theology of Prince Caspian

    When I was a kid I definitely underrated Prince Caspian. The narrative and pacing feel all over the place. The main hero spotlight is divided between the Pevensies and Caspian. I have always felt impatient with the Caspian flashback. Compared to all the other books, the Pevensies don’t seem to do much (except Peter’s fighting…

  • Epicureanism and the Lord of the Rings

    Epicureanism and the Lord of the Rings

    The alternate title to this post was A Tale of Two Gardeners. There are several gardeners in The Lord of the Rings, but the most famous one, and rightly so, is Samwise Gamgee. I think it could be argued that Tom Bombadil is also a sort of gardener, though his garden is much larger (The…

  • Virtue in LOTR Part III: Aragorn

    Virtue in LOTR Part III: Aragorn

    (Originally published on the MythicMind Substack) In the last two posts I talked about how even though many of us love The Lord of the Rings, there is a growing gap between our admiration of the characters, and our understanding of them. Specifically, I showed that LOTR is founded on a more classical understanding of…

  • Virtue in LOTR Part II: Elrond

    Virtue in LOTR Part II: Elrond

    (Originally published on the MythicMind Substack) I’ve been examining the virtue ethics in The Lord of the Rings. In Part 1, I sketched an overview of how differently Tolkien’s characters think and make decisions as compared to the modern self. Now we are going to start zooming in on certain characters in particular. Our first…