March 2, 2024 • 54 mins
I speak with Samuel Bornman, author of "Of Wizards and Warriors", the first in a fantasy adventure series written from a Christian perspective, with boys in mind. We talk about what boys need from fiction that they're not getting, some of the problems with modern children's literature, transhumanism and our relationship with technology, and why Samuel has had trouble getting his book into Christian bookstores.
You can find "Of Wizards and Warriors" on Amazon.
Samuel writes on Substack, here.
And if you sign up for his newsletter, here, Samuel will send you a free short story that he has written!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the podcast that's all about
solutions.
If you're tired of complainingabout tyranny and you want to
take action to create a freerworld, this is the place for you
.
Join us as we ask what thenmust we do?
Right?
(00:28):
I'm here today with SamuelBornman.
Samuel is the author of Wizardsand Warriors.
It's a children's book whichwe're going to be talking about
today.
Samuel is a Christian.
He's a Christian author whowrites books for boys to give
them the healthy starts thatthey need to grow into healthy
men.
You're living in Mexico youactually grew up in Mexico, I
(00:51):
believe and you're living on amission helping natives who you
say are very, very poor.
Maybe we can talk a little bitabout that as we get into things
, but first of all, welcome tothe show.
Let's just start out by talkingabout your book.
What drove you to want to writethis?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Well, first of all, thank you for having me.
Yes, my book.
I wrote it because I wanted towrite a fairy tale for boys and
girls, but mostly targeted toboys, who struggled to find
healthy fiction, because I'veseen a lack of healthy modern
(01:39):
fiction.
You get all kinds of books thatare promoting socialism or
homosexuality or other messagesthat their parents may not
really want them to learn whenthey're eight or 10 years old.
(02:04):
I'm not at all encouraginghiding your children from the
reality of the world, but Iwould say that preserving the
innocence of a child isimportant.
So I wrote a book that I wantedto be healthy, that pretty much
any grandmother would approveof giving to her grandson and
(02:26):
would start the process ofgetting the child to realize
that there is evil in the worldand that there's good in the
world and you have to choose aside.
And so it's a fictional fairytale that I'm using to get the
(02:47):
child's brain thinking aboutgood, evil, what is right, what
is good, what is human, what isnot human and what is, yeah,
difference between good and evil.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And what age is this aimed at?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
So I wrote it for 12 and 15 year olds primarily, but
I have been told that there wasan eight year old boy who
devoured it in the same day thatit was given to him for
Christmas.
So that warms my heart, becauseI want little boys to read
(03:27):
books that they findentertaining and are thought
provoking and will encouragethem to be courageous.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Nice.
Yeah, I think there are a lotof precocious readers out there,
so that's nice to hear, and yousay that you're aiming this
specifically at boys.
What do you feel is the problemwith much of children's
literature today from theperspective of boys?
What's missing for them, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
So let me bash here on a movie that some people
really like.
I dislike the how to Train yourDragon movie, the cut.
It's not so much the dragons,it's not so much the adventure
or the action, it's the factthat the main character, hiccup,
is effeminate.
(04:21):
I mean, he's a weak kid whonever actually really has to
mature in order to become thehero of the story.
All he has to do is find adragon in entertainment.
And I think that kind of pointsto what our society expects
(04:42):
from boys.
They expect them to behave likelittle girls.
And the other thing about how toTrain your Dragon that bothers
me especially the movie isAstrid, the female character.
She is expected to become thisvery masculine character and
(05:03):
that's what she's pursuing.
She's pursuing being thegreatest dragon flying Viking,
and so that also tells you whatour society is expecting of
girls.
They want them to become strong, courageous and masculine, and
(05:24):
I would agree with strong andcourageous.
But I don't want little girlsto become men.
I want little girls to grow upto be women who are productive
and can raise the nextgeneration, because there's
nothing wrong with a woman beingstrong, but she should still be
(05:45):
feminine.
Because I'm a Christian and Ibelieve that God created these
two very distinct roles of maleand female and I think both have
equal value before God equalworth.
But they don't all have thesame function or roles in
(06:06):
society and I don't think thatwe should rebel against it,
because what we're seeing todayis families falling apart,
especially when you have thefather and the mother both
working full-time jobs and thekids are off in school and
they're not getting theattention that they really need
(06:28):
to grow into good, moral,healthy, productive people that
will make their society better.
And if you actually look at thenumbers of how much profit a
second full-time job with a$50,000 income, what that adds
(06:53):
to your bottom line is only$10,000 a year.
And so if you can find.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
For a lot of people it's just a thing for childcare.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah, yeah.
Paying for childcare, payingfor the extra vehicle, extra
insurance.
That all adds up and it onlyadds $10,000 to your bottom line
.
And if you can find a way tomake $25 to $30 a day from home,
you earn that $10,000 and addit to your bottom line, and so
(07:26):
you can still be just asproductive from home, if not
even more productive, whileraising kids and potentially
even educating them at home.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, well, to me I don't want to go too much off on
a tangent, but you see,productive.
It seems to me that there'ssuch a focus on being productive
, like that's the goal ofsociety, and I think that
affects both men and women.
But it really kind of that'sone of the things that I notice
(07:58):
in in our culture more broadlyis that there is this sort of if
you're not being productive,you're somehow not fulfilling
your role in life or you're notdoing what you're supposed to be
doing, and I would imaginethat's not how you see it.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
No, no, I don't see meeting societal expectations of
what is productive as the mostimportant thing, I think,
actually adding to your family'seconomy and value, and that
includes raising children whowill be a good members of
society for the next generation.
(08:40):
And so back to the earlierquestion you had asked me about
what is wrong with literaturetoday for boys is that it's
encouraging them to see theideal as feminine, feminine as
the ideal instead of masculine,and I think that they're both
(09:04):
have equal value and equalopportunity to contribute to
society, because without women,society dies, because we can't
have the next generation.
Without men, we can't have thenext generation either, but we
also don't.
Without men and women, we don'tbuild.
We don't build buildings, wedon't build culture, we don't
(09:27):
build society.
And so if we value one over theother, that creates an
imbalance which ends up in thedestruction of family, society
and civilization.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Are there any like going back to your own childhood
?
Are there any like children'sclassics, any books that you
think are really good or thatare your favorites, that you
think sort of do what children'sbooks should do?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
So one that is it's actually an autobiography series
would be Ralph Moody's LittleBridges series, because it
encourages, it shows a young manbecoming a young man at a very
early age because his fatherdies and he has to provide for
(10:19):
his mother and siblings, and soit shows me how much a young man
can achieve when he's 12 yearsold, and I'm not certain I could
do that.
So it's something to attain toand I think every boy should
read that series at least once.
Another really good serieswould be the Chronicles of
(10:42):
Narnia.
I would read the Black Arrow, Ibelieve that's by Robert Louis
Stevenson.
Treasure Island, robinsonCrusoe, swiss Family Robinson.
All those phrase courage,discourage laziness and they
(11:06):
encourage you to be industrious.
So I think those are very goodbooks for young boys to read.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Okay, and what about things like the book of Merlin
or the King Arthur Tales?
What are your thoughts on?
Speaker 2 (11:21):
So I really like the story of King Arthur in the next
round table, as well as RobinHood yeah, that's good.
I have not read the book ofMerlin, I don't know.
I think when you start gettinginto magical tales, specifically
about wizards, there's acertain amount of caution you
(11:42):
need to have.
But I think that in generalokay, I'm going to talk about
the evangelical Christian worldis very skittish of magic,
because the Bible forbidswitchcraft and we're not
supposed to do that.
But at the same time, jesusdoes miracles that are very
(12:08):
magical in nature.
The prophets are given authorityto perform miracles.
Moses splits the sea clean intwo by raising his hands when
God tells him to.
I mean holding up his armsduring a battle, and as long as
his hands are in the air, theIsraelites are winning.
When his hands start to droopbecause he's weary, they start
(12:29):
to lose.
So it seems very magical.
I think there's also a trend inthe modern world to demystify
the world and explain everythingthrough science and technology,
and so I think magic in talesis really good, because it's
(12:50):
very easy to show the differencebetween good and evil, but it
can also be dangerous.
So I always read those booksbefore I think about giving them
to or recommending them toyounger people.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
So and we're gonna talk about your book in a minute
, and I think this is relevantbecause you are writing about
wizards I have to ask you whatare your thoughts on Tolkien?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
I really love Tolkien , not the movies so much.
I like the book.
He's a little long-winded whenyou're reading on your own, but
the moment you start to read itout loud as a family it is very
different.
It is funny.
Especially the Hobbit is funnyand light humor, you know
(13:44):
lighthearted, like kind of thistypical fairy tale, just kind of
a whole bunch of good frothwith some broth underneath.
But then you get to the Lord ofthe Rings trilogy and that's
the darker.
There's more meat to it.
There's more intellectual foodthere for thought.
(14:08):
But it is really really reallygood.
It doesn't get too dark andmorbid but it isn't too
lighthearted and carefree whenit comes to talking about evil
versus good.
I think it's really goodbalance there.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, and he also.
There's this dichotomy becausethere's sorcery, you know,
there's Saruman and there's allthis stuff that.
I think, easily be classifiedas sorcery or dark magic.
But then there's also you gotGandalf, you got the Good
Wizards performing acts of, sois that something does that
(14:47):
trouble you, or do you thinkthat's a good distinction?
Speaker 2 (14:49):
No, not at all, and that doesn't trouble me at all
because if you think about it,you have.
I believe in the real world wehave Satan and his demons who
are opposing God and his angelicarmy, and so God gives power to
(15:12):
his angels and God giveslimited power to do evil to
Satan and his minions, so thatGod can display the difference
between good and evil in thisworld.
And so he is glorified.
And so I really like howGandalf, when he's facing all
(15:41):
these evil, like, especiallylike the Witch King at Minus
Chirith he faces him and he'slike, not troubled, he's calm,
he's confident, he's on the sideof good, and the side of good
never looks like they're justpowerless and the evil side is
(16:07):
all powerful.
They do look weak but they'reactually really powerful and
it's much more balanced, whereasin some tales it's like I can't
remember any names off the topof my head but it's like evil is
all powerful, it's all knowing,it's evil and it's going to
(16:30):
destroy us if we make just theslightest mistake.
And there is some of thattension in Tolkien.
But I think it's a much betterbalance, much better view of how
the reality is, that good isactually more powerful.
But even though it looks reallyweak.
(16:50):
Right so yeah, that's so.
I'm not troubled by the twoviews of sorcery there in
Tolkien, because he makes cleardistinction between good and
evil.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's talk about your book, so
maybe just give us a briefoutline.
What's the basic storyline?
Who are the characters?
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Okay, so my main character's name is Stout and he
starts out as farm boy kind ofcharacter in a small city, in a
kind of rural part of thisbroader world of Enya, and he
and his friend Sally break therules of their town and they
(17:38):
enter a wood that borders theirtown called the Woods of Doom.
It is forbidden, they're notsupposed to go there, but while
they're there, their city isattacked and destroyed by the
forces of the Dark Eternals,these beings that can change
between man and dragon form.
(17:58):
So, and while they're in thewoods and their villages, their
town, is being destroyed, theymeet one of the Dark Eternals
disguised as a man, who pretendsto be concerned about them and
like oh, can you take me to yourtown, I'll help you get there.
And because they're lost.
(18:20):
And a another man, who'sglowing white, comes and stands
between the children and theDark Eternal, and the Dark
Eternal changes into his dragonform and then leaves.
And this old man, who's thisglowing white figure, tells them
(18:43):
your village, your town hasbeen destroyed, and like, shows
them the town from the edge ofthe woods and then he takes them
to the Hall of Eternal Lightwhere they will be paired for,
because they are now orphans.
And so, while Stout is at theHall of Eternal Light, he
(19:06):
receives a vision from thisbeing, the who's called the
light, and in his vision he seesa wizard who is grafting man
and beasts together into theseconglomerates to build his
armies.
(19:26):
He's dissecting children, he'sdoing all sorts of evil, black
magic stuff and he is told youneed to go stop this guy.
So this young guy he's a kid,he doesn't know anything about
battle and he's supposed to godestroy a wizard.
(19:47):
So he gets training from theKnights of Eternal Light.
It's sent out on the mission,comes face to face with the
wizard, rescue Sally, who duringthe story gets kidnapped, and
then at the end of it, he'saround.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I don't want to give everything away, so you know, no
need spoilers.
If there's, I think that givesus the yeah, I don't want people
to not go read the book becauseyou know yes there's a lot I'd
left out there.
Yeah, I'm sure.
So that's really interestingthe whole, because you mentioned
earlier in your show in yournotes that you do talk about
(20:26):
transhumanism and you know whichis obviously it's been a huge
theme in fantasy and sciencefiction even since before it
became, you know, a theme in ourlives.
Why did you do that?
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Well, because I was thinking about some things I'd
seen in the science world,things like artificial wombs and
artificial embryos tosupposedly grow mice.
Some people have said that theycan get the fake mouse embryo
(21:09):
that they grew in the lab.
They made an fake embryo in alab, put it in a fake womb and
got to the point where they gota heartbeat.
They say I don't know how truethat is, it came from a what
seems to be a pretty reputablesource, but that kind of scares
(21:31):
me, because what's the next stepbeyond mice?
What's the next step beyond,say, a cat or a dog?
Do we know that people havebeen discussing for years,
especially in the military world, about super soldiers?
Right, you know, you want menwho don't feel pain, men who can
take, get shot a thousand timesand keep fighting, right?
(21:53):
And so what's the next step?
I think probably what they'reaiming at is developing a
human-like being who does notfeel pain, does not die, does
not get sick.
And that is that terrifies me,because I don't think that's
(22:18):
where we should go, because Godmade man the way he did, and
when he made man originally hesaid it is good, he made man
good.
And then we broke God's commandsand we took from the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil.
We ate and we became aware ofgood and evil and that we had
(22:42):
chosen evil.
And God cursed mankind withsickness, pain in our toil or in
our work, and multiplied painin childbearing, for women said
that men would earn their breadby the sweat of their brow.
(23:04):
And so I think that we need toaccept that, that punishment,
and but look to Christ, whoprovided a way for us to have
eternal life.
You know, christ came as theSon of God, as God himself died
(23:25):
for us and made a way for us tohave eternal life through him,
and so we can have eternal life.
But what transhumanists want todo is they want to have eternal
life apart from Christ.
So they want to find a way tocure all of mankind's diseases,
make man immortal, get rid ofpain, so that because they know
(23:51):
that that's what's wrong withthe world, but they want to do
it apart from God, they want todo it apart from Christ, and
that's hubris, that's prideful,that's wrong it sounds like
their concern is with ourphysical existence, and that's
it.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
You know they've left out the whole spiritual side,
and that's not yet.
I don't think that's what Jesuswas talking about.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
No, Now Jesus does say that when he returns he will
resurrect us and give us newbodies.
So we will have what we have now, but perfect, perfected, and so
I don't know exactly what thatlooks like, but I'm pretty
certain that we'll have aphysical body and we'll be much
(24:38):
more like Adam and Eve were inthe garden before the fall, but
we won't have to worry about sinanymore, because God will have
separated us completely from sin, separated us from the ability
to sin, and so that will be, Ithink, a great relief and
(25:01):
glorious.
But so I think that this, this,this trend in transhumanism, is
very, very dangerous.
And so in my book I make theevil wizard Calculo do these
kind of transhumanisticsurgeries to like augment men
into super warriors through theuse of magic and some kind of
(25:29):
science, like terminology andsome of the things that are
actually going on, like themurder of infants in the womb,
to then use their tissue forscience, to then perfect man or
change man or all these otherthings that they're doing with
(25:52):
those fetal cell tissues, andthat's like that's evil, that's
witchcraft, that's ungodly.
So I have to reject that, andthat is a large part of has is a
large part of what this scienceand transhumanist community are
doing.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yeah, again, I don't want to go too far down this,
but this is just a reallyinteresting angle here, given
that we're not we haven'treached the point yet where
we're without sin.
In the meantime, what can ourrelationship with technology be?
It seems like, if you go backto the Adam and Eve story, we
(26:39):
just we blew it.
Basically, even engaging intechnological progress or
pursuits goes against God.
Is that right?
I don't hope so, okay.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I don't think so, because God told us to take
dominion over the world Right,and so I think it really has to
do with why you want to takedominion over this, this thing
that you want to take dominionover.
So, like in the medical field,we want to take dominion over
(27:17):
sickness and pain, and I thinkthat's fine, as long as we don't
try to become immortal, becomegods, become permanently
separate from pain.
I think controlling pain isfine with drugs.
I think maybe we could findsafer drugs, but I think
controlling pain through withdrugs is fine.
(27:38):
I think helping a person who isparalyzed from the waist down
to walk again through surgery,that's fine.
I don't really want their brainconnected to a computer, because
I think that's that goes alittle bit too far, unless we
find some sort of ways to do itwhere there's no possibility of
(28:02):
them being hacked, which, so faras I understand it, that's not
a possibility, because I so Ithink that taking dominion over
the world, over pain, creatingsystems of communications like
what we're using now with zoom,of doing a video call we're
(28:23):
thousands of miles apart andwe're talking as if we were
almost in the same room, and soI don't think that's wrong.
I think that's where my Amishfriends make the mistake,
because they view technologicaladvancement as worldly and
(28:46):
leading to sin and evil.
And while I understand theirsentiments and I can in some
ways agree with them, I can'tagree fully, because I think we
are supposed to take dominion ofthe world.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Interesting.
We talk about the necessity forgood role models for boys.
I know you're also veryconcerned with fatherlessness
and I'm just wondering if youcan talk a little bit about how
does your story, how does thishelp to address that?
Speaker 2 (29:21):
So I think little boys need to hear that being
masculine is good, it can begood.
They just need to control theirmasculine drive, their
masculine tendencies, and directit towards productive and good
goals.
So, like my characters, my malecharacters are all very
(29:46):
masculine.
My female characters are allvery feminine and I don't try to
make one do the others role, bethe other, and so I want them
to hear that this is good, thisis fine, this is how the world
(30:09):
works.
And being told that you need tosit still like a little girl,
you need to be calm, you need tobe quiet, you can't run and
shout and jump off the couch.
I think that's a mistake forboys, because they need to learn
(30:30):
how to move their body, theyneed to learn how to be active.
And then the modern tendency inschools to put them on drugs to
sedate them so that they learnbetter I think that's horrid.
I think that little boys shouldmaybe have maybe more time
learning outside, playinghopscotch and doing math that
(30:52):
way, than being forced to sitstill in a class like they're
20-year-olds in college.
I think that's unreasonable.
So this book it's supposed toteach them that masculinity is
fine, having goals and wantingto achieve them is good, being
(31:14):
brave is good, not being alittle girl is good.
So that's some of the thingsI'm trying to address.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
And what kind of response have you gotten?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Very positive and very negative.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Oh really.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
So there have been people who have.
For the most part it's beenreally positive.
People are like yes, that'sgreat, encourage little boys to
be little boys, encourage themto grow up into young men who
can then be good fathers andproductive members of society.
Because I think people dorealize that stories form a
(31:57):
child's view of the world andstories give them a reserve to
fall back on.
Mentally.
They're supported by thisarchitecture of stories behind
them.
This is how the world works andthen they can look at what's
going on around them in theirlife and be like ah, this story
(32:19):
reminds me of that story, whichmeans I need to behave like
Frodo, I need to behave like Samand just persevere, or I need
to behave like E Hood and killthis guy who is oppressing the
people of God and is destroyingus.
He's an enemy.
(32:39):
I don't encourage little boys tobe unnecessarily violent either
.
That's the other side.
But I want to give them thisarchitecture and we have it a
lot in the great classics.
But little boys can't read theclassics very well to begin with
(33:01):
.
They need something.
They need baby stepbooks tokind of get them going.
And I think we've gotten to thepoint in society where lots of
boys think about TV or comicbooks, instead of an actual book
, as being fun and entertaining,because they're forced to read
these classics in school insteadof being allowed to discover
(33:22):
them.
I think that takes some of themagic out of them, yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Yeah, so what's the negative feedback that you've
gotten?
Speaker 2 (33:33):
I was particularly one lady who was upset that I
wouldn't write a female Jesuscharacter, that I would think
that that would be a problem,because if you look at stories,
there's characters like Gandalfis a very Moses-like character,
(33:54):
frodo and Sam are likepersevering saints, kind of like
the apostles I don't want toget weird with that, but just
kind of like people andcharacters and stories are
archetypes, they'repersonalities, and a Jesus
character, in my opinion, is apowerful figure who comes and
(34:21):
lays down his life for weakercharacters so that they can win,
and I think it's wrong for usto expect women to die for men.
I think that's one of theproblems with the US military
encouraging women to serve inmilitaristic combat roles.
(34:47):
I don't think that is for women.
Now, I also don't believe thatwomen should never defend
themselves Absolutely.
Women should defend themselves.
They should learn how to beviolent when they need to be.
I don't want them becomingsoldiers, though, and so I think
making a character that issacrificial and powerful in the
(35:12):
feminine form can be right, butI don't want her dying for men
Maybe for some children, maybefor other women, but not for men
, because I think that istwisted to think that women
should expect that of women, menshould expect that of women, or
boys should expect that ofwomen.
(35:33):
Because that's your job, jimmy.
I mean, if there's a snake inthe room, you're supposed to go
crush his head.
If there's a spider on the wall, go grab an alchemy and throw
him outside or crush him.
That's your job.
And it starts there.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah, I also just find that's some of the negative
stuff.
Yeah, I find it annoying whenpeople offer up criticism based
on what they would want said asopposed to you know, this is
your book and you should be.
You know you're putting outyour message and to me it's not
really a valid critique to say,well, you didn't get my message
(36:14):
out there.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
She wasn't actually saying that I hadn't put that in
the book and that she was upsetabout that.
She was upset that I would.
When she suggested, oh, youcould write a story about a
female Jesus character, I'm likeno, no, no, that's wrong.
And she was upset by the ideaof me putting women in strong
(36:36):
female roles without thembecoming masculine.
Because she's a feminist whowants women to.
You know, she's talking aboutequality, but she's talking
about equality and sameness inroles.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Right, it's so interesting to me how that's
kind of what feminism has become.
It's, in a way, it's arepudiation of women and it's or
of, I guess, of femininity.
It's, you know, and at least inthis point in our lives I feel
like it's more, it's more aboutelevating masculine values for
(37:20):
everyone and that it's sort of,to me, I see it as a very sort
of masculine movement, which Ijust think that there's an irony
there, you know they'rebecoming.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
They're trying to become the thing they hate.
They claim to hate most, whichis odd.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
How have you?
I mean, I see how thepublishing industry is and there
was an article recently about,I think, quoting someone in a
big publishing house saying thatit's near impossible to get
fiction published if you're awhite male, and I don't know how
(38:02):
true that is, but that was sortof the headline.
But I you know, you see, howmuch political correctness there
is in publishing, and so I'mjust wondering how you
self-published?
Is that right?
How do you get it out?
How do you get the word out?
How do you get people to readyour book?
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Well, this is where I really like Amazon.
Well, I have some disagreementswith Amazon.
I like the fact that they makeit very easy for anyone to
publish.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Well you do.
If you go to self-publishingroute, you have to overcome some
of the stigma againstself-published books that their
junkie editing process wasn'tdone properly, that the coverage
bad, that they're boundimproperly.
But if you do your job as theauthor, Amazon gives you a good
(38:59):
product.
I like the copies I've gotten.
They look great.
Other people have beensatisfied with them and in the
more traditional publishingworld I pitched my book to a
couple of people and I got zeroresponses.
I didn't try super hard becauseI realized I was researching it
(39:20):
and I was like, okay, I setmyself this deadline for getting
published.
It's creeping up on me.
I'm not getting any responsesfrom any publishing houses, from
people that I thought were alittle more conservative, would
maybe be more open to mepublishing with them.
So I said, okay, I'm publishingon Amazon, I'm just going to
(39:45):
see how it goes.
I can always take my book down,do a second edition and publish
with the publishing house lateron down the road if I choose to
do that.
So I definitely want theself-published route instead of
the traditional publishing route, and so I can't really speak to
the traditional publishingworld.
(40:06):
But the self-published world isamazing.
It's great as long as you doyour job, find a good artist to
do your cover and you do thehard work of modding it yourself
.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
And how have your sales been?
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Not great, but I'm just getting started.
It was published in July of2023.
So it's not that old.
But I am doing podcast episodes.
I was able to get on a radioshow and I'm doing some writing
(40:47):
on the side substat.
I have my own website so I canpublish some other stuff on the
side to catch people's attention.
They're like, oh, what else isthis guy written?
And then direct them to myAmazon sales page.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
What about Christian booksellers?
Have you sent it to anyChristian bookstores or websites
?
Speaker 2 (41:13):
That I've had.
The Christian publishing worldis also interesting.
They tend to publish books thatare really touchy-feely, books
that are kind of much more alongthe lines of what the world
wants to see instead of what thechurch really needs.
As I've said, evangelicals arereally skittish of magic, and my
(41:41):
book is very openly a fantasyadventure novel with magic in it
and I've had a couple of peoplewho are like, well, I really
enjoyed it, but I'm not givingit to my kids quite yet.
And one of them was my aunt,who I really love.
(42:05):
She read it.
She's like I would like yourbook, but I couldn't go to sleep
after I read it Because she'slike it has some really dark
themes and I'm like, yes, ifyou're old enough to understand
what those dark themes arepointing to, if you're a young
child, you're going to read itjust like OK, this guy's a bad
(42:25):
guy.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Right, it's very different reading those things
as a young person.
It is very different.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
A lot of it just goes over your head.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
A lot of the meaning of what's going on in the world.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Right, they don't make those connections one
because they're probably notseeing the news, they're
probably not paying attention towhat's going on in the broader
world.
They read this.
They're like, oh, he's a badguy, this is an adventure novel.
This is a good guy.
Oh, the good guy beats the badguy, right, yeah yeah.
The parents reading it are like, oh my gosh, this is hit.
(42:57):
This is terrible, right, thisguy is killing children and he's
using them on his expense.
They're like this is the realworld.
I don't want my kids to knowabout this yet.
And you're like, well, they'renot going to get it, but OK, if
you don't want them to read ituntil they're 18, 19, fine,
(43:18):
that's not my choice, that'stheir choice, it's their kids.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
But yeah, that's interesting.
I would have thought that therewould be a place in the
Christian bookselling world.
I would think they would behungry for something like this.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
Some evangelicals won't let their kids read the
Nairniah Chronicles Because ofthe magic.
Because of the magic Right.
Aslan does magic, yeah, butyou're like, wow, yeah, so
that's.
(43:54):
That's how sensitive someevangelicals are to magic, and
my book goes in terms ofdiscussing magic.
It goes a step beyond howopenly that CS Lewis talks about
it on the good side, on theside of good, but I wouldn't
(44:14):
claim to be on par with hiswriting style yet.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
But no but he's.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
He's an amazing author and he writes some really
amazing books.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
I mean, he's one of the most well-known Christian
authors ever.
You know, I know.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
And some there I have met some people who they only
heard about the Chronicle series, or they only heard the
Nairniah Chronicles series, theyonly heard about screw tape
letters.
And so they're like is he evena Christian?
I've had people ask me is thisguy even a Christian?
(44:51):
Like yes, you need to read someof his other works.
Some of his more theologicalworks and also another book that
really scares you in Jocles offby CS Lewis would actually a
trilogy is the space trilogy.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Yeah, yeah.
I've just started reading thatmyself.
I haven't.
I never finished it as ateenager.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
I can get ready for that hideous strength.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
Yeah, I can, I can see that one's dark.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, it's interesting, though,to me.
I also I write children'sfiction too and I'm just really
interested in the question of,you know, those of us who don't
fit into the mainstreamnarratives, where is our place
in the in as far as justmarketing it, as far as getting
(45:37):
it out to the world and I wouldhave thought you know that,
christian booksellers but you'resaying not, not necessarily.
So that's a big question.
You know where, if you're notgoing along with sort of the
mainstream PC woke World view,where do you fit?
Speaker 2 (46:00):
So I have had more success with Manusphere.
Manusphere kind of podcasts, solike the movement of men who
are rejecting feminism and someguys are really extreme.
Some are much more Christianmen traditional roles,
(46:22):
homeschooling If it talks.
When it comes to my book, ifthey talk about masculinity,
godly masculinity, traditionalfamily values and homeschooling,
they usually like my book.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Usually.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Now, sometimes, as an author, we want to pitch the
wrong thing to the wrong person,and that that, really, that
really plays a role.
When it comes to marketing,I've had a lot of help from a
friend of my father's who isbasically tutoring me in how to
(47:02):
market a book.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Alan Stevo has been very helpful.
You can go check him out.
You can check his books out.
He does not do marketingclasses for everyone, so I feel
very blessed that he would helpme.
I also have done some otherbusiness classes in the past.
My father, when I was stilldoing homeschooling, was
(47:30):
encouraging me to study business, learn how to start my own
business so that I can one dayprovide for my own family, and
so that has also been veryhelpful in teaching me how to
pitch, because I think manyauthors they're really good at
writing they're not great atsales.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Very different.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yeah.
Yeah, it's very different.
I much prefer writing, butsales is also good and if you
study it a little bit you'll doa fine job.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
Any advice for young writers or just writers again
outside of the mainstream, anyadvice for the writing process,
for getting it out there?
Speaker 2 (48:19):
So I think one thing that you need to forget about is
pleasing people.
You need to not worry aboutpleasing liberals or other
people who are already opposedto you just because of your
beliefs.
Whether you choose thoseenemies or not, you need to not
(48:40):
worry about them.
You need to worry about writingthe book that you think the
world needs.
You need to worry about writing.
If you're writing stories, justwrite the story you want to
write.
Write the role models you wantto write.
Don't worry about other peopleand don't try to be perfect,
(49:05):
because your first novel is notgoing to turn out perfect, and
perfection is one of thosethings that kills writing, kills
publication, because I know aguy he's been writing the book
for the last 10 years.
He has a lot of good materialhe keeps going back for oh, this
(49:27):
new study came out.
I need to include that in thebook.
And if you're writing a bigdoctoral tome on how to be
healthy, that's great, but youcan do a second edition.
Or you can write a second bookthat focuses on weightlifting or
(49:55):
on exercise or on eatinghealthy, but instead he's trying
to combine everything into onebook and every time a new study
comes out that supports hisargument.
He has to go research it anddecide where he's going to put
it in the book.
And he still hasn't given it toanybody for approfrating, not
(50:20):
even beta readers beforeapprofator.
He's the only one who's seen itand it's really sad because
what this guy has to say isvaluable.
I respect the guy, but he'sbeen working on it for 10 years
and I'm not certain where he'sat now.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
But yeah, at some point you got to just get it out
there and Exactly my book.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
I was like, oh, I could fix this, I could tweak
this a little bit to make thestory plot better or make the
character arc better.
And if I keep doing this though, I'm never going to publish, so
I wrote it in the summer, spentsix months editing it and
published it.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Nice.
Is it a perfect?
No, it's not perfect.
Anybody who reads it in his redgray classics is going to say
this is okay.
I can see where there could besome improvement.
I could see how maybe, as hematures, he's going to become a
better author, but it's not aperfect book, and I think the
(51:35):
only truly perfect book outthere is the Bible, and I'm not
God, so I'm not going to readanother perfect book.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
Is this part of a series, though?
Are we going to see book two?
Speaker 2 (51:47):
Yes.
So book two I am working on it.
It's kind of in some ways it'sa little bit more similar to the
Chronicles of Narnia and whereit's spaced out between years,
except there's in the secondbook there's not going to be any
(52:08):
traveling between the world oranything.
There's not in the first book.
Third book, there's apossibility.
So if you like people travelingfrom other worlds stories, you
might enjoy this one.
It's a little bit morecomplicated, right.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
But it might go far.
Will it be the same charactersor?
Speaker 2 (52:28):
Nope, different characters because it's a
different time period in thesame world, although there are
some overlapping characters whoare going to reappear, yeah,
okay.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
Well, this has been fascinating.
I will link to your book, ofcourse, and anything else that
you'd like linked to.
It is on getting it out there,and I hope that this can help
get into more people's hands.
Speaker 2 (52:58):
Well, thank you, I really appreciate it.
For anyone who wants to findout more about me, I have a
sub-stack that's Samuel'ssub-stack.
I also have a webpage,samuelbornmancom.
You can go there and receive afree short story.
(53:21):
You can read that.
You can sign up to newsletterto find out about more free
short stories when the next bookis coming out and I look
forward to having more peoplereading my books, so don't
hesitate to visit my webpage.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (53:52):
You've been listening to.
What, Then Must we Do?
The podcast.
For those who understand thatthe state is the problem and are
seeking solutions For moreepisodes, go to
bretanysubstackcom that'sbretignesubstackcom and
subscribe.
Welcome to the podcast that's all about
solutions.
If you're tired of complainingabout tyranny and you want to
take action to create a freerworld, this is the place for you
.
Join us as we ask what thenmust we do?
Right?
(00:28):
I'm here today with SamuelBornman.
Samuel is the author of Wizardsand Warriors.
It's a children's book whichwe're going to be talking about
today.
Samuel is a Christian.
He's a Christian author whowrites books for boys to give
them the healthy starts thatthey need to grow into healthy
men.
You're living in Mexico youactually grew up in Mexico, I
(00:51):
believe and you're living on amission helping natives who you
say are very, very poor.
Maybe we can talk a little bitabout that as we get into things
, but first of all, welcome tothe show.
Let's just start out by talkingabout your book.
What drove you to want to writethis?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Well, first of all, thank you for having me.
Yes, my book.
I wrote it because I wanted towrite a fairy tale for boys and
girls, but mostly targeted toboys, who struggled to find
healthy fiction, because I'veseen a lack of healthy modern
(01:39):
fiction.
You get all kinds of books thatare promoting socialism or
homosexuality or other messagesthat their parents may not
really want them to learn whenthey're eight or 10 years old.
(02:04):
I'm not at all encouraginghiding your children from the
reality of the world, but Iwould say that preserving the
innocence of a child isimportant.
So I wrote a book that I wantedto be healthy, that pretty much
any grandmother would approveof giving to her grandson and
(02:26):
would start the process ofgetting the child to realize
that there is evil in the worldand that there's good in the
world and you have to choose aside.
And so it's a fictional fairytale that I'm using to get the
(02:47):
child's brain thinking aboutgood, evil, what is right, what
is good, what is human, what isnot human and what is, yeah,
difference between good and evil.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And what age is this aimed at?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
So I wrote it for 12 and 15 year olds primarily, but
I have been told that there wasan eight year old boy who
devoured it in the same day thatit was given to him for
Christmas.
So that warms my heart, becauseI want little boys to read
(03:27):
books that they findentertaining and are thought
provoking and will encouragethem to be courageous.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Nice.
Yeah, I think there are a lotof precocious readers out there,
so that's nice to hear, and yousay that you're aiming this
specifically at boys.
What do you feel is the problemwith much of children's
literature today from theperspective of boys?
What's missing for them, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
So let me bash here on a movie that some people
really like.
I dislike the how to Train yourDragon movie, the cut.
It's not so much the dragons,it's not so much the adventure
or the action, it's the factthat the main character, hiccup,
is effeminate.
(04:21):
I mean, he's a weak kid whonever actually really has to
mature in order to become thehero of the story.
All he has to do is find adragon in entertainment.
And I think that kind of pointsto what our society expects
(04:42):
from boys.
They expect them to behave likelittle girls.
And the other thing about how toTrain your Dragon that bothers
me especially the movie isAstrid, the female character.
She is expected to become thisvery masculine character and
(05:03):
that's what she's pursuing.
She's pursuing being thegreatest dragon flying Viking,
and so that also tells you whatour society is expecting of
girls.
They want them to become strong, courageous and masculine, and
(05:24):
I would agree with strong andcourageous.
But I don't want little girlsto become men.
I want little girls to grow upto be women who are productive
and can raise the nextgeneration, because there's
nothing wrong with a woman beingstrong, but she should still be
(05:45):
feminine.
Because I'm a Christian and Ibelieve that God created these
two very distinct roles of maleand female and I think both have
equal value before God equalworth.
But they don't all have thesame function or roles in
(06:06):
society and I don't think thatwe should rebel against it,
because what we're seeing todayis families falling apart,
especially when you have thefather and the mother both
working full-time jobs and thekids are off in school and
they're not getting theattention that they really need
(06:28):
to grow into good, moral,healthy, productive people that
will make their society better.
And if you actually look at thenumbers of how much profit a
second full-time job with a$50,000 income, what that adds
(06:53):
to your bottom line is only$10,000 a year.
And so if you can find.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
For a lot of people it's just a thing for childcare.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah, yeah.
Paying for childcare, payingfor the extra vehicle, extra
insurance.
That all adds up and it onlyadds $10,000 to your bottom line
.
And if you can find a way tomake $25 to $30 a day from home,
you earn that $10,000 and addit to your bottom line, and so
(07:26):
you can still be just asproductive from home, if not
even more productive, whileraising kids and potentially
even educating them at home.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, well, to me I don't want to go too much off on
a tangent, but you see,productive.
It seems to me that there'ssuch a focus on being productive
, like that's the goal ofsociety, and I think that
affects both men and women.
But it really kind of that'sone of the things that I notice
(07:58):
in in our culture more broadlyis that there is this sort of if
you're not being productive,you're somehow not fulfilling
your role in life or you're notdoing what you're supposed to be
doing, and I would imaginethat's not how you see it.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
No, no, I don't see meeting societal expectations of
what is productive as the mostimportant thing, I think,
actually adding to your family'seconomy and value, and that
includes raising children whowill be a good members of
society for the next generation.
(08:40):
And so back to the earlierquestion you had asked me about
what is wrong with literaturetoday for boys is that it's
encouraging them to see theideal as feminine, feminine as
the ideal instead of masculine,and I think that they're both
(09:04):
have equal value and equalopportunity to contribute to
society, because without women,society dies, because we can't
have the next generation.
Without men, we can't have thenext generation either, but we
also don't.
Without men and women, we don'tbuild.
We don't build buildings, wedon't build culture, we don't
(09:27):
build society.
And so if we value one over theother, that creates an
imbalance which ends up in thedestruction of family, society
and civilization.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Are there any like going back to your own childhood
?
Are there any like children'sclassics, any books that you
think are really good or thatare your favorites, that you
think sort of do what children'sbooks should do?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
So one that is it's actually an autobiography series
would be Ralph Moody's LittleBridges series, because it
encourages, it shows a young manbecoming a young man at a very
early age because his fatherdies and he has to provide for
(10:19):
his mother and siblings, and soit shows me how much a young man
can achieve when he's 12 yearsold, and I'm not certain I could
do that.
So it's something to attain toand I think every boy should
read that series at least once.
Another really good serieswould be the Chronicles of
(10:42):
Narnia.
I would read the Black Arrow, Ibelieve that's by Robert Louis
Stevenson.
Treasure Island, robinsonCrusoe, swiss Family Robinson.
All those phrase courage,discourage laziness and they
(11:06):
encourage you to be industrious.
So I think those are very goodbooks for young boys to read.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Okay, and what about things like the book of Merlin
or the King Arthur Tales?
What are your thoughts on?
Speaker 2 (11:21):
So I really like the story of King Arthur in the next
round table, as well as RobinHood yeah, that's good.
I have not read the book ofMerlin, I don't know.
I think when you start gettinginto magical tales, specifically
about wizards, there's acertain amount of caution you
(11:42):
need to have.
But I think that in generalokay, I'm going to talk about
the evangelical Christian worldis very skittish of magic,
because the Bible forbidswitchcraft and we're not
supposed to do that.
But at the same time, jesusdoes miracles that are very
(12:08):
magical in nature.
The prophets are given authorityto perform miracles.
Moses splits the sea clean intwo by raising his hands when
God tells him to.
I mean holding up his armsduring a battle, and as long as
his hands are in the air, theIsraelites are winning.
When his hands start to droopbecause he's weary, they start
(12:29):
to lose.
So it seems very magical.
I think there's also a trend inthe modern world to demystify
the world and explain everythingthrough science and technology,
and so I think magic in talesis really good, because it's
(12:50):
very easy to show the differencebetween good and evil, but it
can also be dangerous.
So I always read those booksbefore I think about giving them
to or recommending them toyounger people.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
So and we're gonna talk about your book in a minute
, and I think this is relevantbecause you are writing about
wizards I have to ask you whatare your thoughts on Tolkien?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
I really love Tolkien , not the movies so much.
I like the book.
He's a little long-winded whenyou're reading on your own, but
the moment you start to read itout loud as a family it is very
different.
It is funny.
Especially the Hobbit is funnyand light humor, you know
(13:44):
lighthearted, like kind of thistypical fairy tale, just kind of
a whole bunch of good frothwith some broth underneath.
But then you get to the Lord ofthe Rings trilogy and that's
the darker.
There's more meat to it.
There's more intellectual foodthere for thought.
(14:08):
But it is really really reallygood.
It doesn't get too dark andmorbid but it isn't too
lighthearted and carefree whenit comes to talking about evil
versus good.
I think it's really goodbalance there.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, and he also.
There's this dichotomy becausethere's sorcery, you know,
there's Saruman and there's allthis stuff that.
I think, easily be classifiedas sorcery or dark magic.
But then there's also you gotGandalf, you got the Good
Wizards performing acts of, sois that something does that
(14:47):
trouble you, or do you thinkthat's a good distinction?
Speaker 2 (14:49):
No, not at all, and that doesn't trouble me at all
because if you think about it,you have.
I believe in the real world wehave Satan and his demons who
are opposing God and his angelicarmy, and so God gives power to
(15:12):
his angels and God giveslimited power to do evil to
Satan and his minions, so thatGod can display the difference
between good and evil in thisworld.
And so he is glorified.
And so I really like howGandalf, when he's facing all
(15:41):
these evil, like, especiallylike the Witch King at Minus
Chirith he faces him and he'slike, not troubled, he's calm,
he's confident, he's on the sideof good, and the side of good
never looks like they're justpowerless and the evil side is
(16:07):
all powerful.
They do look weak but they'reactually really powerful and
it's much more balanced, whereasin some tales it's like I can't
remember any names off the topof my head but it's like evil is
all powerful, it's all knowing,it's evil and it's going to
(16:30):
destroy us if we make just theslightest mistake.
And there is some of thattension in Tolkien.
But I think it's a much betterbalance, much better view of how
the reality is, that good isactually more powerful.
But even though it looks reallyweak.
(16:50):
Right so yeah, that's so.
I'm not troubled by the twoviews of sorcery there in
Tolkien, because he makes cleardistinction between good and
evil.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's talk about your book, so
maybe just give us a briefoutline.
What's the basic storyline?
Who are the characters?
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Okay, so my main character's name is Stout and he
starts out as farm boy kind ofcharacter in a small city, in a
kind of rural part of thisbroader world of Enya, and he
and his friend Sally break therules of their town and they
(17:38):
enter a wood that borders theirtown called the Woods of Doom.
It is forbidden, they're notsupposed to go there, but while
they're there, their city isattacked and destroyed by the
forces of the Dark Eternals,these beings that can change
between man and dragon form.
(17:58):
So, and while they're in thewoods and their villages, their
town, is being destroyed, theymeet one of the Dark Eternals
disguised as a man, who pretendsto be concerned about them and
like oh, can you take me to yourtown, I'll help you get there.
And because they're lost.
(18:20):
And a another man, who'sglowing white, comes and stands
between the children and theDark Eternal, and the Dark
Eternal changes into his dragonform and then leaves.
And this old man, who's thisglowing white figure, tells them
(18:43):
your village, your town hasbeen destroyed, and like, shows
them the town from the edge ofthe woods and then he takes them
to the Hall of Eternal Lightwhere they will be paired for,
because they are now orphans.
And so, while Stout is at theHall of Eternal Light, he
(19:06):
receives a vision from thisbeing, the who's called the
light, and in his vision he seesa wizard who is grafting man
and beasts together into theseconglomerates to build his
armies.
(19:26):
He's dissecting children, he'sdoing all sorts of evil, black
magic stuff and he is told youneed to go stop this guy.
So this young guy he's a kid,he doesn't know anything about
battle and he's supposed to godestroy a wizard.
(19:47):
So he gets training from theKnights of Eternal Light.
It's sent out on the mission,comes face to face with the
wizard, rescue Sally, who duringthe story gets kidnapped, and
then at the end of it, he'saround.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I don't want to give everything away, so you know, no
need spoilers.
If there's, I think that givesus the yeah, I don't want people
to not go read the book becauseyou know yes there's a lot I'd
left out there.
Yeah, I'm sure.
So that's really interestingthe whole, because you mentioned
earlier in your show in yournotes that you do talk about
(20:26):
transhumanism and you know whichis obviously it's been a huge
theme in fantasy and sciencefiction even since before it
became, you know, a theme in ourlives.
Why did you do that?
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Well, because I was thinking about some things I'd
seen in the science world,things like artificial wombs and
artificial embryos tosupposedly grow mice.
Some people have said that theycan get the fake mouse embryo
(21:09):
that they grew in the lab.
They made an fake embryo in alab, put it in a fake womb and
got to the point where they gota heartbeat.
They say I don't know how truethat is, it came from a what
seems to be a pretty reputablesource, but that kind of scares
(21:31):
me, because what's the next stepbeyond mice?
What's the next step beyond,say, a cat or a dog?
Do we know that people havebeen discussing for years,
especially in the military world, about super soldiers?
Right, you know, you want menwho don't feel pain, men who can
take, get shot a thousand timesand keep fighting, right?
(21:53):
And so what's the next step?
I think probably what they'reaiming at is developing a
human-like being who does notfeel pain, does not die, does
not get sick.
And that is that terrifies me,because I don't think that's
(22:18):
where we should go, because Godmade man the way he did, and
when he made man originally hesaid it is good, he made man
good.
And then we broke God's commandsand we took from the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil.
We ate and we became aware ofgood and evil and that we had
(22:42):
chosen evil.
And God cursed mankind withsickness, pain in our toil or in
our work, and multiplied painin childbearing, for women said
that men would earn their breadby the sweat of their brow.
(23:04):
And so I think that we need toaccept that, that punishment,
and but look to Christ, whoprovided a way for us to have
eternal life.
You know, christ came as theSon of God, as God himself died
(23:25):
for us and made a way for us tohave eternal life through him,
and so we can have eternal life.
But what transhumanists want todo is they want to have eternal
life apart from Christ.
So they want to find a way tocure all of mankind's diseases,
make man immortal, get rid ofpain, so that because they know
(23:51):
that that's what's wrong withthe world, but they want to do
it apart from God, they want todo it apart from Christ, and
that's hubris, that's prideful,that's wrong it sounds like
their concern is with ourphysical existence, and that's
it.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
You know they've left out the whole spiritual side,
and that's not yet.
I don't think that's what Jesuswas talking about.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
No, Now Jesus does say that when he returns he will
resurrect us and give us newbodies.
So we will have what we have now, but perfect, perfected, and so
I don't know exactly what thatlooks like, but I'm pretty
certain that we'll have aphysical body and we'll be much
(24:38):
more like Adam and Eve were inthe garden before the fall, but
we won't have to worry about sinanymore, because God will have
separated us completely from sin, separated us from the ability
to sin, and so that will be, Ithink, a great relief and
(25:01):
glorious.
But so I think that this, this,this trend in transhumanism, is
very, very dangerous.
And so in my book I make theevil wizard Calculo do these
kind of transhumanisticsurgeries to like augment men
into super warriors through theuse of magic and some kind of
(25:29):
science, like terminology andsome of the things that are
actually going on, like themurder of infants in the womb,
to then use their tissue forscience, to then perfect man or
change man or all these otherthings that they're doing with
(25:52):
those fetal cell tissues, andthat's like that's evil, that's
witchcraft, that's ungodly.
So I have to reject that, andthat is a large part of has is a
large part of what this scienceand transhumanist community are
doing.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yeah, again, I don't want to go too far down this,
but this is just a reallyinteresting angle here, given
that we're not we haven'treached the point yet where
we're without sin.
In the meantime, what can ourrelationship with technology be?
It seems like, if you go backto the Adam and Eve story, we
(26:39):
just we blew it.
Basically, even engaging intechnological progress or
pursuits goes against God.
Is that right?
I don't hope so, okay.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I don't think so, because God told us to take
dominion over the world Right,and so I think it really has to
do with why you want to takedominion over this, this thing
that you want to take dominionover.
So, like in the medical field,we want to take dominion over
(27:17):
sickness and pain, and I thinkthat's fine, as long as we don't
try to become immortal, becomegods, become permanently
separate from pain.
I think controlling pain isfine with drugs.
I think maybe we could findsafer drugs, but I think
controlling pain through withdrugs is fine.
(27:38):
I think helping a person who isparalyzed from the waist down
to walk again through surgery,that's fine.
I don't really want their brainconnected to a computer, because
I think that's that goes alittle bit too far, unless we
find some sort of ways to do itwhere there's no possibility of
(28:02):
them being hacked, which, so faras I understand it, that's not
a possibility, because I so Ithink that taking dominion over
the world, over pain, creatingsystems of communications like
what we're using now with zoom,of doing a video call we're
(28:23):
thousands of miles apart andwe're talking as if we were
almost in the same room, and soI don't think that's wrong.
I think that's where my Amishfriends make the mistake,
because they view technologicaladvancement as worldly and
(28:46):
leading to sin and evil.
And while I understand theirsentiments and I can in some
ways agree with them, I can'tagree fully, because I think we
are supposed to take dominion ofthe world.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Interesting.
We talk about the necessity forgood role models for boys.
I know you're also veryconcerned with fatherlessness
and I'm just wondering if youcan talk a little bit about how
does your story, how does thishelp to address that?
Speaker 2 (29:21):
So I think little boys need to hear that being
masculine is good, it can begood.
They just need to control theirmasculine drive, their
masculine tendencies, and directit towards productive and good
goals.
So, like my characters, my malecharacters are all very
(29:46):
masculine.
My female characters are allvery feminine and I don't try to
make one do the others role, bethe other, and so I want them
to hear that this is good, thisis fine, this is how the world
(30:09):
works.
And being told that you need tosit still like a little girl,
you need to be calm, you need tobe quiet, you can't run and
shout and jump off the couch.
I think that's a mistake forboys, because they need to learn
(30:30):
how to move their body, theyneed to learn how to be active.
And then the modern tendency inschools to put them on drugs to
sedate them so that they learnbetter I think that's horrid.
I think that little boys shouldmaybe have maybe more time
learning outside, playinghopscotch and doing math that
(30:52):
way, than being forced to sitstill in a class like they're
20-year-olds in college.
I think that's unreasonable.
So this book it's supposed toteach them that masculinity is
fine, having goals and wantingto achieve them is good, being
(31:14):
brave is good, not being alittle girl is good.
So that's some of the thingsI'm trying to address.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
And what kind of response have you gotten?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Very positive and very negative.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Oh really.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
So there have been people who have.
For the most part it's beenreally positive.
People are like yes, that'sgreat, encourage little boys to
be little boys, encourage themto grow up into young men who
can then be good fathers andproductive members of society.
Because I think people dorealize that stories form a
(31:57):
child's view of the world andstories give them a reserve to
fall back on.
Mentally.
They're supported by thisarchitecture of stories behind
them.
This is how the world works andthen they can look at what's
going on around them in theirlife and be like ah, this story
(32:19):
reminds me of that story, whichmeans I need to behave like
Frodo, I need to behave like Samand just persevere, or I need
to behave like E Hood and killthis guy who is oppressing the
people of God and is destroyingus.
He's an enemy.
(32:39):
I don't encourage little boys tobe unnecessarily violent either
.
That's the other side.
But I want to give them thisarchitecture and we have it a
lot in the great classics.
But little boys can't read theclassics very well to begin with
(33:01):
.
They need something.
They need baby stepbooks tokind of get them going.
And I think we've gotten to thepoint in society where lots of
boys think about TV or comicbooks, instead of an actual book
, as being fun and entertaining,because they're forced to read
these classics in school insteadof being allowed to discover
(33:22):
them.
I think that takes some of themagic out of them, yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Yeah, so what's the negative feedback that you've
gotten?
Speaker 2 (33:33):
I was particularly one lady who was upset that I
wouldn't write a female Jesuscharacter, that I would think
that that would be a problem,because if you look at stories,
there's characters like Gandalfis a very Moses-like character,
(33:54):
frodo and Sam are likepersevering saints, kind of like
the apostles I don't want toget weird with that, but just
kind of like people andcharacters and stories are
archetypes, they'repersonalities, and a Jesus
character, in my opinion, is apowerful figure who comes and
(34:21):
lays down his life for weakercharacters so that they can win,
and I think it's wrong for usto expect women to die for men.
I think that's one of theproblems with the US military
encouraging women to serve inmilitaristic combat roles.
(34:47):
I don't think that is for women.
Now, I also don't believe thatwomen should never defend
themselves Absolutely.
Women should defend themselves.
They should learn how to beviolent when they need to be.
I don't want them becomingsoldiers, though, and so I think
making a character that issacrificial and powerful in the
(35:12):
feminine form can be right, butI don't want her dying for men
Maybe for some children, maybefor other women, but not for men
, because I think that istwisted to think that women
should expect that of women, menshould expect that of women, or
boys should expect that ofwomen.
(35:33):
Because that's your job, jimmy.
I mean, if there's a snake inthe room, you're supposed to go
crush his head.
If there's a spider on the wall, go grab an alchemy and throw
him outside or crush him.
That's your job.
And it starts there.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah, I also just find that's some of the negative
stuff.
Yeah, I find it annoying whenpeople offer up criticism based
on what they would want said asopposed to you know, this is
your book and you should be.
You know you're putting outyour message and to me it's not
really a valid critique to say,well, you didn't get my message
(36:14):
out there.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
She wasn't actually saying that I hadn't put that in
the book and that she was upsetabout that.
She was upset that I would.
When she suggested, oh, youcould write a story about a
female Jesus character, I'm likeno, no, no, that's wrong.
And she was upset by the ideaof me putting women in strong
(36:36):
female roles without thembecoming masculine.
Because she's a feminist whowants women to.
You know, she's talking aboutequality, but she's talking
about equality and sameness inroles.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Right, it's so interesting to me how that's
kind of what feminism has become.
It's, in a way, it's arepudiation of women and it's or
of, I guess, of femininity.
It's, you know, and at least inthis point in our lives I feel
like it's more, it's more aboutelevating masculine values for
(37:20):
everyone and that it's sort of,to me, I see it as a very sort
of masculine movement, which Ijust think that there's an irony
there, you know they'rebecoming.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
They're trying to become the thing they hate.
They claim to hate most, whichis odd.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
How have you?
I mean, I see how thepublishing industry is and there
was an article recently about,I think, quoting someone in a
big publishing house saying thatit's near impossible to get
fiction published if you're awhite male, and I don't know how
(38:02):
true that is, but that was sortof the headline.
But I you know, you see, howmuch political correctness there
is in publishing, and so I'mjust wondering how you
self-published?
Is that right?
How do you get it out?
How do you get the word out?
How do you get people to readyour book?
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Well, this is where I really like Amazon.
Well, I have some disagreementswith Amazon.
I like the fact that they makeit very easy for anyone to
publish.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Well you do.
If you go to self-publishingroute, you have to overcome some
of the stigma againstself-published books that their
junkie editing process wasn'tdone properly, that the coverage
bad, that they're boundimproperly.
But if you do your job as theauthor, Amazon gives you a good
(38:59):
product.
I like the copies I've gotten.
They look great.
Other people have beensatisfied with them and in the
more traditional publishingworld I pitched my book to a
couple of people and I got zeroresponses.
I didn't try super hard becauseI realized I was researching it
(39:20):
and I was like, okay, I setmyself this deadline for getting
published.
It's creeping up on me.
I'm not getting any responsesfrom any publishing houses, from
people that I thought were alittle more conservative, would
maybe be more open to mepublishing with them.
So I said, okay, I'm publishingon Amazon, I'm just going to
(39:45):
see how it goes.
I can always take my book down,do a second edition and publish
with the publishing house lateron down the road if I choose to
do that.
So I definitely want theself-published route instead of
the traditional publishing route, and so I can't really speak to
the traditional publishingworld.
(40:06):
But the self-published world isamazing.
It's great as long as you doyour job, find a good artist to
do your cover and you do thehard work of modding it yourself
.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
And how have your sales been?
Speaker 2 (40:23):
Not great, but I'm just getting started.
It was published in July of2023.
So it's not that old.
But I am doing podcast episodes.
I was able to get on a radioshow and I'm doing some writing
(40:47):
on the side substat.
I have my own website so I canpublish some other stuff on the
side to catch people's attention.
They're like, oh, what else isthis guy written?
And then direct them to myAmazon sales page.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
What about Christian booksellers?
Have you sent it to anyChristian bookstores or websites
?
Speaker 2 (41:13):
That I've had.
The Christian publishing worldis also interesting.
They tend to publish books thatare really touchy-feely, books
that are kind of much more alongthe lines of what the world
wants to see instead of what thechurch really needs.
As I've said, evangelicals arereally skittish of magic, and my
(41:41):
book is very openly a fantasyadventure novel with magic in it
and I've had a couple of peoplewho are like, well, I really
enjoyed it, but I'm not givingit to my kids quite yet.
And one of them was my aunt,who I really love.
(42:05):
She read it.
She's like I would like yourbook, but I couldn't go to sleep
after I read it Because she'slike it has some really dark
themes and I'm like, yes, ifyou're old enough to understand
what those dark themes arepointing to, if you're a young
child, you're going to read itjust like OK, this guy's a bad
(42:25):
guy.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Right, it's very different reading those things
as a young person.
It is very different.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
A lot of it just goes over your head.
Speaker 1 (42:33):
A lot of the meaning of what's going on in the world.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Right, they don't make those connections one
because they're probably notseeing the news, they're
probably not paying attention towhat's going on in the broader
world.
They read this.
They're like, oh, he's a badguy, this is an adventure novel.
This is a good guy.
Oh, the good guy beats the badguy, right, yeah yeah.
The parents reading it are like, oh my gosh, this is hit.
(42:57):
This is terrible, right, thisguy is killing children and he's
using them on his expense.
They're like this is the realworld.
I don't want my kids to knowabout this yet.
And you're like, well, they'renot going to get it, but OK, if
you don't want them to read ituntil they're 18, 19, fine,
(43:18):
that's not my choice, that'stheir choice, it's their kids.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
But yeah, that's interesting.
I would have thought that therewould be a place in the
Christian bookselling world.
I would think they would behungry for something like this.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
Some evangelicals won't let their kids read the
Nairniah Chronicles Because ofthe magic.
Because of the magic Right.
Aslan does magic, yeah, butyou're like, wow, yeah, so
that's.
(43:54):
That's how sensitive someevangelicals are to magic, and
my book goes in terms ofdiscussing magic.
It goes a step beyond howopenly that CS Lewis talks about
it on the good side, on theside of good, but I wouldn't
(44:14):
claim to be on par with hiswriting style yet.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
But no but he's.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
He's an amazing author and he writes some really
amazing books.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
I mean, he's one of the most well-known Christian
authors ever.
You know, I know.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
And some there I have met some people who they only
heard about the Chronicle series, or they only heard the
Nairniah Chronicles series, theyonly heard about screw tape
letters.
And so they're like is he evena Christian?
I've had people ask me is thisguy even a Christian?
(44:51):
Like yes, you need to read someof his other works.
Some of his more theologicalworks and also another book that
really scares you in Jocles offby CS Lewis would actually a
trilogy is the space trilogy.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Yeah, yeah.
I've just started reading thatmyself.
I haven't.
I never finished it as ateenager.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
I can get ready for that hideous strength.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
Yeah, I can, I can see that one's dark.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, it's interesting, though,to me.
I also I write children'sfiction too and I'm just really
interested in the question of,you know, those of us who don't
fit into the mainstreamnarratives, where is our place
in the in as far as justmarketing it, as far as getting
(45:37):
it out to the world and I wouldhave thought you know that,
christian booksellers but you'resaying not, not necessarily.
So that's a big question.
You know where, if you're notgoing along with sort of the
mainstream PC woke World view,where do you fit?
Speaker 2 (46:00):
So I have had more success with Manusphere.
Manusphere kind of podcasts, solike the movement of men who
are rejecting feminism and someguys are really extreme.
Some are much more Christianmen traditional roles,
(46:22):
homeschooling If it talks.
When it comes to my book, ifthey talk about masculinity,
godly masculinity, traditionalfamily values and homeschooling,
they usually like my book.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Usually.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
Now, sometimes, as an author, we want to pitch the
wrong thing to the wrong person,and that that, really, that
really plays a role.
When it comes to marketing,I've had a lot of help from a
friend of my father's who isbasically tutoring me in how to
(47:02):
market a book.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Alan Stevo has been very helpful.
You can go check him out.
You can check his books out.
He does not do marketingclasses for everyone, so I feel
very blessed that he would helpme.
I also have done some otherbusiness classes in the past.
My father, when I was stilldoing homeschooling, was
(47:30):
encouraging me to study business, learn how to start my own
business so that I can one dayprovide for my own family, and
so that has also been veryhelpful in teaching me how to
pitch, because I think manyauthors they're really good at
writing they're not great atsales.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Very different.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yeah.
Yeah, it's very different.
I much prefer writing, butsales is also good and if you
study it a little bit you'll doa fine job.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
Any advice for young writers or just writers again
outside of the mainstream, anyadvice for the writing process,
for getting it out there?
Speaker 2 (48:19):
So I think one thing that you need to forget about is
pleasing people.
You need to not worry aboutpleasing liberals or other
people who are already opposedto you just because of your
beliefs.
Whether you choose thoseenemies or not, you need to not
(48:40):
worry about them.
You need to worry about writingthe book that you think the
world needs.
You need to worry about writing.
If you're writing stories, justwrite the story you want to
write.
Write the role models you wantto write.
Don't worry about other peopleand don't try to be perfect,
(49:05):
because your first novel is notgoing to turn out perfect, and
perfection is one of thosethings that kills writing, kills
publication, because I know aguy he's been writing the book
for the last 10 years.
He has a lot of good materialhe keeps going back for oh, this
(49:27):
new study came out.
I need to include that in thebook.
And if you're writing a bigdoctoral tome on how to be
healthy, that's great, but youcan do a second edition.
Or you can write a second bookthat focuses on weightlifting or
(49:55):
on exercise or on eatinghealthy, but instead he's trying
to combine everything into onebook and every time a new study
comes out that supports hisargument.
He has to go research it anddecide where he's going to put
it in the book.
And he still hasn't given it toanybody for approfrating, not
(50:20):
even beta readers beforeapprofator.
He's the only one who's seen itand it's really sad because
what this guy has to say isvaluable.
I respect the guy, but he'sbeen working on it for 10 years
and I'm not certain where he'sat now.
Speaker 1 (50:41):
But yeah, at some point you got to just get it out
there and Exactly my book.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
I was like, oh, I could fix this, I could tweak
this a little bit to make thestory plot better or make the
character arc better.
And if I keep doing this though, I'm never going to publish, so
I wrote it in the summer, spentsix months editing it and
published it.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Nice.
Is it a perfect?
No, it's not perfect.
Anybody who reads it in his redgray classics is going to say
this is okay.
I can see where there could besome improvement.
I could see how maybe, as hematures, he's going to become a
better author, but it's not aperfect book, and I think the
(51:35):
only truly perfect book outthere is the Bible, and I'm not
God, so I'm not going to readanother perfect book.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
Is this part of a series, though?
Are we going to see book two?
Speaker 2 (51:47):
Yes.
So book two I am working on it.
It's kind of in some ways it'sa little bit more similar to the
Chronicles of Narnia and whereit's spaced out between years,
except there's in the secondbook there's not going to be any
(52:08):
traveling between the world oranything.
There's not in the first book.
Third book, there's apossibility.
So if you like people travelingfrom other worlds stories, you
might enjoy this one.
It's a little bit morecomplicated, right.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
But it might go far.
Will it be the same charactersor?
Speaker 2 (52:28):
Nope, different characters because it's a
different time period in thesame world, although there are
some overlapping characters whoare going to reappear, yeah,
okay.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
Well, this has been fascinating.
I will link to your book, ofcourse, and anything else that
you'd like linked to.
It is on getting it out there,and I hope that this can help
get into more people's hands.
Speaker 2 (52:58):
Well, thank you, I really appreciate it.
For anyone who wants to findout more about me, I have a
sub-stack that's Samuel'ssub-stack.
I also have a webpage,samuelbornmancom.
You can go there and receive afree short story.
(53:21):
You can read that.
You can sign up to newsletterto find out about more free
short stories when the next bookis coming out and I look
forward to having more peoplereading my books, so don't
hesitate to visit my webpage.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (53:52):
You've been listening to.
What, Then Must we Do?
The podcast.
For those who understand thatthe state is the problem and are
seeking solutions For moreepisodes, go to
bretanysubstackcom that'sbretignesubstackcom and
subscribe.
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