All posts by Phil

Fiction, Reviews

The Pendragon Cycle: Taliesin Episodes

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DailyWire+ has released its beautiful, 7-episode series The Rise of the Merlin, based on The Pendragon Cycle, Stephen Lawhead’s six book series, to regular members last Thursday. The first two eps are up along with a podcast that explains some of the details.

The first episode introduces Charis of Atlantis and the destruction her civilization. It’s an impressive scene in a Greek-style arena. Charis is the head of a seven-person team, male and female, who summersault over running bulls (see the photo of a Minoan fresco above). It isn’t just sport. It’s ritual for the bull god, Bel, to whom Charis is praying when we first see her.

The Atlanteans speak a language invented for the show by Spencer Klavan. It has a great, authentic sound. I picked up notes of Indo-European and Phaffinnic intonations under a clear faux-Latin influence. (I say this as a guy who can spot the subtle flavors in a Hersey’s, so I know what I’m talking about. Don’t get me started on peanut butter blends.)

Twenty years after their home is destroyed, the Atlanteans have established a kingdom in southern Britain, where the Cymry find them, having fled their land to escape barbarian raiders. Taliesin, a bard, is the adopted son of King Elphin. On the first evening, we hear him sing for King Avallach, Charis, and the other Atlanteans a moving song about the Welsh king Pwyll meeting the fairie lord of Annwn in the forest. It’s the first of two songs Taliesin sings in these episodes, and I like them, though they aren’t 4th century ballads. (I assume Lawhead wrote them.) This one in particular has been stuck in my ear for days.

The theme of this part of the series is the move from paganism to Christianity. Both main characters reject offers to sell themselves completely to their pagan gods, and at the end of episode one, the Lord catches Taliesin by surprise. “Look upon me then, Shining Brow!” It’s marvelous.

I love the look of this series so far. The actors are wonderful. (James Arden looks and sounds great as Taliesin.) Dialogue is strong. My one criticism is that a few scenes feel clipped. A dramatic scene at the start of episode two could use a few more minutes of explanation. Or maybe it lacks a foundation. They do explain why everyone is angry in that moment after the scene, but I could use three more minutes of talking it over—maybe hearing the offer put on the table and hearing it rejected before tempers flare.

Episodes drop every Thursday. I’ll try to review the next ones as they come out.

Creative Writing

The Wife Killer

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Catherine plummeting twelve stories from their balcony meant Edward had committed three untraceable uxoricides, each at Christmastime. He didn’t hate women per se; dead wives were just thrillingly profitable.

He stepped inside to call the police and found his phone dead. Hers was on the kitchen counter, ringing. Caller ID: “Catherine.”

He answered. “Who is this?”

“Does uxoricide help you sleep, Edward?”

He returned to the balcony rail and looked. Far below, her crushed body faced him, wild eyes catching him like hands, pitching him into the air between them.

She whimpered, “I’ve never killed a husband. What’s it like?”

This original flash fiction is part of Loren Eaton’s 2025 Advent Ghost Storytelling Fest. Read other entries posted or linked on his blog, and let me know what you think of this one. You can find more 100-word stories like this by searching the tag “Advent Ghost Stories” or “Flash fiction.”

Bookselling, Fiction

Review a Lars Walker E-book, Win Another One!

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When I reviewed Troll Valley after its first release as an e-book, I said it was an entertaining story about what we can and cannot control. A young man grows up with a deformed arm and a fairy godmother who doesn’t stand around granting wishes with a smile. It’s a little dark and not at all shmaltzy. It’s my favorite of Lars’s novels.

Troll Valley is now in audio, narrated by the author himself. You can get it with an Audible subscription or purchase it for your digital library. In honor of that technological accomplishment, we’re running a promotion. It’s a favor to you really. We’re doing you a solid.

Review one of Lars’s novels on Amazon or Goodreads, send us proof of that review, and we’ll send you another e-book of your choice. It has to be a new review. If you posted a review earlier this month or last month, we’ll accept that too. Just share a link in the comments of this post and we can email you another of Lars’s e-books to enjoy (and review, of course, like, please).

For example, you could post a review of Hailstone Mountain, and we could send you the e-book for The Elder King. Let us know which e-book you would like when you post your review in the comments.

Buy the books via any of our affiliate links. You don’t have to have bought the novel recently. It could be the one in your TBR pile. Only the review has to be new.

Post your review by Jan. 7, 2026 to get a free e-book in exchange, and let us know what you think of the new Troll Valley audiobook when you a chance to listen.

(Photo by Veroniki Thetis Chelioti on Unsplash)

Music

Sunday Singing: A Glory Gilds the Sacred Page

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Today’s hymn is another one of English poet William Cowper’s verses. It has been published in only a few hymnals, according to hymnary.org. May your Sunday be brighter for the light of the Scripture.

1 A glory gilds the sacred page,
Majestic like the sun;
It gives a light to every age;
It gives, but borrows none.

2 The Hand that gave it still supplies
The gracious light and heat;
His truths upon the nations rise;
They rise, but never set.

3 Let everlasting thanks be Thine
For such a bright display,
As makes a world of darkness shine
With beams of heavenly day.

4 My soul rejoices to pursue
The steps of Him I love,
Till glory break upon my view
In brighter worlds above.

Fiction, Reviews

J.R.R. Tolkien Translated Beowulf? Of Course, He Did

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New YouTuber Gavin the Medievalist breaks down what he found in Tolkien’s translation and commentary of the Old English epic Beowulf and whether you should be reading it in 2025.

Blogs, Socials, The Press

Power Players Want Us Divided, Outraged

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Chase Hughes is a behavior and body language expert who has trained soldiers and diplomats on persuasion and communication. I’ve seen him on the four-man analyst channel The Behavior Panel, where the four experts discuss body language aspects of witnesses in recorded trials and subjects of popular interviews.

In the video above, Chase responds to some of the reaction to Charlie Kirk’s murder by saying we’re being manipulated by a covert elite who don’t care about anyone but themselves and want to divide us in order to control us.

This is a point of media literacy I think we all need. Our apps and algorithms are training us think in new ways and value new things. We think we’re still in control of the technology, but if we rejoice in the murderer of a political enemy, who isn’t a murderer or terrorist, who hasn’t warred against a neighboring country, but has only argued for policies and politicians—if we allow our machines to be identity gauges and outrage feeders—then we are not in control. We are feeding a faceless power that sees us as only a number.

Blogs, Socials, Fiction

Fiction Throwdown: Can Chat GPT Tell a Better Short Story?

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Bestselling fantasy author Mark Lawrence asked three established fantasy authors to write 350-word short stories along with him and let his blog readers compare them to four similar stories produced by ChatGPT. He ran this experiment two years ago and concluded Team Human still had the edge. This year, not so much.

Read the eight stories here and keep your own tally on whether a story is written by AI or author and what rating you would give it out of five stars.

I read through them today and had hoped for better results at picking out the AI writing. I picked half of them correctly: two human written, two AI. I didn’t score the stories high in general, giving only one five stars and another four. Three I gave three stars. The remaining three earned twos and a one. It’s a little embarrassing to say my two high ranking stories were AI written. Two of the ones I disliked the most were manmade.

Jon Del Arroz, another fantasy author, reacts to the poll in this video.

Music

Sunday Singing: Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation

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Today’s hymn was originally written in Latin during the 7th century. It was translated and adapted by the great English scholar John M. Neale (1818-1866). He worked, “Angularis fundamentum lapis Christus missus est,” into the popular hymn, “Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation.” The tune is called “Westminster Abbey,” written by the Abbey’s own organist Henry Purcell (1659-1695).

“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, (Eph. 2:19-20 ESV)

1 Christ is made the sure foundation,
Christ the head and cornerstone,
chosen of the Lord and precious,
binding all the church in one;
holy Zion’s help forever
and her confidence alone.

2 All that dedicated city,
dearly loved of God on high,
in exultant jubilation
pours perpetual melody;
God the One in Three adoring
in glad hymns eternally.

3 To this temple, where we call thee,
come, O Lord of hosts today:
with thy wonted loving-kindness
hear thy people as they pray;
and thy fullest benediction
shed within its walls alway.

4 Here vouchsafe to all thy servants
what they ask of thee to gain,
what they gain from thee forever
with the blessed to retain,
and hereafter in thy glory
evermore with thee to reign.

5 Laud and honor to the Father,
laud and honor to the Son,
laud and honor to the Spirit,
ever Three and ever One,
One in might, and One in glory,
while unending ages run.

Music

Sunday Singing: A Welcome to Christian Friends

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To continue our recent trend of sharing forgotten hymns, today’s hymn was written by the great John Newton, “A Welcome to Christian Friends.” It talks of our unity and comfort in Christ. The recording of Bach’s “O Jesus sweet, O Jesus mild” is a potential tune for it. You’ll have to make the adaptation as you listen.

“In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” (Eph. 1:13-14 ESV)

1 Kindred in Christ, for his dear sake,
A hearty welcome here receive;
May we together now Partake
The Joys which only he can give!

2 To you and us by Grace ’tis giv’n,
To know the Saviour’s precious name;
And shortly we shall meet in Heav’n,
Our Hope, our Way, our End, the same.

3 May he, by whose kind Care we meet,
Send his good Spirit from above,
Make our Communications sweet,
And cause our hearts to burn with Love!

4 Forgotten be each worldly Theme,
When Christians see each other thus;
We only wish to speak of him,
Who liv’d and dy’d and rose for us.

5 We’ll talk of all he did and said,
And suffer’d for us here below;
The Path he mark’d for us to tread,
And what he’s doing for us now.

6 Thus, as the Moments pass away,
We’ll love, and Wonder and adore.
Lord, hasten on the glorious Day
When we shall meet to part no more!

Music, Poetry

Sunday Singing: All Flesh is Grass

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Today’s hymn is another one William Cowper (1731-1800) that you won’t find in your hymnal. In fact, I don’t have a tune for it. I found it in The Churchman’s Treasury of Song from 1907. It’s a portion of his larger work The Task, published in 1794. In The Churchman’s Treasury of Song, it’s given as a devotional hymn for the third week after Easter.

The Poetry Foundation described Cowper as “the foremost poet of the generation between Alexander Pope and William Wordsworth. For several decades, he had probably the largest readership of any English poet. From 1782, when his first major volume appeared, to 1837, the year in which Robert Southey completed the monumental Life and Works of Cowper, more than 100 editions of his poems were published in Britain and almost 50 in America.”

This hymn focuses on mortality and ultimate truth.

“I, I am he who comforts you;
who are you that you are afraid of dman who dies,
of the son of man who is made like grass,
and have forgotten the Lord, your Maker,
who stretched out the heavens
and glaid the foundations of the earth . . .” (Isaiah 51:12-13 ESV)

All flesh is grass, and all its glory fades
Like the fair flower dishevell’d in the wind;
Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream.
The man we celebrate must find a tomb,
And we that worship him ignoble graves.
Nothing is proof against the general curse
Of vanity, that seizes all below.
The only amaranthine flower on earth
Is virtue; the only lasting treasure, truth.
But what is truth? ‘Twas Pilate’s question put
To Truth itself, that deign’d him no reply.
And wherefore? will not God impart his light
To them that ask it?—Freely—’tis his joy,
His glory, and his nature to impart.
But to the proud, uncandid, insincere,
Or negligent inquirer, not a spark.
What’s that which brings contempt upon a book,
And him who writes it, though the style be neat,
The method clear, and argument exact?
That makes a minister in holy things
The joy of many and the dread of more,
His name a theme for praise and for reproach?—
That, while it gives us worth in God’s account,
Depreciates and undoes us in our own?
What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy,
That learning is too proud to gather up;
But which the poor, and the despised of all,
Seek and obtain, and often find unsought?
Tell me—and I will tell thee what is truth.