INTERVIEW: B.T. Lowry

 Are you sure you really want to go there?

Please give a warm welcome to writer B.T. Lowry, who comes to us today with some insight into “My Father and the Sun,” his new story for Third Order

SE: What inspired you to write “My Father and the Sun?”

BL: This story is about the line between faith and delusion. Some would say that all faith is delusion, while others would say that all people possess some kind of faith, whether material or spiritual. The son in the story believes that the fantastic accounts in his peoples’ scriptures are not just mythology, yet his father’s extreme conviction frightens him.

I’ve been following a particular spiritual path for many years, but I’ve got my reservations. I’ve seen that people can be fanatical and cultish even around something with real merit. At the same time, I think commitment to a path and a practice is important in spiritual life. So this conflict between faithfulness and skepticism inspired “My Father and the Sun.”

SE: What do you see as the role of scripture in your story world? Is it better to be “realistic,” like the mother, or a dreamer like the father?

BL: The father regards scripture as a literal record of events, whereas the mother has a softer and more practical kind of faith. He’s focused on transcending the world, while she’s concerned that everyone here be taken care of. In the end, I think a balance of both is required. It’s a great thing to sincerely hold high ideals, yet we must live also in this world, being mindful not to cause suffering for others.

SE: Your story world has hints that technology was once far more important than it currently is. Tell us a little about the worldbuilding process for your story world and the religion these characters follow.

BL: The story world is largely inspired by the teachings of ancient India, the Vedas. There, a cycle of four ages is described. The cycle begins with purity and spiritual consciousness, and ends with gross materialism. Many say that the achievements of earlier civilizations are far greater than the ones we see now, seeing as we’re further down in the progression. This concept that we are poor heirs of great cultures than our own shows up in many places, including Lord of the Rings. To my knowledge, it’s seen first in the Vedic scriptures.

So the father in this story is trying to access something wonderful that came before. He’s the chief of his tribe, and he wants that they should inherit the great gifts their ancestors have given. Yet so much of the knowledge is lost so he sometimes grasps at straws and seems fanatical to his family and followers.

SE: What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?

BL: Get so good they can’t ignore you. Passion is great but easily come by. Hone your craft and make it worthwhile for the reader, not just yourself. It’s advice which tempers the popular saying, ‘Follow your passion.’

SE: How long have you been writing? What inspires your writing in general? Tell me a little about your writing career so far and where you’d like to go.

BL: I’ve been writing since I was wee, but seriously for about five years. I love stories because they represent life. They can be dramatic, engrossing allegories. On a personal level, writing helps me to work through my thoughts and feelings about issues that come up in my life.

My career is modest, just some short story publications here and there, and a self-published novel, Fire from the Overworld (ed. note: get it here!). I’m working on my second book, which has strong spiritual and environmental themes. Like many authors, I’d like for my writing to find its way to those who will most appreciate it, and who will give me feedback to help me improve.

I also work with multimedia and non-fiction, and I find the cross-pollination between these diverse disciplines quite fascinating. I’ve experimented with animating and scoring short stories. It’s time consuming but rewarding work.

NEW FICTION: “My Father and the Sun” by B.T. Lowry

How far would you go for your father’s dream? What about when you don’t even know if it is yours? Where does your father’s dream end? Where does yours begin?

In B.T. Lowry’s “My Father and the Sun,” we enter into the last days of a family pursuing a literal journey of faith: following a father’s footsteps to the mythical Island of the Sun and to the very mind of God. Mensah’s father thinks he knows what’s going to happen when he gets there. Mensah wants to believe, but is doubtful — and he’s worried about his sister, Kianni, who might be too young to understand. How far will Mensah go?

Read the story here and decide for yourself.

(Also: Yes, we’re back! Sacred Earthlings will now be updating regularly, as will Third Order Magazine.)

Little Girls, Star Wars, and the Lightsaber Ceiling

“I’m no one.”
— Rey, The Force Awakens.

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Most lady geeks of a certain age have keen and clear memories of the first time we watched the Star Wars movies: the first time we learned the identity of Luke’s father, the first time we cowered in fear of the Emperor, swooned for Han and looked up to Leia (or swooned for Leia and looked up to Han, whatever your mileage was).

swgirls4Rey doing something important to save the universe, not waiting for her Christian Grey.

Me? I wanted to be Luke. He was the one with the cool Force powers and the hero’s storyline. From whining about not being able to hang out with his friends at Tosche Station to taking down the Empire with his cool refusal to bow to the Dark Side, he was absolutely my favorite character. Leia finished a close second, but not because she was pretty or hot. Her visual attributes barely registered with me — instead, I loved her for her political acumen and the fact that she was the extremely smart leader of a rebellion. She stared down Darth Vader while everyone cowered, and laughed in his face. She was cool.

In a world of Clintonian sex scandals and a mostly-male Senate, she taught me that girls could be just as good as boys. No — better.

I firmly believed that Leia was just as cool as Luke, but the boys at day care still said I couldn’t have the lightsaber “because I was a girl.”

Let’s call it the Lightsaber Ceiling.

swgirls2Rey is not waiting for the local Jakku boys to save her.

We’re not even going to talk about the prequels at the moment, because they turned a woman who was literally born to rule into a weepy sack of hormones. (Yes, being pregnant with twins is no joke, but any mom will tell you that motherhood is only part of who they are, not the “game over” state they forced on Padme Amidala.)

It hurts me these days to watch girls actively excluded from the things I love because people say they’re not “for girls.” Science fiction, fantasy, video games, making STEM robots, computer programming, science, politics, writing hard SF instead of paranormal romance. Gamergate. Rape threats and death warnings simply for loving things that are not “sugar and spice and everything nice.” Doxxing. I’m not the only one of my friends who has been quizzed by male members of a fandom to make sure I’m not a “fake geek girl,” whatever that is. I’m not the only one who has been teased and threatened on an MMO. I’m not the only one who has been patted on the head and told that less was expected of me because I was “just a girl.” Our culture steers young girls away from Leia Skywalker and Kathryn Janeway to Bella Swan and Anastasia Steele, who have no agency at all unless it’s through and because of the men in their lives.

swgirls1Rey’s “come with me if you want to live” moment.

That’s why I’m quite excited to see what Disney seems to be doing with The Force Awakens. The newest TV spot makes clear what the cinematic trailers hinted at: The Force Awakens is undoubtedly Rey’s story. The dialogue from Maz Kanata pinpoints Rey as the person in whom the force is “awakening.” She occupies Luke’s station, with Finn taking up an adjacent, Han/Leia position. She’s the one that says “follow me,” not Finn. She asks Finn’s name in the international trailer. And, what’s more, she seems to have the same kind of agency a male character in her position would have. It’s pretty obvious she’s got skills, confidence and empathy, that she’s active, that she’s smart, that she has a moral compass. Rey gets to have a faith journey with her pursuit of the Force. She’s clearly the hero. This is clearly her movie. A bunch of little girls are going to see this movie and see Rey, and it is going to be an active and defining moment for them, and they’ll hopefully see the world of fandom and geekery as something open and welcoming to them. I’m so excited by this. I’m hopeful that this is one of the steps in the right direction that our anti-girl nerd culture needs right now.

swgirls3Not the face of a girl who spends her junior year pining over twinkly vampire boys.

And then I went to look for Rey toys, and I noticed, like others did, that they are far less sexualized than toys I saw of both Leia and Padme, even though there’s way too few of them.

I’m not making any pronouncements yet — most geek girls of my age have been disappointed over and over again in a culture that tells over and over again that we don’t belong and that we’re not wanted. But what Disney is doing with Rey looks like a step in the right direction this time, and I’m really excited. Maybe this will actually be something I’m excited to show any little girls of my own someday.

Maybe.

Because then you see the Cover Girl light/dark makeup line and wonder if anything is ever going to change.

This Christmas, give a little girl in your life a lightsaber. Tell her that she can be the hero. Because, friends, that is where it starts.

Star Wars As Intimate Family Drama: A Speculation

“It’s true. All of it. The dark side. The Jedi.”
– Han Solo

theforceawakens5Leia has most definitely lost something. Or… someone.

Star Wars is full of fodder for Sacred Earthlings with warrior-monk Jedi, the mystical Force and the Manichean struggle between “the dark side and the light,” so as we get closer and closer to The Force Awakens, you’ll probably hear a lot more about it.

Today, though, we’re talking about storytelling — specifically, the success of stories that have related “epic” and “intimate” arcs, and manage to mirror and advance both at the same time. The success of the original Star Wars wasn’t just all about cool-looking TIE fighters and Han Solo shooting first; it was about the personal struggle between father and son that represented the relationship between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance.

theforceawakens3“I’m nobody.” No, Rey. You’re obviously somebody, you look exactly like Natalie Portman.

There are a lot of successful modern epics out there — stories with national, world-bound or pan-galactic consequences, featuring heroes whose personal success, personal foibles and personal dreams have serious consequences for people all around the world. These stories succeed for a reason. The most recent successful example of this is Avengers 2, when Tony Stark’s hubris creates Ultron, an AI that nearly destroys the world in less than a week. And then there were the unsuccessful examples of this seen in the Star Wars prequels, where Anakin Skywalker’s inability to control his teenage mood swings lead him to become Darth Vader. (It’s a lot cooler in my headcanon, where Anakin is tempted, Jesus-like, with power and glory, and in the end has a crisis of faith that leads him to trap himself in the armor of the dark side, trapped behind the voice and exoskeleton of Vader, divorced from his true self. Come on, it’s totally cooler.) I believe Lucas tried for the dual-level story, the pan-galactic and the personal, and failed with a spectacular “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

I think Star Wars: The Force Awakens is going to succeed where Lucas failed.

theforceawakens6
Finn regrets all of his decisions.

I haven’t read any spoilers, so this is just wild, rampant speculation, but I believe our heroine Rey and our villain Ren are actually brother and sister; that they’re the Solo twins of the EU re-imagined to Disney’s specifications. Imagine if they were: both of them are Force users, inheritors of the Skywalker blessing through their mother, Leia. Somehow, Ren turns to the dark side, and Rey to the light. (Obvious naming schemes for $300, Alex.) He searches diligently to take on his grandfather’s legacy, unknowing of Anakin’s turn back to the light at the end of Jedi. As a Sith disciple, he’d be attracted to Vader’s power and Vader’s abilities, and want them for his own. Perhaps Rey is hiding from him on Jakku, her own Force training interrupted. Perhaps Leia and Han are watching everything they’ve built and worked for their entire lives fall apart with their own son at the helm of the destruction. Perhaps they’re terrified of losing Rey, too. Perhaps they’ve already lost Luke. Perhaps they know they must move against their own child, and it’s killing them. Gulp.

All of a sudden, a pan-galactic conflict also becomes intimate, one family’s tragic story writ large. How incredibly cool. Who could resist telling — or getting involved — in a story this delicious?

theforceawakens2A burned testament to the truths of George Santayana.

There’s a hint of Battlestar to the trailer, too, the deja-vu visuals, and the unshakable feeling that all of this has happened before and all of this will happen again; it’s the endless Manichean struggle between dark and light that characterizes the Star Wars extended universe, of course. Played well, it should be less of a brick point (you know, where the plot hits you over and over the head with the Obvious Brick) and more of an atmospheric note.

theforceawakens4

Also, THIS GUY.

Use the Force, JJ. Don’t let us down!

If you haven’t seen the trailer, I’ve embedded it here:

New Fan Films: August 2015

“You see that I was right, now, don’t you? The truth is written in blood!”
— Revan

revan1From Steven Shulgach’s “Revan”

One of the coolest things about modern technology is that it’s fairly easy to put on a Jedi robe, pick up a DSLR camera, take a few courses in Adobe AfterEffects, and create a passable lightsaber duel. Movie-making is no longer out of the hands of the populace. In a world that is more and more visual, in a society that Vines and Instagrams and Periscopes every day, it just makes sense that sci-fi and fantasy fans are going to engage with their favorite worlds and charaacters through cameras as well as pen and paper. I’ve done it myself — and making fan films is a lot of fun!

Here are some of the new fan films to hit YouTube over the summer:

Released only a few days ago and already causing ripples in Trekkie circles, Star Trek: Renegades is the story of a crew of misfits hired by Admiral Pavel Chekov (yes, that Chekov) to take care of the missions that Starfleet just can’t accomplish. There’s not a lot of traditional Trek here, despite the familiar faces — there’s very little exploration, a simplistic plot, a lot of space battles, and at least one starship captain that jumps to conclusions in a fashion that would make Picard wince and go for something a little stronger than Earl Grey. There’s a lot of potential here, though, if the main character actually lives up to her parentage, and if the writers can grasp that hope and bravery that was always central to the Trek we love even in this grittier, less perfect world.

Next up is Justice League Dark. When Guillermo del Toro dropped out of the Hollywood movie of the same name and the project was canned, a group got together to make this short about chain-smoking Constantine, forceful Zatanna and the force that tries to stop them from rescuing Zatanna’s father. The acting is fairly wooden, but the aesthetic is lovely and the effects are spot-on, and if you like these characters, it’s not a bad way to spend eleven minutes.

Finally, we have Star Wars: Revan, a labor of love from Steven, Andrei, and Jonathan Shulgach. Revan is the main character in Drew Karpyshyn’s Old Republic novel of the same name, and the fan film chronicling part of his story represents a step forward in fan-film production. Revan is a stylish, smooth labor of love. Supported through a Kickstarter campaign by a wide swath of Star Wars fans, Revan’s costumes look fantastic, its greenscreening is flawless and it benefits from a soundtrack lifted directly from the movies (something not every fan film can get away with, but Star Wars fans have been generally allowed to do). While it does suffer slightly from the wooden acting of most fan films, the pacing is on target, star Tim Torre is extremely likeable and Star Wars fans will find a lot to love here.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, this is how to animate a lightsaber in AfterEffects from Flawless Films:

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Read the August Third Order story, “A Tomb For Demrick Fauston,” by Fred McGavran!

Messiah Week: Cindi Mayweather from Janelle Monae’s Metropolis

“I imagined many moons in the sky lighting the way to freedom.”
– Cindi Mayweather

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Messiah: Cindi Mayweather
Messiah Level: Cyber

No pop star on Earth does it quite like Janelle Monáe. She has the voice. She has the moves. She has the clothes. She has the staggeringly beautiful science fiction epic. (“Wait, what?” I’m hearing you say. “In R&B?”)

Oh, yes.


The only thing wrong with this video is that it’s only six minutes long.

Her Metropolis albums chronicles the journey of her alter-ego, Cindi Mayweather, an android who has the misfortune of falling in love with a human. In Metropolis, androids are treated as little more than slaves (“She’s not even a person,” says caller Peggy Lakeshore in “Our Favorite Fugitive,” and the short film “Many Moons” chronicles an actual android slave auction). The punishment for this love is death, with her “cyber-soul” delivered to the authorities by bounty hunters and licensed hunters. Cindi, already becoming aware of the terrible conditions in which androids exist, flees — and, on the run, discovers that she is the ArchAndroid, the quasi-religious savior meant to rescue androids from slavery and apartheid. She becomes the “Electric Lady,” returning ready to save not only Metropolis, but humanity and androidkind, from the oppressive Great Divide, which despises love and freedom.


Seriously, try not to dance to this song. It’s impossible.

There are so few female messiah figures in SF/F, so the Electric Lady is extremely welcome — especially since Monáe takes the spotlight to draw attention not only to Metropolis’s fictional issues, but to the very real racial, societal and class-based challenges facing our world today. (Do we need a Cindi Mayweather?) She references Jim Crow as well as Philip K. Dick; her lyrics are poetic and intelligent, and the music itself is completely infectious. Her songs also work on a number of levels — you can listen to them casually and enjoy them quite a bit, or you can pick them apart to explore the multi-layered world Monáe has built.

Remember: Believe in the ArchAndroid.

We’ll be posting Janelle Monae videos on Twitter all day long.

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Subscribe to Sacred Earthlings for new story notifications!

Read the August Third Order story, “A Tomb For Demrick Fauston,” by Fred McGavran!

Religion in “Killjoys”

It’s not very often that we get to see the development of a sci-fi religion right under our noses — that’s why I’m so excited about Syfy’s Killjoys.

Killjoys boasts swashbuckling bounty hunters, low-budget (but effective!) SFX, and solid world-building, with its monolithic Company and class-stratified Quad reminding me (and the rest of the world) a little of the long-lamented Firefly. There’s a female lead. And, most importantly to our purposes here at Sacred Earthlings, there’s a church.

There’s not a lot to examine yet, so let’s look at what we have and come back to the analysis a little later:

Screen-Shot-2015-06-21-at-11.54.15-PM-e1434966924484-1024x656_f_improf_600x385Monks “hang out” in downtown Westerley.

In the pilot, “Bangarang,” our heroes go to an informant named “God,” a “scarback monk” living among the human detritus of main-street Westerley. We’re not sure what diety these monks believe in, but they do seem to function as sin-eaters of a sort; by suffering, the monks say, they can cleanse penitents of their sins. The monk here is practicing suspension, where hooks are periodically pierced through skin at periodic intervals to elevate and hang a human body. (This is a practice seen throughout the world, most specifically in ancient religious practices of the Mandan tribe in North Dakota, and in modern times done by performance artists).

flagellantsFlagellants from a medieval manuscript.

The word “scarback” also reminds me of the self-flagellation and the practice of mortification of the flesh, practiced throughout Christian history. “God” is also somewhat of a liberation theologist; he’s a freedom fighter against the Company using his cover as a monk to his own advantage.

Screen-Shot-2015-06-22-at-12.32.21-AM-e1434966329444-1024x604_f_improf_600x354One of these things is not like the other…

The second time we see monks of “the church,” they’re attending a fancy party on the high-class world. They seem to be passing through, mostly, wearing saffron-colored robes reminiscent of modern Buddhist monks. The Buddhist robe is meant to remind the adherent that he or she has committed to higher spiritual ideals; why they’re at the party, we never find out.

I’m looking forward to seeing where Killjoys goes with this, and how the church is going to figure into the larger narrative.

Space Catholics: The Bajorans

“That’s the thing about faith… if you don’t have it, you can’t understand it. If you do, no explanation is necessary.”
-Kira Nerys

The Roman Catholic Church: one of the longest standing hierarchies in Western civilization. It’s only natural that writers, filmmakers and storytellers are inspired by the Church to create their own religious structures — and it happens more often then you’d think. This periodic series will chronicle the many kinds of Space Catholics, their view on clericalism, sacramentality, sin and more, and how close — or how different — they get to the real thing.

WMF27-BajoranSymbol

THE BAJORANS from STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE

The Bajorans are, quite possibly, one of the best examples of Space Catholics, sporting a stratified clerical structure, active canon law and moral authority.

God: In Bajoran faith, “God” is represented by the mysterious “Prophets” who watch over Bajor, impart their teachings, and protect the Bajoran people from harm. For most ordinary Bajorans, they are considered divine beings, although the heroes of the series discover them to actually be super-advanced alien living in a local wormhole. This shocking news does not quite dissuade Bajoran worshippers, who choose to continue their worship and study of the Prophets and their works unabated.

36e0d5d6d0dd9013f03cace8484b13d5Pope Winn I.

The Pope: The Kai, the Bajoran spiritual leader, is elected by the Vedek Assembly — a council of high-ranking Bajoran clerics — for a life term. Bajorans are encouraged and accepted to follow the Kai’s religious teachings. Although the Kai does not put out encyclicals, his or her words are still politically important in much the same way as the Pope’s words matter to our world; there is no direct Vatican cognate, but it’s intimated that before the Cardassian occupation that Bajoran secular politics was influenced by the needs of the Kai and the Vedek Assembly, much like medieval kings’ relationship with the medieval Church.

The Bible: In Bajoran religion, the words of the Prophets are considered sacrosanct. As in Catholicism, there are various levels of translation and interpretation happening, from those who believe the Prophets words should be taken extremely literally, to those who spend their lives in interpretation; however, like Catholicism, there is a distinct code of canon law; like medieval Catholicism, it sometimes also stands in for secular law. Ordinary Bajorans have a faithful, pragmatic view of their faith and the role of the Prophets in their own lives that echoes modern Catholicism very well; many of the character Kira Nerys’ statements about religions and faith can be exchanged word-for-word with those of modern Christianity and not need to change, while other Bajorans are entirely secular or take a more violent, jihadist tack, such as when extremists blew up a school on the space station.

orb-of-prophecy-thecircleThe Orb of Shininess.

Relics: Orbs, called the “tears of the Prophets,” are centers of worship for Bajorans and function in much the same way that relics do for modern Catholics — as channels of prayer, understanding, worship and contemplation. They provide measured and definitive miraculous experiences, such as visions and healing.

BenSiskoThe Emissary was not actually Bajoran.

Jesus: This isn’t a direct cognate, but the Bajorans have a concept of “The Emissary,” a personage who would save Bajor; this figure, the character Benjamin Sisko, eventually fulfulled Bajoran prophecies by sacrificing himself for the Bajoran people. Like Jesus, he is assumed bodily into “heaven,” or the Bajorans’ “Celestial Temple.” Unlike Jesus, Sisko is fully human. Like Jesus, he was “in the world,” i.e., the entire galaxy, but “not of it,” i.e., Bajor and the Bajoran faith in particular.

Contemplative Orders: Most of the Bajoran clerical structure seems to be made up of monastic intellectuals attempting to find some way to interpret and understand the Prophets’ words.

Clericalism: A direct lift. Prylars are monks, ranjens are priests, vedeks are bishops and kais are popes.

latestSpoiler! Not actually Bajoran, either.

Holidays: during the Bajoran “Time of Cleansing,” people fast and pray, and abstain from sin. This is a cognate more to Ramadan than Lent, but it still counts.

Gender: Gender does not seem to matter to the Bajoran religious hierarchy; vedeks, Kais and regular monks are woman and man, married and single, chaste and parental.

The Devil: The pah-wraiths are Prophets from the same race who long ago willingly gave up on the path of peace, much like Lucifer rejected God.

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