Essays
Ad effigiem
The strawman fallacy in Utopian fiction
Of all the habitual fallacies and prejudices that have poisoned the wells of reason in our time, none, perhaps, has been so destructive as what Owen Barfield christened ‘chronological snobbery’.
Critical Conditions
11 rules for writing bad fiction
An acquaintance of mine, an aspiring young writer, once asked a commercially successful author to critique her work. This is, in general, a good idea, but there are three things that can go wrong.
Moorcock, Saruman, and the Dragon’s Tail
A second look at ‘Wit and Humour in Fantasy’
I have before me an essay of Moorcock’s, ostensibly an argument for the natural and necessary alliance between humour and fantasy. But he makes his argument very badly, because his real purpose is to attack his arch-enemy, Tolkien.
The Problem of Being Susan
Religious experience and the will to disbelieve
In comments on R.J. Anderson’s essay ‘The Problem of Susan’, several people expressed their frank disbelief that Susan Pevensie could ever forget her time in Narnia to the point of thinking it had all been a silly childhood game. Actually this is the most grimly plausible of the suppositions behind Lewis’s treatment of Susan in The Last Battle.
The strawman fallacy in Utopian fiction
Of all the habitual fallacies and prejudices that have poisoned the wells of reason in our time, none, perhaps, has been so destructive as what Owen Barfield christened ‘chronological snobbery’.
Critical Conditions
11 rules for writing bad fiction
An acquaintance of mine, an aspiring young writer, once asked a commercially successful author to critique her work. This is, in general, a good idea, but there are three things that can go wrong.
Moorcock, Saruman, and the Dragon’s Tail
A second look at ‘Wit and Humour in Fantasy’
I have before me an essay of Moorcock’s, ostensibly an argument for the natural and necessary alliance between humour and fantasy. But he makes his argument very badly, because his real purpose is to attack his arch-enemy, Tolkien.
The Problem of Being Susan
Religious experience and the will to disbelieve
In comments on R.J. Anderson’s essay ‘The Problem of Susan’, several people expressed their frank disbelief that Susan Pevensie could ever forget her time in Narnia to the point of thinking it had all been a silly childhood game. Actually this is the most grimly plausible of the suppositions behind Lewis’s treatment of Susan in The Last Battle.
Sturgeon’s Law
School
Why do people with good taste create bad art?
Stupid people overrate their own intelligence, socially inept people overrate their own social skills, and everybody thinks he’s a better driver than the moron he just crashed into. When questions of artistic value arise, I think something more insidious is at work.
Superversive
The failure of subversion in imaginative literature
Subversion is a popular word in literary criticism nowadays, and some persons have suggested that it is the principal function of fantasy. Not a function, which may perhaps be true, but the function, the sine qua non.
Zen and the Art of the Tachyon Dragon
Koans, McGuffins, and miracles in fantasy
The average Westerner knows two things about Zen: that it features interestingly weird sayings called koans, and that it has something to do with motorcycle maintenance.
Why do people with good taste create bad art?
Stupid people overrate their own intelligence, socially inept people overrate their own social skills, and everybody thinks he’s a better driver than the moron he just crashed into. When questions of artistic value arise, I think something more insidious is at work.
Superversive
The failure of subversion in imaginative literature
Subversion is a popular word in literary criticism nowadays, and some persons have suggested that it is the principal function of fantasy. Not a function, which may perhaps be true, but the function, the sine qua non.
Zen and the Art of the Tachyon Dragon
Koans, McGuffins, and miracles in fantasy
The average Westerner knows two things about Zen: that it features interestingly weird sayings called koans, and that it has something to do with motorcycle maintenance.