Narnia Church Sculptures at St. Mary’s

We all know who this lion is, right?

This is a bit of old news, but in 2020 fifteen sculptures were created and then consecrated to decorate the interior of St. Mary’s Church in Beverley, Yorkshire in England. Before being hoisted into the clerestory, they were displayed at ground level so churchgoers could see them up close. Visit the church’s site for more pictures.

The church makes clear that not any church can create Narnia images, despite their association with Christianity. They had to get permission from The CS Lewis Company Ltd. first.

Worldbuilding Wednesday 6/11/25: What’s New in Narniaworld for 2025 (Narnia LVII)

The new Queen Charlotte hotel in Narniaworld is based on Victorian seaside resorts like this one.

It’s been a whole year since Narniaworld, the theme park and resort based on C. S. Lewis’ famous book series, was introduced to the public on this blog. Let’s see what new features and activities are planned for this summer.

Previous Narniaworld posts are here.

Narniaworld, Part 1 (Food)

Narniaworld, Part 2 (Rides)

Narniaworld, Part 3 (Shows and events)

Narniaworld, Part 4 (Shopping)

Narniaworld, Part 5 (Guest Services)

Narniaworld Extra Credit (AI generations of the park)

First of all, The Great Souk of Tashbaan is finally open. Located on the south side of park, the Souk offers all the delights of an open-air Middle Eastern marketplace, including stalls selling leather goods, jewelry, incense, and imported textiles. Stop for shish kebab or shawarma, or, if you’re not so hungry, pita bread with a hummus dip makes a quick snack. Be sure to buy a box of authentic Turkish Delight or baklava to take home!

Also new this year is The Tisroc’s Baths, located to the left as you enter the Great Souk. Rent a locker and towel to enjoy relaxing in the beautiful tiled pools lined with tropical plants. For an extra charge, you can have a massage or other spa treatment. (Note: Adults only, and swimsuits are mandatory.)

Across from the Baths is Lasaraleen’s Treasures and Trinkets, which has moved here from its former location in Archenland. The new store is larger and now includes women’s fashions and shoes. A little further down is another new shop, The Seven Isles Mercantile Co., which sells goods from all over the world. Linger here to take it in its ship-based maritime decor. Linger longer to watch the wandering street magicians and storytellers — or even visit Shasta and Aravis as they trade quips with (the animatronic heads of) Bree and Hwin in the Royal Stable.

Other news:

We are sorry to say that Queen Swanwhite’s Paddle Boats will not be returning this season after a January storm destroyed its pier and many of the boats. The area will be re-developed for other use.

A new hotel, the Queen Charlotte,  has opened. Based on a Victorian seaside resort that Digory and Polly night have vacationed at, the Queen Charlotte is for park guests seeking a more upscale holiday stay. Stroll the half-mile boardwalk or sunbath on the man-made sandy beach. In the lobby you can find an authentic Penny Arcade complete with replicas of turn-of-the-century amusement machines and candy for sale — each piece for a penny! Note that the few undamaged swan boats now serve as decorations. Also in the lobby is Traps and Toasted Cheese, a small shop selling gourmet cheeses of all kinds — the name is from a line Reepicheep utters in Prince Caspian.

If you can’t attend Tea with Tumnus in the main park, The Queen Charlotte also offers one in its sumptuous Tea Room, which resembles a Victorian conservatory with a glass dome and exotic plants. This room is also available for private events like weddings.

The Queen Charlotte is located on the bay a short distance from the park. Guests can either walk or take a shuttle to the main park’s gates.

Every weekend night in the summer, weather permitting, Dr. Cornelius gives talks on astronomy from the wooded clearing that holds his small observatory. Topics are summer constellations, comets, planets, and anything current happening in the skies. Attendance is free, but limited; guests must sign up for the night they want. Flashlights and lanterns are provided to navigate the woods.

Summer of Narnia 2025

The time comes once again for the Cobalt Jade Summer of Narnia. Essays, pictures, Narnia ephemera, and much more!

( The picture above seems to be depict Lucy succumbing to her moment of temptation in The Voyage of The Dawn Treader to follow the Sea Girl shepherdess down into the briny deep. Except it’s hard to tell the gender of the being. On closer examination, it looks more male than female, so it may not be Narnia-related at all. But it’s still a lovely image.  )

I Sing the Body Electric, featuring Mick Ronson.

This Corgi paperback has the distinction of being voted as one of the worst SF covers ever. Not only does the artwork have nothing to do with book (an anthology of short stories by Ray Bradbury and one of my favorites way back when — I saved my hard-earned allowance money to buy it) it is so. Damn. Weird. A bodybuilding centaur with clones of himself attached at the end of his arms in lieu of hands? That is nightmare territory.

Not only that, but the artist seems to have modeled the creature’s face on a rock star popular at the time…

That’s Mick Ronson on the left, David Bowie’s guitarist and musical collaborator in his Ziggy Stardust days, and later a minor star in his own right. Further proving the close connections between SF and rock n’ roll. Hey, I thought centaur-man looked familiar!

 

Worldbuilding Wednesday 6/4/25: Unusual Magic Books, Part 2

A few more for the adventurers’ library.

 

More Unusual Magic Books

Arven’s Guide to Quick Calculation: Written for merchants, bankers, traders, and anyone else working with cash. Reading this magic book once will allow the character to forever eschew the use of an abacus or other calculating instrument, for they can now do simple math in their head with 95% accuracy.

The Book of Fowl and Fish: Contains dozens of spells relating to both birds and piscine creatures. The spells are of all levels; some are useless, others very powerful. The cover is made of hammered silver inlaid with a beautiful peacock and a goldfish in a yin-yang design. The owner of this precious book gains both flying and swimming abilities.

The Book of Light: This large, ornate clerical tome has one purpose only. As soon as the clasps are unfastened and the cover opened, pure white light floods the area, driving out evil creatures, withering undead, and restoring adventurers’ shattered bodies and psyches.

The Brown Almanac: Published once a year for those in the gladiatorial entertainment industry, it contains fighting tips and techniques. Any issue is prized by fighters of this class. Reading just one issue grants them a 10% greater chance of victory for the next month. Gladiatorial schools will have issues dating back decades.

Hesti’s Catalog of Singular Flutes:  Contains a list of unique magic flutes with a picture and a detailed description of each. Of interest to mage-historians mostly, but any magic users reading it can gain enough knowledge to craft their own simple magic flute.

A Magus’s Guide to Eliminating Debt:  On first glance this looks like a self-help book about personal finances, but it also contains spells expressedly designed for saving money. Any magic user haunted by creditors who reads this will see their personal fortune double or even triple over the next six months. The book can only be used once per character.

Manuel of Torment: Anyone who reads this book will experience all the physical pain of being tortured without being damaged physically. Moreover, they are cursed to keep reading it until all chapters are finished while in such distress. The good thing is, they are 90% less likely to buckle under torture in some future situation.

Notebook of Protection: This looks like a small, plain ledger bound in buckskin filled with blank, unlined pages. The magic is the owner is granted protection against whatever they write on one of those pages, limited to no more than three words: e.g. “all breath weapons” “vampires, ghosts, lichs” “lawful good beings.” This makes it a powerful item indeed. Only one page can be written on at a time, and that protection lasts for 24 hours; after that, the page rips itself out and vanishes. Most of the time these books are found with a limited number of pages. A new book usually has 20. Anyone can use this item, not just mages.

Scarlet’s Handbook of Minstrelry: For bards, minstrels, and troubadours of all kinds. It tells performers how to analyze their audience, how to improve their singing technique (with vocal exercises), and suggests songs for different races and locales. In addition it includes costuming and performing tips. At the end are several low level spells suitable for bards with magical talent. Any minstrel reading the book through is likely to be 25% more successful in their profession over the next six months. The book only works once per character.

The Tome of Greaves and Gauntlets: For blacksmiths and armorers. Contains instructions and tips for making arm and leg protection, including basic magic armor (+1, protection from fire, etc.) The crafter must study it for three weeks and also list the help of a mage for the magical types.

Passing Obsessions 5-25

Deli Don, art by Barbara Matthews

Fluffy Summer supplement insert for The Chicago Times contains a list of books generated by ChatGPT, and only two of them are real! Among them, Taylor Jenkins Reid’s (writer of Daisy Jones and the Six) fake novel The Collector’s Piece, about “a reclusive art collector and the journalist determined to uncover the truth behind his most controversial acquisition.” Sounds like something I’d like to read…

Daybreak Star Radio, run out of Seattle,Washington, all indigenous music, all the time!

What is Hiraeth? (I was going to post this link for Tolkien March but forgot. Hey, it also works for Narnia Summer.)

Creative portraits of Donald Trump, curated by Michael Moore.

 

A Court of Tiddies and Ass

So I was reading A Court of Tiddies and Ass, and I absolutely hated every dreadful second of it. Should I read the follow-up, A Court of Dongs and Thongs? To be clear, I just hated the first book on every level; the characters, the story, the prose, even the font on the cover of the book made me shit blood in rage. I personally egged the author’s home because I hated her book so much, it cost me like 200$ but I was too passionate about it. Please convince me to keep reading it even though it’s very obvious I just don’t like it at all. I’m miserable but I can’t handle the FOMO of not reading a popular series. Thanks!!!

Not mine though I wish it was. Found on Reddit in the romantasycirclejerk board. If you don’t get it, the writer is making fun of the typical “Does this book get any better?” posting found on fantasyromance.

Worldbuilding Wednesday 5/28/2025: Let’s Talk About Batman Villains (Harley Quinn)

Punchline, the latest of the Joker’s “girlfriends”

The more I got into last week’s Worldbuilding Wednesday post the more I realized how convoluted the history of Harley Quinn really is. For one thing, she wasn’t the Joker’s first female sidekick. That honor belongs to Duela Dent, who originated in 1976. She claimed to be the Joker’s daughter and wanted to join the Teen Titans to make amends.  The would-be crime fighter, however, also turned out to be a pathological liar, claiming at times to be the offspring of ALL the major Batman villains with different names and identities to match. Finally Robin  sussed out the truth and discovered her true heritage: she was Two-Face’s daughter. Which makes sense, given her first name (Dual-a, get it?) and problems of identity.

Despite this, she kept a spiritual connection to The Joker. On finally joining the Titans she became known as the jovial but deadly Harlequin, a test run for the future Harley Quinn. She went through many other changes over the years, from criminal to do-gooder, sane to insane, and as time went on she became less of a character in her own right and more of a coat hanger for the writers to hang outrageous metaverse plots on (she existed on three different Earths, for example, with different, often grisly, backstories) before vanishing altogether in 2007. It was the waste of a good concept.

Harley Quinn eventually realized the error of her ways and became a force for good, leaving the Joker adrift. But The Joker wasn’t lonely for long. A young bank teller, Marian Drewes, became the second Harley Quinn  after he took her hostage during a bank robbery (Joker being so insane at the time he thought she was the real thing.)  Unlike the original Harley Quinn, she, now calling herself Neo Joker, eventually married him. Since all this happened in a limited edition DC series, who knows if it’s part of the main continuity or not.

And there was yet a third lover/sidekick for the Joker, this time a college student named Alexis Kaye, whom Joker also took hostage during his takeover of a TV station her class was visiting as part of a field trip. Like her forbears, she became obsessed with her captor, starting a podcast about him and running about in a homemade costume and poisoning homeless people to gain his attention. The evil antics certainly did: taking the name of Punchline, she became his main underboss. As a villain she was the inverse of Harley Quinn rather than her imitator: cool and quiet instead of histrionic and flashy, more cruel and less fun.

(Side comment from me: I’m getting of Batman comics being so bloody. They’re superheroes, not Clive Barker characters!)

All that put me in a mind to come up with some future Joker girlfriends, with pun-filled names of course.

 

Some Future Harley Quinns

Caricature  Carrie Cacciaratti. An Italian-American woman trying to make it in the competitive field of stand-u comedy.
Carnival Valerie Carney. A small-time grifter and hustler, and a more ebullient and colorful sidekick than Punchline. I can see her throwing knives and lobbing spinning lottery wheels at people like frisbees.
Chuckles, Giggles, and Snickers A trio of ladies all equally enamored.
Hilarity Hilary Ross. Hilary-ous, get it?
Irony Irene Ni. A Japanese girl equally infatuated with Joker and anime. Her humor is on the arch side.
Jester
 Her first name would be Jessie, of course.
Lampoon A former writer for a comedy show who was fired for not being funny enough, and now she’s out for revenge! She’d be a younger version of Tina Fey.
Laughtrack This would fit the character above too.
Ludicrous Lydia Cross.
Meme Miriam “Mimi” Parker. A good content creator gone bad.
Mischief Melissa Cheever. I can’t see her staying evil for very long.
Repartee Stacy Witt. Her sense of humor is more dry and intellectual.
Screwball Harley Quinn 3.0. I can see her sticking around for a while.
Sidesplitter Truly a deadly clown prone to completely mangling her targets.
Zinger If the Joker had a 12-year-old daughter who followed him she’d take on this identity.