Musings on biblical studies, the crusades, film, D&D, Stranger Things, and other strange insanity.
Stranger Things
The Three Seasons Ranked
The 25 Episodes Ranked
Eleven’s Showdowns
Stranger Things ’80s Posters
The Shadow Monster: Mind Flayer or Aboleth?
Stranger Things Fanfiction: Beyond the TV series
Vol 1: The College Years (1990)
Vol 2: The New Generation (2009)
Vol 3: World’s End (2037)
Vol 4: The Witch of Yamhill County (1992)
Vol 5: The Black Rose of Newberg (1997)
Vol 6: Endless Night (1987)
Fiction
Retrospective: The Blue Rose Trilogy (1): Koko
Retrospective: The Blue Rose Trilogy (2): Mystery
Retrospective: The Blue Rose Trilogy (3): The Throat
Peter Straub Ranked
The Best of Stephen King
Historical Fiction Pick List
Science Fiction Pick List
Fantasy Pick List
The Lions of Al-Rassan: The Passing of the “Golden Age” in Islamic Spain
Whirlwind
Faerie Tale
King Harold: Two Novels of the Norman Conquest
The Presidents
George Washington (Excellent)
John Adams (Bad)
Thomas Jefferson (Average)
James Madison (Average)
James Monroe (Good)
John Quincy-Adams (Good)
Andrew Jackson (Bad)
Martin Van Buren (Poor)
John Tyler (Excellent)
James Polk (Poor)
Millard Fillmore (Good)
Franklin Pierce (Poor)
James Buchanan (Complete Failure)
Abraham Lincoln (Bad)
Andrew Johnson (Poor)
Ulysses Grant (Poor)
Rutherford Hayes (Excellent)
Chester Arthur (Good)
Grover Cleveland (Poor)
Ted Roosevelt (Bad)
William Howard Taft (Average)
Woodrow Wilson (Complete Failure)
Warren Harding (Excellent)
Calvin Coolidge (Good)
Herbert Hoover (Poor)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Bad)
Harry Truman (Good)
Dwight Eisenhower (Good)
John F. Kennedy (Average)
Lyndon Johnson (Bad)
Richard Nixon (Poor)
Gerald Ford (Average)
Jimmy Carter (Good)
Ronald Reagan (Average)
George H.W. Bush (Poor)
Bill Clinton (Average)
George W. Bush (Complete Failure)
Barack Obama (Bad)
Biblical Studies
Historical Jesus Pick List
Paul and the Law Pick List
The Subjective Genitive Reading of Faith
Context Group Essentials
Jew or Judean?
Jesus the Israelite
Why the Secret Gospel of Mark Still Fools People
Q, Thomas, and Killjoy Scholarship
Reasons to be Skeptical about Jesus’ Parables
Sex, Wives, and Warriors
Obscene Speech in Early Christianity
Did Muhammad and Jesus Exist?
Holy War
The History of Jihad (Review)
Holy War in Islam
Holy War in Judaism
Holy War in Christianity
Special Crusades Series
Crusades Pick List
The Dark Ages: Speaking the Unspeakable
Miscellaneous
Myths, Illusions, and the Taboo
Female Circumcision: A Religious Practice in Islam?
Pedophilia and Ephebophilia
Horror Movies and Rape Fantasies
Call of Cthulhu
Tabletop RPGs of the 70s and Early 80s
Berlin: The Wicked City
Revelations
Beyond the Mountains of Madness
Dungeons & Dragons
Classic D&D Modules Ranked
D&D Campaign Settings Ranked
Looking Back on D&D
The Blinding Claw of Torremor
The Tomb of Horrors
The Lost City
Castle Amber
Vault of the Drow
Inferno
Dark Tower
Inferno: Journey Through Malebolge
Middle-Earth Retrospectives
Of Bibles and Balrogs
Special Guest Post: Bob Kruger on the Essentials of D&D
Television
Film
Cinematic Milestones
Twenty Great Religious Films
Ten Films/TV Shows that Terrified Me
Ten Great Science Fiction Films
The Witch
Hard Candy
Whip It
Conan the Barbarian
Last House on the Left
The Chronicles of Narnia
Alfred Hitchcock
David Lynch
Ingmar Bergman
Stanley Kubrick
William Friedkin
Terrence Malick
Quentin Tarantino
Martin Scorsese
Ellen Page Ranked
Pingback: Plug for The Busybody | Bestiary in Progress
Loren thank you for a thought provoking and entertaining blog. I found you through the Last Chronicles before the Last Dark post and have been coming back ever since. While I do kot agree with all of your opinions, I do appreciate that all of the arguments you posit have nuanced, well thought reasoning supporting them. I work a job with a lot of downtime, and I consistently find myself coming back to read your posts. Again thank you
You’re welcome Christopher. I appreciate the comment. The Last Chronicles are quite something. I think the first half of Fatal Revenant is some of the best writing that’s ever been put on paper.
Hello, I just read your post on the alterations you made of LOTR movies. I really like the changes you made and the reasonings. I was wondering if it’s possible to get a copy since you already did the 2 hard parts haha. Also, my wife hates frodo, I was planning on cutting them out as much as possible so that she’ll be willing to watch it with me. What scenes would you argue would be the most important ones of them so that it gets the story across. Also, do you think it’d be interesting to cut and arrange the movies in a different way so that you see one person’s story at a time and pause their story when they meet up again to then continue the story as a group. For example, I think it’d be interesting to see everything just from arogons view and always just missing the hobbits but still hearing about them. It’d be like trying to find a kidnapped person.