Strangers and Aliens: Science Fiction & Fantasy from a Christian Perspective

Inspired by re-reading the book and watching the new movie on Netflix, Ben, Stephen, and Evan take to the microphones to appreciate the spiritual themes and fantastical ideas of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. From time travel to redeemed lives, from movies to radio to books, from creepy animation to creepy puppets, from ill-advised […]

Two options for this episode: You can listen to the audio above OR watch the video below! Ben takes a look at a book that has been in his library for over forty years: Frank Allnutt’s THE FORCE OF STAR WARS. This book is special to him for a number of reasons. One of them […]

Evan’s new comic book BLACK BLOSSOM is now part of a KickStarter campaign to collect and publish the first 6 issues (plus an annual) into a graphic novel. Ben interviews Evan about the superhero sci-fi tale. The links mentioned in the episode: KICKSTARTER: inked.pub/blackblossomPATREON: patreon.com/evandavidcomicsINSTRAGRAM: instagram.com/blackblossomcomic And here is his interview with Luke, who...

Ben is joined by John Harju for the first part of a multi-part series rewatching some superhero movies that came in the wake of 1989’s Batman! We are starting with DICK TRACY, which entered production before Batman hit theaters, but it was still influenced by the superhero juggernaut that BATMAN turned out to be, from […]

Ben and Evan went to see BLACK ADAM! This episode opens with a spoiler-free discussion of the movie and then, after the spoiler warning, they talk about spoiler-y things. Things like:The big thing everyone is talking aboutHow Ben liked almost all the superheroes who are not The Rock more than he liked the “hero” who […]

Ben and John Harju team up again for an October spooky movie! The movie: SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES! Along the way they talk about:Ben’s love for Ray BradburyJohn’s dislike for Ray BradburyBoth of their like for this movieArt and messagingGood and evilTwo Stephen King books they were reminded ofThe exile of the Israelites to […]

Television is dead . . . long live television! But long live it on our smart TVs! And devices! And computers! Add to that we have had a long string of high profile (and low profile, really) science fiction and fantasy television series, with short seasons, continuing stories, and big budgets. In this episode, Ben […]

Ben and Steve review PREY, which is not about prayer but they joke about it anyway. This episode features:* Thoughts about PREY* Thoughts about PREDATOR* Thoughts about the franchise* Thoughts about Walt Simonson’s run on the THOR comic Our Youtube channel can be found here: http://youtube.com/strangersandaliens – subscribe to see if Ben ever posts the […]

Ben finally did it! He found an OLD (if not quite as old as the Space Trilogy) Christian sci-fi book, NO MAN IN EDEN. NO MAN IN EDEN is not a Christian romance or a commentary on Genesis 1-3, it’s a sci-fi book in the tradition of C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy featuring UFOs, unfallen worlds, […]

What do Frank Herbert, Dune, the Fear Litany, Jesus calming the storm, Ben’s all time favorite verse, and 80s Christian pop music icon Carmen all have in common? They are all used by Ben to point to where our focus should be in the midst of tough situations. We hope you are encouraged by this! […]

Buy THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH here via Amazon: amzn.to/3YtMYxg (As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.) Steve and Ben return to Earth with Ransom and a large cast of characters in the third book in C.S. Lewis’ celebrated “Space Trilogy,” THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH. Published in 1945, THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH continues the story of Ransom, […]

Jordan Peele has two highly successful suspense/horror movies under his belt, and NOPE hit the public conscience with a vague trailer that revealed next to nothing. A second trailer revealed something that looked like a modern spin on Close Encounters . . . and while it’s potentially true that it is a modern spin on […]

Evan, Steve, and Ben are together again! For this episode, we take a look at some of the movies and TV series we’ve been watching in 2022! Using Evan’s LETTERBOXD account (he’s found here: https://letterboxd.com/moviemanev/– you should follow him) we take a look back at some movies and then some streaming series. You will gasp […]

There are a lot of opinions about the latest Marvel movie, DOCTOR STRANGE AND THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS. Most of them are valid and understandable, whether extremely positive or extremely negative. Case in point: Ben really liked the movie, and Evan really did not. That’s NOT the reason Evan is not in this episode. Ben […]

This is the weekend we celebrate Easter, and in this episode we release an episode that is meant to encourage us to take the time to reflect on Easter, Good Friday, and the Last Supper. Ben is joined by his family in a series of readings and writings about some aspects of the Holy Week. […]

MORBIUS has arrived! Finally! Ben goes solo on a spoiler-free review . . . Sort of a preview of his thoughts on the movie, Evan and Steve told Ben they couldn’t get to this movie, and Ben told them that it was ok. There wasn’t the same kind of urgency one finds with a typical […]

What happens when . . . Ben, Steve, and Evan have a hard time getting together to record? Ben’s been rewatching Lord of the Rings? Ben’s been studying Simon of Cyrene? Ben wants to get some episodes out? Ben has a huge editing job with his and Evan’s THE BATMAN review and he’s been putting […]

The moon is falling . . . and they made a movie. Was it worth seeing? Was it worth making? Ben, Evan, and John Harju went to see this disaster flick. They were all surprised. John was surprised it wasn’t a comedy…Evan was surprised that he loved it so much…Ben was surprised that it wasn’t […]

In the early 2000s, Marvel tried an experiment – restart the stories of fan favorite characters in a new universe. A universe that does not have all the baggage of decades and decades of thousands of issues. A universe that is accessible to new readers and attractive to young readers. It hit Evan at the […]

2021 was an interesting year for pop culture. We take a look at the movies we saw and some of the other pop culture items (TV and books) we took in during the past year. We used Letterboxd as a partial guide for this, taking Evan’s movie diary list for our outline for most of […]

We moved to a new server, which resulted in the loss of this post . . . we apologize for any inconvenience. DUNE hit screens big and small, and it made a huge impact on us! Ben and Steve discuss the movie, and its story, music, history, and style.

Ben and Evan take a road trip to see the latest MCU movie, ETERNALS!!! It’s a movie that tries hard to go big, but does it succeed? PART ONE: The Trip There – talking about expectations and other random thingsPART TWO: The Parking Lot – spoiler free review of the filmPART THREE: The Trip Back […]

To celebrate 10 years of the Strangers and Aliens podcast, we’re reposting our first episode! In this episode, Dr. Jayce, Steve, and Ben talk about the question: “Why Sci-Fi?” This is the episode that started it all. Well, started it all in this corner of the woods, anyway. This is the first time Ben ends […]

The CUBE franchise consists of three movies from the 90s and early 2000s. Each of these movies features strangers . . . moving through a strange setting consisting of rooms that are CUBES . . . and some of those room will KILL YOU!!! Who lives? Who dies? Does it even matter? This franchise hits […]

Steve and Ben explore Venus via the second book in C.S. Lewis’ celebrated “Space Trilogy,” Perelandra. Published in 1943, Perelandra is the story of a man, Ransom, who is transported to Venus and thrust into a battle he feels ill-equipped to handle. In the process, he becomes part of a cosmic war far bigger than […]