Once again, I’ve fallen behind in blogging, and I have no doubt it’s going to get worse as I work on my thesis over the next few months. But to catch up you up on the event most relevant to this blog, I attended Dragonsteel at the beginning of December with my two teenagers, who are also huge Sanderson fans. We didn’t cosplay ourselves but had to take photos with some of the amazing cosplayers we saw there. Also pictured is my son’s soul caster: immediately after putting it on, his first instinct was to do the Thanos snap, so I guess that puts “the Lesson” into an interesting perspective.
And of course, we have some of the cool merchandise pictured like the collectible card game that absolutely broke the convention. My boys have always loved the con games at Dragonsteel, but this one really went over the top. Through some hard work, we managed to collect all the story cards and even a good number of the more rare cards (even Heralds 7 and 9!). There was a really interesting panel on philosophy and religion in the series–I still definitely need to get in touch with the panelists about some of their ideas. As always, I enjoyed Brandon’s book launch speech, and the excerpt from the new non-Cosmere short story to be released. I’m finding it interesting that Sanderson keeps returning to write in the police/detective work genre (see also Snapshot, Legion), but I suppose it makes sense when you consider how many of his fantasy plots are also information-based. Definitely planning to come back next year, when hopefully things will be a little more chill since it won’t be a Stormlight year. (One can dream, right?)
Besides the convention, the end of the semester went well. I wrote an interesting paper on the uses of imagination for learning about God, as well as the dangers thereof, which I’ve already submitted to a conference. I finished my internship teaching persuasive writing and made a first pass at a teaching portfolio, which makes me feel like the end of grad school is in sight. There’s just one semester left, during which I’m writing my thesis, teaching two classes, and taking one class on women in Arthurian legend. I am savoring my graduate experience but also kind of ready for a short break. Orchestrating Christmas for a family while trying to write papers and grade was not very enjoyable.
As if that wasn’t enough to do, my conference schedule for this next semester is also packed. Here’s a summary of where you’ll find me this winter:
Feb 13-15: LTUE Symposium (Provo, UT) – I’ll be presenting my paper on LDS premortal theology in The Maze Runner and Matched, as well as a paper on The Mandalorian and religious clothing with my coauthor and podcast cohost Carl Cranney. I’ll also be on two panels discussing Dune and the work of Hayao Miyazaki.
Mar 19-22: ICFA (Orlando, FL) – I’m presenting the first half of my master’s thesis on the postsecular portrayal of religion in the Stormlight Archive.
April 4-5: Eaton Conference on Speculative Fiction (Riverside, CA) – I’ll be presenting the second half of my master’s thesis on secular and religious ways of knowing in the Stormlight Archive.
I’ve got a few more presentations lined up for spring at the MHA and MSH/AML conferences, but we’ll save those for another time.
As for my reading, I was forced to declare bankruptcy on actually writing full reviews for most of my reading for the past few months, so I’ve instead ordered them by my star rating on Goodreads, with a few sporadic notes below.
Speculative Fiction
5-star
The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis – Still my favorite of the Narnia books.
4-star
Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis – A necessary step to get my kids to Dawn Treader and Silver Chair. There are points in this book that are more pointedly allegorical than Lion, but also points that are more neo-medieval-classical than the other books as well. I didn’t remember nearly so much dancing!
Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson – Re-listened to this in prep for Wind and Truth. It’s the only one in the series that I never went back to since first reading it. The technical details felt a bit more organic this time around, but I still find the Kaladin plotline to be a bit dull and stretched out (though the final scenes are excellent). I would rather have Sanderson drop a few of the characters and actually focus on the ones who are the nominally stars of the book. (This problem gets even more intense in Wind and Truth.) However, it wasn’t as much of a trainwreck as I remember, so that’s something.
The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke – Really liked this except that it was too short. I would read a whole novel about this.
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini – Overall, a fun SF book with some interesting remixes of ideas that have been done before. One thing that made the book tough for me to get through was the way that it keeps changing the entire conception of the plot every couple of chapters. You think you are reading one type of SF, then it becomes another, and just as you get used to it, it changes again. I got rather annoyed and resisted caring about our third set of characters, thinking the author would soon dump them. But this third set of characters turns out to stay put for the rest of the book, so not caring about them made it hard for me to want to keep reading. Something about the structure of the novel is just a bit off for me. The ending “standalone with series potential” ending kind of annoyed me after all the other switches the book pulled on me, but once I was done with it, I realized it made sense. Still, I don’t know that I’ll follow up with future books.
3-star
The State of the Art by Iain M. Banks
Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson – I am working on a longer review, plus writing my thesis on the series thus far, but here are a few initial thoughts:
The book doesn’t justify its length. At a panel with the editors at Dragonsteel Nexus 2025, they said they were proud of how they used typography tricks to avoid having to cut anything to fit the maximum page restrictions. I think this was a mistake; the book should have received more developmental editing. Perhaps this is a hazard of all authors that get too famous to delay publication in order to get the book right. I hope in the future, Dragonsteel avoids assigning launch dates before the book is finished (probably impossible).
The book is also marred by the heavy influence of current therapy culture. Mental health has always been a focus of the series, but it’s been done in a universal timeless way until Rhythm of War. Even the Rhythm of War version looks subtle compared to the therapy-worldview statements in this book, and not just in the Kaladin, Therapist to the Gods, plotline. I worry that this book will read as extremely dated in a decade.
On the positive side, this is Sanderson’s most fascinating book from a theological perspective. More elaborations to come, but at minimum, we have a real Paradise-Lost-ish explication of the Mormon Satan and an interesting argument for the need for an atonement. Also lots of interesting implications about the importance of belief in character’s lives, especially those who aren’t traditional believers. And Jasnah’s development in this book makes me extremely interested in where Sanderson intends to go with the character from here.
I am about to embark on a re-read to prepare for all the writing I need to do about this book, so I’ll report back with more considered opinions eventually
Fiction
5-star
Silence by Shūsaku Endō – Read this book again for the graduate class on divine silence. I’m pretty sure this is my fourth time reading it, some assigned and some by choice. This time around, I saw a lot of more of Endo’s intentionality in setting up Rodrigues’s conflict with God’s seeming silence in the face of suffering. I also read the ending as a lot more hopeful than I did as a college freshman. This time, I assumed that Rodrigues maintained his faith even though he was forced to remain silent about it, a reflection of God’s own silence towards the Japanese martyrs. I saw more hints in the strange economic log of the last chapter that Rodrigues kept secretly practicing his faith, especially with regards to Kiichijiro. Perhaps this is just contamination from watching the (amazing) film, but it just seemed so obviously intended to be read this way, which would surprise my college freshman self who read it as absolutely atheist in its ending.
Nonfiction
5-star
The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ – Finishing this week with the kids for our family scripture study. On to church history next year!
4-star
The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis – Still very readable even after all these years. Whereas in the past I’ve really focused on the educational implications, with the recent rise of AI language bots, the last chapter reads as very prophetic and important.
Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair by Christian Wiman
Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil
Cup My Days Like Water by Abigail Carroll
All Manner of Things: Meditations on Suffering, Death, and Eternal Life by Jeffrey A. Vogel
Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days: Volume 2: No Unhallowed Hand: 1846–1893 – The release of volume 4 finally inspired to make my way through all the volumes of Saints. This one does an excellent job of exploring the early days of Deseret and Utah, and doesn’t shy away from the tricky stories of polygamy.
3-star
Experiencing God in a Time of Crisis by Sarah Bachelard
The World of Silence by Max Picard
Dark Night of the Soul by John of the Cross – Read bits and pieces of this in three different translations, none of which were easier than others.
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach – Fun read for Halloween season. I liked this better than my previous Mary Roach readings, though she’s still not my favorite writer. Some chapters were more interesting than others, but some were more nauseating than I could handle. Still, I have brought up some of the interesting facts I learned here in conversation, so I suppose the book worked well enough.
