What I Read: Nov 2025 – Jan 2026

To encapsulate the last three months in a meme:

Inigo Montoya from the Princess Bride: "Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

In November:

  • I participated in a panel of writers at Organized Intelligence, a conference about LDS perspectives on AI. One of my central metaphors was quoted in a Deseret News summary of the event.
  • I attended the American Academy of Religion/Society for Biblical Literature conference in Boston and presented my paper on Mormons writing aliens. This conference was huge, but perhaps because of that, I was able to find a bunch of other scholars working on religion and sci-fi/fantasy. Easily the most productive conference I’ve been to. I’m making plans to return next year.You can see all the energy I’m gathering just by being at AAR/SBL.

December started out with:

  • Attending Dragonsteel Nexus with my kids and El, my podcast co-host on The Storming Journey. Sanderson always puts on a good party. This was followed next weekend by
  • Watching my daughter perform in Ballet West’s Nutcracker! This was our first time doing a major ballet production. The practices nearly killed us, but it was all worth it seeing how happy she was being on that stage. Once that was over, it was time for
  • Christmas at Hogwarts, or at least a very elaborately themed AirBnB.I can’t believe someone cosplayed as my favorite religious joke in all of Sanderson. This made my day.

And in January:

  • Further Light finally launched! I’m so excited about the stories, essays, and poems that have been published so far and can’t wait for you to read them as well. If you can’t wait either, you could always grab your own copy of issue 1 in print or ebook.
Cover for issue 1 of Further Light, with a party of adventurers around a fire built inside a large dragon skull

Throughout it all, we’ve been releasing weekly episodes of The Storming Journey. Some of my favorites were our episodes on Excellence, Pain, and Authority. And we even squeezed in a discussion of Wake Up Dead Man on Pop Culture on the Apricot Tree, which changed the way I saw a part of the movie I previously despised.

And now for a dump of book reviews, which is actually pretty small considering it’s three months of reading.

Speculative Fiction

Hyperion by Dan Simmons – I was finally pushed over the edge into reading this book by seeing that someone was presenting a paper about it at AAR. The paper ended up being about the later volumes in the series, but I’m still really glad I was propelled into reading this, because this book is complex and devastating. It also deals with religion in several interesting ways. The connection to the Canterbury Tales was not as pervasive as I thought it was going to be, but still the concept of a pilgrimage in the space era stands out as a unique plot structure. Be warned if you pick it up that this book has a lot of adult content, in addition to playing out situations that will emotionally wreck you in a way made possible only by sci-fi conceits. I intend to get to the rest of the series, but it may take a while to drum up the emotional fortitude.

A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys – Another one brought to my attention by a conference paper. This book is a great example of how to bring contemporary religion into a science fictional setting. The premise is somewhat solar punk: after multiple disasters (ecological, political, otherwise), humanity is finally beginning to work to harmonize its technological existence with the earth. The government of our main characters is a sort of anarcho-commune where decisions are essentially made by a giant reddit-like system of discussion boards and upvoting. In the middle of this, aliens arrive. Their goal is to liberate humanity from their dying world by teaching them new tech like building Dyson spheres and integrating them into the galactic harmony. A clash of worldviews ensues between the aliens and our Jewish narrator who is determined to help them see the value of a planet.

Probably the most fascinating sci-fi idea here is the fact that the aliens refuse to negotiate with anyone who doesn’t have children and bring them into diplomatic settings. The elevation of parenthood (more specifically motherhood) into a sign of trustworthiness and investment in successful collaboration was fascinating, especially where it clashed with the progressive liberal views of the protagonist on sex/gender. Lots of interesting conversations in this book about what makes life valuable and what is worth saving. None of the political points scored here ever felt like the author was just trying to preach; there’s always a thoughtful counterpoint to show the expanse of ideas. I haven’t even touched here on the cool Passover scene with alien guests! Worth your time to pick up.

Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett – This may be controversial, but I think I’ve decided that Terry Pratchett novels are just not for me. It’s not that they aren’t amazingly written and funny. I love the conceit of world where the rules of story are part of the fabric of the universe. The idea that Death itself is getting to be too much of a personality and therefore needs to be retired is pure genius. But as much as I enjoy a Pratchett novel when reading it, I give them almost no attention when I’m not reading them, meaning I have a hard time picking them back up and continuing to the end. It’s like eating a sandwich: it’s fine, filling even, but if I’ve got virtually any other kind of food to hand, I’m probably not making one. I’ve tried entering Discworld at several different points now, and I think it’s time for me to stop trying for a season.

Penric’s Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold – After finally convincing my husband to try out the Pen & Des books and watching him rocket through them in our shared Libby account, I started to feel a little jealous. That plus going through the no-man’s-land of the week between Christmas and New Year led to me picking up the first novella again. I forgot just how young and naive Penric is in his first adventure, and how many of the things that Penric does by instinct, like naming his demon, are very unnatural in the world the story is set it. Still really tight writing, and a good beginning to a fun series of adventures.

The Adventure of the Demonic Ox by Lois McMaster Bujold – I think I may have missed or forgotten some of the latest Penric & Desdemona novellas because I was a little confused by this book at first. But of course, Penric’s antics and voice won out and I enjoyed the book anyway. The addition of two more points of view made things more varied. Not one of the most stellar adventures, but still fun nonetheless.

Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones – Picked this up after hearing on the podcast Eight Days of Dianna Wynne Jones that this was the book with the most literary criticism written about it. After finishing the book, I can see why. I found the ending almost entirely incomprehensible without going online and reading what people had said about it. This book does that thing that Sanderson is always saying authors shouldn’t do with a twist: held off explaining it for so long that the audience who would like the twist quits in frustration. Most of this book is mundane experiences, punctuated by brief magical interludes which are never explained or commented on until the last chapter. And the mundane interactions are one of my least favorite kinds: completely selfish and un-self-aware parents wrecking their children’s lives while blaming them for it. I know it happens and is a valid story, and also usually a portion of every DWJ book. But for some reason, it bothered me a lot more in this one, probably because it’s not dressed up in ridiculous humor but just plain bleak. The final connections to the fairy story she’s retelling are interesting, but in my opinion not enough to make it worth wading through the rest of the book.

Fiction

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 5-8 by Beth Brower – It’s difficult to review these books individually as they really do blend into each other. Just as with the first few volumes, the highlight of this series is Emma’s voice. She’s hilarious, even when the pretense that she’s writing all this down in a journal begins to wear a bit thin. (See this hilarious thread calculating how long Emma would have to spend writing each day to finish the work). I like some characters more than others and I’m intrigued to continue the series, but sad that I’m now caught up and can’t binge read them.

The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet by Katherine Cowley – Finally got this one off my TBR list by getting my bookclub to pick it for our January meeting, and I’m so glad I did. Katherine Cowley manages to keep Mary as almost as stodgy, self-righteous, and socially oblivious as the original, but by putting us in her head makes her likeable. Mary is somewhat of an unreliable narrator, as the reader may spot some of what is going on before Mary begins to pick up on it. I loved the idea of the socially-incompetent sister channeling what the various other Bennet sisters might do in order to get by in the world. And the throughline of her comparing herself to Elizabeth is heartbreaking. The mystery plot is fun and light, but it’s the characterization that really elevates the book to five stars for me.

The True Confessions of a London Spy by Katherine Cowley – I picked this one up immediately after the first novel because I needed more Mary Bennet. The book has some great historical details that I hadn’t seen anywhere else, like the ice festival on the Thames and the first London restaurants. Mary’s escapades and, yes, romances, were even more fun than the first novel, though they do begin to strain believability within the universe of Pride and Prejudice. But if you’re willing to go along with it, it’s an enjoyable ride.

Nonfiction

The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green – I am not in any way a fan of John Green’s fiction, probably because they are mostly contemporary romances which is one of my least favorite genres. (I’ve read An Abundance of Katherines and watched the movie version of The Fault in Our Stars. Just not for me.) But I enjoy his YouTube commentary enough, and heard enough positive reviews from friends, to pick this one up. I’m glad I did because the essays in this volume are absolutely wonderful. I could have done without the conceit of giving things star ratings, because aside from the meta-moment where he asks himself why he’s refusing to give anything five stars, it doesn’t really add a lot to the essays themselves. On the other hand, it’s hard enough to get anyone to pick up a collection of essays, so I can’t really fault him for trying to make them cohesive somehow. Anyway, this volume is absolutely worth your time; you will cry, you will laugh, you will stand in awe. In audiobook form, they are also podcast-level consumable. You can finish an essay in a short commute, which is nice.

Bad Therapy by Abigail Shrier

Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up by Abigail Shrier – While I think Shrier made some good points, especially about the fact that therapy isn’t a universal good, I find that some points here are exaggerated for rhetorical effect. In fact, I was so put off by her alarmist tone that I could not finish this book. I would love to hear about a book that covers the same ground from a more journalist or at least more neutral tone.

Your Early Christmas Present? New LDS Science Fiction

A few months ago, I did that annoying author thing where I cryptically posted that a story of mine which I never thought would see the light of day was going to be published. Well, now’s the time for more details because my flash fiction piece “The Arm of Mercy” is a part of the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts advent calendar!

Every day from now until Christmas, you can open a short story by a Latter-day Saint writer. The calendar features stories from across the 20th and 21st centuries: I can’t believe I’m sharing a page with Nephi Anderson, Susa Young Gates, and Maureen Whipple in addition to several of my favorite contemporary LDS writers. And going by the daily icons, I’m guessing we have a good deal of speculative fiction represented as well.

My story is behind the little virtual flap for December 8th, a week from today. I’ve sometimes described “The Arm of Mercy” as Mormon Star Trek, because that’s what my beta-reader called it, but it would be more accurate to say the story is a more culturally-aware version of the LDSS Nauvoo from The Expanse. In this flash story, I try to fill out what an actual Latter-day Saint generation ship might look like. What would happen if your ward not only lived in the same geographic area but crewed a starship together?

In the story, you’ll notice some aspects of LDS culture that I’ve copy-pasted straight from our current context, and others that I’ve allowed to develop in unusual ways. I’m not in any way predicting that the Church would develop this way in space, only that it’s an interesting possibility. One of the fun things about writing the far future is imagining the ways that things both change and stay the same. Amidst all the tantalizing changes, the thing that I hope grounds readers in the story is the interpersonal dynamics of serving in ward leadership. Several characters in the story are extrapolated from people I’ve worked with in my decade of serving as a Relief Society secretary in three different wards.

To check out my story along with 23 other interesting works of LDS literature, visit the Center’s Advent Calendar page. Just don’t get on Santa’s naughty list by opening the stories early! 😉

What I Read: August-October 2025

As usual, my attempts to be a regular correspondent have not survived contact with the semester. It’s been a busy but fun time. I have a lovely office on the fourth floor of the humanities building on campus, with a great view of the courtyard, and I’m having fun developing my lesson plans for an honors writing class on creative nonfiction.

In August, I presented at the Online Midsummer Seminar for the Mythopoeic Society. I was very intimidated by the amount of Tolkien knowledge on display, but our little King Arthur corner of the conference was productive for me. I got lots of good feedback on my discussion of religion and the character of Nimue in Lev Grossman’s The Bright Sword. The paper will soon be published as part of the conference proceedings. I look forward to going to future conferences!

I attended both the Restore conference and LDSPMA this fall. What can I say? I’m a conference junkie. LDSPMA was particularly productive as I met the team behind the new LDS sci-fi/fantasy magazine Infinite Valley as well as Cole Melanson, the designer behind the always gorgeous Wayfare Magazine. I’ll definitely need their advice as I head into laying out the first issue of Further Light!

Speaking of which, we’ve selected the pieces for the first issue of Further Light magazine. Developmental edits are going well and I’m so excited for you all to get to enjoy them. I’m in the midst of commissioning art for some of the pieces, which is a whole new world for me, so lots to learn. I’ve also been commissioned by BYU to be the new faculty advisor for Leading Edge. This student-run science fiction and fantasy magazine has been running for almost 50 years now, and I’ve argued before that its existence is one of the driving forces behind the huge numbers of LDS SF authors. Now that the magazine is moving back to the English department after its sojourn in linguistics, I’m excited to be part of helping to carry on that legacy.

And if all that wasn’t enough, I’m starting a new podcast! The Storming Journey is the brainchild of El Call, but when she asked me and Adam McLain to cohost, I couldn’t say no. The goal of the podcast is to read The Stormlight Archive as though it were a sacred text. If you’re familiar with Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, you know the vibe to expect. We’re reading chapter by chapter through the series looking for deeper meaning and personal growth. Our third episode released this morning, so if you’re all caught up on Stormlight (spoilers do abound on this podcast) and want to dive deeper into the books, join us on the podcasting platform of your choice!

(Don’t forget Pop Culture on the Apricot Tree which has recent episodes about The Wild Robot, The Good Place, and Cinderella retellings!)

Below are my book reviews from the last three months with a large caveat. I’ve started a project to read through the rest of the Jo Walton books that I haven’t read. I’ve got three more books, I believe, and I’ll be putting my review of her entire corpus into a separate post once I finish. Of course, if you’re dying to know what I thought about things, you can always follow me on Goodreads for more regular updates.

Continue reading “What I Read: August-October 2025”

What I Read: July 2025

In my family growing up, my parents would take each child on their first out of the country trip when they were a teenager. I want to continue that tradition in my family, so July started with a trip to Japan with our 16 year old. He helped pick the destination and some of the activities. Our biggest hits were the Nintendo Museum, playing in an arcade in Ahkihabara, Teamlabs Borderless interactive art museum, our amazing AirBnB in Kyoto, and all the tasty treats from the conbinis and vending machines. The biggest flops were the once-in-a-decade heat wave, the basically empty Japanese Sword Museum, and that time when we accidentally boarded a reservation-only train and got yelled at by the ticket collector. Also, parents take note: traveling with one teenager is such a major upgrade from traveling with four small kids. Highly recommended if you can swing it.

The musical Toads at the Nintendo Museum

As for the rest of the month, I’ve been trying to get a bit of summer in my summer instead of just working all the time—hard when I have so many fun projects to work on! We’ve been taking advantage of very late church to go on long family hikes on Sundays. We’re going to try to do Mount Timpanogos in August! I also gave in to my college self and bought Civ VII. I haven’t put in too many hours yet, but as a more casual player, I’m really enjoying the changes that make the game less cumbersome and more fun

At the top of Kyhv Peak in Provo

On the academic side of things, I had lined up a research position for fall, then lost it to the whims of HR rules that prevent hiring former students at less than full time. Luckily, I’ve been able to pull together a teaching position for fall that I’m really excited about (and it comes with library access): I’ll be back at BYU teaching persuasive writing!

I continue in my quest to revive my podcasting schedule as well. In case you’ve been hiding under a rock and missed the internet’s new favorite show, we’ve got a podcast about the religious aspects of KPop Demon Hunters over at Pop Culture on the Apricot Tree.

The biggest news of the month, of course, was officially launching Further Light: Science Fiction and Fantasy in the Latter-day Saint Tradition. This new little magazine already has more subscribers than this blog. I’m so happy that so many people have caught the vision of it. We’ve also received enough paid subscriptions to cover paying all of the authors for the first issue! Of course, there are still the printing costs that will be coming out of my own pocket, so if you’re able and inclined to support Latter-day Saint speculative fiction, please subscribe. I don’t plan to make any money out of this venture (a good bet since most magazines don’t), but I plan to use any profit to increase our pay rates for writers. I’ve also had several people reach out and volunteer to help us get off the ground—thank you for your generosity and keep it coming!

With all that happening, there are a few less book reviews than usual, but some real gems nonetheless.

Continue reading “What I Read: July 2025”

What is the Point of God? Two answers from Brandon Sanderson’s Isles of the Emberdark

I know this title sounds like a joke from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Probably a more accurate version of the title would be something like “What is God’s purpose?” but sometimes you have to go with the more clickbait-y version. Either way, the point here is not to ask the question of whether God exists, but to ask what he lives for. Why does God get up in the morning, so to speak? Why does He create things?

Obviously, theology has its own answers to this question. In the Latter-day Saint tradition, we would point to Moses 1:39 in which God explains to Moses that “this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” In other words, God exists to be in relation to his children and help to lift them up. With my limited understanding of other Christian denominations, I won’t speculate too much about how controversial this might be, but I have a sense this is not the norm.

I see some extensions of this idea in Brandon Sanderson’s latest novel, Isles of the Emberdark. I’ve written before about how LDS theology plays into the Cosmere’s magic systems, but Emberdark seems focused on this question. In particular, Sanderson uses two different characters to explore the idea of what a god’s purpose is, especially in relation to their followers.

**This rest of this post has some spoilers for Isles of the Emberdark. If you prefer to go in knowing nothing, you may want to save this post for after you finish reading.**

PREORDER: Isles of the Emberdark (Dragonsteel Premium Edition)

The most prominent deity/worshipper relationship in the novel is between Sixth of the Dusk (hereafter Dusk) and Patji. If you’ve read the novella that became the flashback sequence for the novel, you know that Patji is not a particularly nice god. In this world, the pantheon of gods is embodied in a series of islands that contain a valuable magical resource (the Aviar, several species of birds that grant magical powers) guarded by extremely deadly flora and fauna. Patji is the “father god” of this pantheon, so the most dangerous and most deadly. Dusk reverences Patji but also treats him as an adversary. As a trapper, he has spent his whole career training to avoid Patji’s dangers in order to retrieve the Aviar his society relies on. Their relationship is similar to Dusk’s relationship with his rival trappers: respectful but adversarial.

Dusk still speaks to Patji, in a constant background dialogue that reminds me of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. Still, Dusk seems to never expect help or answers, only opposition, even as his society is being destroyed by colonial outsiders that threated traditional worship of the Pantheon islands. He can’t help asking “those itching questions he should not be thinking—about why Patji is so terrible” (loc 529**). Dusk feels abandoned by Patji, exclaiming, “The ones who protect you [from colonization and modernization] are the ones you try hardest to kill. […] You deserve to be destroyed!” (loc 1743).

Industry on Patji, art by Esther Hi’ilani Candari via official website

In this expanded version of the world, Sanderson reveals to readers a sort of answer to Dusk’s prayers. Why is Patji such a harsh god? Why does he make things difficult for his followers, including actively opposing and killing them? Does Patji do these things because he “hates all,” as Dusk seems to fear? (loc 1499).

As Dusk embarks on a very dangerous journey, which is all I can say spoiler-free, he suddenly realizes that Patji’s hostility prepared him for what he was now facing: “This was what he’d trained for, he was increasingly certain. Not this event, but this experience. Father, he thought. […] You made sure that some of us never grew soft from a life in the homeisles. You gave us the Aviar, but made us work for them, training, testing, preparing…” (loc 3078). Patji later speaks directly to Dusk, confirming this. Far from hating Dusk, Patji refers to him as “my son” (loc 3302)—a clear reference to the book of Moses, where God does the same for the biblical figure. Patji refers to everything that has happened to Dusk up to this point as training, a series of tests to increase his strength and ability to survive. “I have given you the tools,” says Patji. “Go forth and discover my will, trapper” (loc 3307).

Patji represents a god who wants us to suffer opposition to help us grow, a Latter-day Saint idea best reflected in 2 Nephi 2 and its discussion of opposition in all things. God doesn’t rescue his followers because he wants them to grow through trials and even dangers. Just like children need appropriate levels of risk to gain skills and confidence, God knows that we need a world full of danger, even sometime evil, in order to grow to be fully mature agents in our own right.

Tug-of-War, art by Esther Hi’ilani Candari via official website

Now, this idea can be over-simplified into a pacifying solution to the problem of theodicy, and I think Sanderson is careful to avoid that here. Dusk’s realization of the purpose of his trials doesn’t immediately reconcile him to Patji. Dusk still seems to harbor some deeply buried resentment to the god who actively sought his death. However, these realizations are a step in coming closer to his god: “while he wouldn’t have said he had faith in Patji, he did respect the god. Fear him. And after so long living in the jungle, understand him” (loc 3081).

Sanderson pairs this tempered respect for a god who is more like a harsh, possibly psychotic coach than a loving father with a more positive view of the god/follower relationship in Starling’s plotline. At the very beginning of the novel, we find out that our secondary protagonist Starling is from a species of shapeshifting dragons. Due to their extremely long lives, Cosmere dragons tend to act as gods, acquiring followers and playing millennia-long games of strategy to bring about their purposes.

Emberdark doesn’t provide us a lot of information about whether these dragon gods tend to protect or rescue those who worship them. They very well might. One thing we do know they do is the way they answer prayers: “Her people lived to inspire others. They didn’t always live up to their own ideals, but the best of them—like her uncle—spent their entire existences sending comfort, confidence, and compassion to those who prayed to them” (loc 2617).

Starling portrait, art by Esther Hi’ilani Candari via official website

This inspirational role of dragons provides a mirror image to the negative relationship between Dusk and Patji. Just as Patji exists to transform his followers through opposition, dragons seem to exist to transform their followers through empathy and emotion. They don’t necessarily need to perform divine interventions to be an object of worship. Instead, dragons are gods because they are a source of solidarity. They suffer with their followers, which helps turn that suffering into something positive. This reminds me of Alma 7:11-13 which interprets Christ’s atonement to be not just about perfecting sin but about “tak[ing] upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people […] that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.”

Importantly, both of these examples of the god/follower relationship focus on the god’s desire to transform the follower into something better than they were before. The purpose of God is always found in relationship, not some dispassionate self-existential reason. In fact, the gods seem to desire the relationship almost as much as the followers. This kind of mutual need between a god and their followers seems very Latter-day Saint to me, an extension of the kind of thinking that says creation and creator are of the same kind rather than essentially different.

I’d love to hear your thoughts about Isles of the Emberdark in the comments below. My overall review will be in next month’s “What I Read,” but you can probably tell that I really enjoyed the book.

** All quote locations in this post are from the Backerkit non-DRM ebook file. They may not precisely match other editions, but it’s the best I can do.