Did Jesus Die for Klingons?

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Jesus and Klingons Did Jesus Die for Klingons?

 

SOMETIMES an article like this requires a disclaimer. I am an unabashed follower of Jesus Christ and an unashamed lifelong Science Fiction junkie. You heard me right. From before the time I could walk I heard the old old story of Jesus and His love. And from the time I could pick out my own books from the book mobile I devoured anything about the stars.

By the time I was ten I had already read every word of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series and Edgar Rice Burroughs was a friend long before his stories made their way to the big screen as John Carter. And in more recent times I even confess to having watched the 14 episodes of Firefly more than once (okay more than three times). Should anyone care about why these stories captured my imagination you can read more about that in Fiction and the Story of Life.

With that out of the way (unless you younger ones are still trying to figure out what a book mobile is) I turn my attention to a report issued by Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. It seems the Pentagon spent $100,000 on a workshop that included a session entitled “Did Jesus Die for Klingons, Too?”

The session was part of the 100-Year Starship Symposium held last year in Orlando, FL. That event was hosted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. DARPA is the advanced research arm of the Pentagon that’s known for sponsoring way-out-there research. The seminar focused on the implications for Christianity if intelligent life were to be found on other planets.

To lend authority to the symposium a couple of theologians along with Lavar Burton (Lieutenant Junior Grade Geordi La Forge) and Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Uhura) of Star Trek fame were called in. From there attendees discussed and debated what effect the discovery of alien life would have on the tenants of the Christian faith.

What this had to do with defense is a mystery to me. But then again I feel the same about the swimming patterns of gold fish which received its own chunk of Department of Defense change.

In light of recent revelations in the CIA and elsewhere however, Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post may be right that considering Jesus and Klingons makes more sense than a lot of other things connected to the DoD. He writes:

“After all, we are but dust. Man’s life is but the blink of a gnat’s eye. We are but the weird, whitish substance that appears at the corner of the cosmos’s lip when the cosmos is yelling. Why should we not, while we remain here, try to gaze into the deep, to answer the questions whose fulfillment will enable us to know our own souls? In fact, why do we build tanks at all? Let us have more workshops instead, where we untangle questions like … How does God feel about George Lucas’s recent sale of Lucasfilm to Disney? Does Ecclesiastes affect the crew of the Serenity in any way? Can tauntauns become Calvinists?”

But in all seriousness, there is a reason I like Science Fiction. Too often Christians who write fiction turn their stories into a polemic to persuade. In other words they preach a sermon. There’s nothing wrong with that but it’s just not the best medium for it. Fiction is far better suited at asking questions. And no genre asks questions better than Sci-Fi.

A couple of years ago I had a chance to interview Stuart Stockton and Kerri Nietz, both Christians who write outstanding Science Fiction. They agreed that the kind of fiction they write provides a perfect platform to ask big questions that leave people searching for big answers.

So why not give the answers in their stories? My guess is because if they tried we would end up with “Did Jesus Die for Klingons – The Sequel.” The better thing is to just tell a great story, weave in a theme if it fits, and send readers off with questions that are best answered in a different forum: like a sermon, or the Bible, or the life of a true believer.

So, “Did Jesus Die for Klingons, Too?” Check out Ephesians 1 and see what you think. Odds are you may still have a question mark or two. Perhaps some answers are reserved for the final frontier. You know the one beyond the veil of this life.

Forbidden by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee

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image thumb1 Forbidden by Ted Dekker and Tosca LeeThursday Review
Forbidden (The Books of Mortals) by
Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee
Fantasy – Faithwords 2011

While I’m finishing up reading and reviewing Book Two in the The Books of Mortals,  here is a review of Book One to bring readers up to speed. Check back next Thursday for a review of Mortal as we return to watch our world began to realize what life and death truly are.

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Imagine a world, our world, where every person on the planet is dead and doesn’t know it. Not zombies according to the current literary fad but rather a planet populated by people who are but shells of what they were created to be. Forbidden by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee paints a picture of what might happen to a world so bent on eradicating its inner demons that it strips itself of all emotion. All that is, except fear.

Nearly five centuries have passed since a select group of scientists worked to tinker with humanity’s genetic code. Their discovery of a way to eliminate all emotions save fear gave way to a unified world ensured peace by the Order. But then, on one seemingly uneventful day, 24 year old Rom, finds his life altered forever thus beginning the first installment of what will ultimately be a trilogy called The Book of Mortals.

Ironically, Rom is a funeral singer. A funeral in which, like with most of his world, there is no body and no real sorrow. When Rom leaves the funeral he witnesses the unthinkable, a murder. As the old man who has been attacked is dying he gives Rom an ancient vial of blood that can grant something Rom did not even know he was lacking – life. The kind with real emotions: love, hate, jealousy, betrayal, passion, joy, ecstasy and despair. Real life. A life the world does not even know it is missing. To tell more would be to rob the reader of embarking on this journey with Rom and seeing it unvarnished through his eyes.

As with any fantasy or epic there is a fairly large cast of characters. Central to Book One is Rom, the ultimate unlikely hero. With no frame of reference to understand the emotions he now feels all he knows to do is to employ aid from the few friends he has. And he will need them because someone else has discovered the secret of emotions as well. Saric has to be one of the most unsympathetic villains ever created. His discovery of emotion only proves what man’s heart is capable of when all boundaries are removed. Other characters of note include Feyn the soon-to-be Sovereign of the world and sister of Saric, Avra, Rom’s best friend since childbirth, and though only introduced late in the story, the boy Jonathan.

Many collaborations fail miserably but not this one. Dekker’s imagination and sometimes almost maniacal focus on darkness and light coupled with Tosca Lee’s eloquence of prose is magical. Generally I can pick out who wrote what part of a novel but 50 pages into Forbidden I simply did not care. I was no longer reading a story by Ted Dekker or Tosca Lee. I was riding along side Rom, suddenly awakened to his former deadness and unsure if he can stand this new life on the ragged edge. Unsure if it is worth it.

This hero’s journey is summed up in an exchange between Rom and the man they call Book, a keeper of the truth of former times:

“Keep your words. This pain is no life.”
“You only feel pain because you’re alive, boy!” the keeper thundered. “This is the mystery of it. Life is lived on the ragged edge of the cliff. Fall off and you might die, but run from it and you are already dead!”

The setup at the end of Forbidden leaves one impatient for what follows. Even so it can stand alone with its powerful prose, intense action, compelling characters, and premise that leaves one wondering how many walking our world are really dead and don’t know it. It’s been seven years since Ted Dekker revolutionized a genre with Black, the first in his Circle series. I have no doubt a new revolution is about to begin.

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image thumb3 Forbidden by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee

TED DEKKER is a New York Times bestselling thriller author. Heralded as a “master of suspense” by Library Journal, Dekker has sold millions worldwide, establishing himself as one of the most widely recognized author brands.Ted Dekker’s fans are comprised of readers of all ages, backgrounds, and belief systems who love his compulsively readable stories, authentic characters, and universal and relatable themes that he explores from a unique point of view.

image thumb4 Forbidden by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee

TOSCA LEE  is the NY Times bestselling author of the critically acclaimed DEMON: A MEMOIR, HAVAH: THE STORY OF EVE, and the Books of Mortals series with NY Times bestseller Ted Dekker: FORBIDDEN, MORTAL and SOVEREIGN (2013). Tosca received her B.A. in English and International Relations from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She also studied at Oxford University. In her spare time, Tosca enjoys adventure travel and makes her home in the Midwest.

Love is no Illusion for Frank Peretti

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image thumb1 Love is no Illusion for Frank Peretti

Mandy was gone … It happened more quickly than anyone expected … The fact came alive as he lingered on it and  salved the horrors from his mind, at least for now. With no effort at all the unfaded image of Mandy first setting foot in his life played before his eyes, the dove girl sitting in the front row who caught and held his eye.

After nine years absence from the world of fiction, author Frank Peretti returns in high fashion as he invites us with these words into Dane and Mandy Collins’ Illusion. We are introduced to the husband and wife magic act of forty years with them torn from each other by a sudden and tragic car accident. Dane is left to mourn the loss of the only woman he ever truly loved and Mandy to something else even further beyond imagination.

Dane has nothing left but to return to their dream retirement home minus his lifetime friend and in many ways his reason for living. While he feels as though he has lost everything, Mandy may have lost even more. She now faces the loss of 40 years of her life and any knowledge of what transpired during that time. Both were born in the same year but now he is sixty and she is inexplicably nineteen. He suffers alone with his memories; she wanders the streets of the same little Idaho town alone with shadowy memories of another life and another time.

To go any further in trying to explain the plot is pointless and would do disservice to the story. If you never read speculative fiction be forewarned, this one is loaded with strange events with technical sounding explanations. Some readers will nod as though they understand time-lines and quantum physics. Others will simply scratch their heads and move on, unable to abandon this story because to do so would be to also abandon Dane and Mandy.

Illusion has plenty of action, a few nefarious types, and even a shadowy government conspiracy. But in the end, this is a love story. Note I didn’t say, Romance. If you want to know my thoughts on the difference in the two check out “I Hate Romance”.

In that article I wrote, “When you peel away the genre, the author’ s voice, the prose, and get to the core of all great stories you find the same common elements: isolation, love, failure and redemption”. Peretti reaffirms my premise because this IS a great story.

The two main characters are fleshed out in such a way I cared about both of them. Mandy’s sudden appearance, born in 1971 but walking the streets in 2010 as a nineteen year old, offers a bit of comic relief along the way. I can relate to being stuck in the 70s in my mind while bravely pretending I truly understand this new Millennium. Like Mandy, I still sometimes think “Far Out” in the italics of my mind but force myself to say “awesome” instead.

Having been married thirty-seven years myself, I could imagine being in Dane’s skin as he sits alone in that empty dream house and braves jotting down a few memories:

She was still beautiful I kid you not. Yes, she was fifty-nine. Her eyes kept the crinkle that smiling had put there; her hair was mostly blond from a bottle; the sun had deepened her freckles and coarsened her arms and back.

But there was nothing like seeing her sitting at breakfast with the morning sun at her back and her hair a corona about her head; nothing like the curve of her hips … where she draped them with a dress, framed herself in a doorway, even pushed a grocery cart. There was nothing like the pleasant roundness of her breasts under a sweater or her body against mine, that close to no other for forty years. (Chapter 12)

As far as I’m concerned Frank Peretti has scored a work of magic with Illusion. My advice is to forget trying to understand it all and just enjoy the ride.

Illusion by Frank Peretti

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image thumb4 Illusion by Frank Peretti

So let’s get this out of the way right up front. I don’t know if Frank Perritti’s, Illusion is a great novel or not; at least not yet. One can hardly make such a determination just 69 pages into an over 400 page novel. The premise is intriguing and a few chapters in, I have no doubt I will hang with this one to the end.

The author has already connected with me in a powerful way in chapter eight. Consider this passage when the main character returns home after burying his wife of 40 years.

This trip felt entirely first time. He’d bought one ticket, packed one bag, carried only one boarding pass. There was no one to wait for while going through security and no one to wait for him … He’d bought only one Starbucks coffee and a blueberry muffin for only himself … He went through the doors first with no one to open them for.

While waiting for his one bag … grief overcame him as it often did, on a schedule all its own, unpredictable, unavoidable. Maybe it was the standing here alone … Maybe there was no reason at all. Grief just came when it came, worked its way through, and receded quietly until the next time. That was the way it worked.

 

I was immediately taken back over 20 years ago. There I sat alone in a hospital room recounting for the 100th time the words of our neurosurgeon, “If you have your wife another year, count yourself lucky. There’s really not a lot of hope I can offer you.” Frank Peritti’s pounding home that word “One” painted a word picture I remember all top well. Thankfully, my wife and best friend proved them all wrong.

My point is simple. Peritti painted a scene that connected with me and I suspect will with many others.  He accomplishes that in the midst of a fantastic plot that entertains and to this point is well written. What more could I ask?

If you need more than that before making a decision to read Illusion, I doubt scanning reviews at Amazon will help much. As usual, there are those who feel cheated because the author dared to write from the view point of the world he lives and breathes in. Peritti makes no pretense about who and what he is. Even so, at least one reviewer complained, “The product description made no mention of this book belonging to the Christian Fiction genre. Had it done so, I wouldn’t have wasted my time reading the sample.”

Some in the Christian writing community have observed it is a bit of subterfuge to fail to label books as Christian. So what should Simon and Schuster have done to protect the sensitivities of the aforementioned reader? Perhaps books with warning labels are the answer: “This novel may confront you with a worldview you have previously been able insulate yourself from.”

I’m all for that as long as everyone plays by the same rules. The movie Avatar, for example, needed something more than PG-13. Perhaps, “This film is a thinly veiled attempt to equate capitalism and industry with all the problems faced by our planet.” But I digress.

In fairness, Christians are just as picky. One reader gave Illusion, 2 stars because, “As a longtime fan of Frank Peretti’s, I must say I was really disappointed with his latest,” … Gone- was the Christian symbolism, gone – was the “deep thinking” analogies and above all, gone – was the challenge to my own Christian walk with the Lord.”

So now a novel is not worthy of my time if it doesn’t challenge my Christian walk enough? In that case, a whole lot of what passes for Gospel preaching these days deserves 2 stars as well.

What these reviews and a million other words floating around the Internet about the validity of fiction with a Christian world-view  do for me is confirm how we all tend to be filled with illusions of our own self-importance. I would offer links to articles on the matter but the result is always the same – plenty of heat but little light.

So what do I mean by illusions of our own self-importance?  To listen to some, one would think we writer types are working on a cure for cancer; or even more delusional, the answer to bridging the gap between fallen man and God.

Why can’t a writer just write what he or she wants to write and hope to connect with readers looking for that kind of story? To my writer friends out there, quit lifting yourself up as the saviors of civilization by questioning what others write or read! Some of my friends have adamantly proclaimed, “I don’t read Christian fiction.” That’s their choice. Thankfully I choose to read what speaks to me regardless of the label.

That’s as close to a rant as I’ve allowed myself in a long time on this site. So back to Illusion. Peretti has had some major hits and a couple of disappointments in his career. My guess is this one is already making its way to the This Present Darkness category.

On Lord Byron, Vampires, and Big Headed Writers

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image thumb10 On Lord Byron, Vampires, and Big Headed WritersIf you run in the same Facebook circles I do, you’ve probably seen an image like this over the last few days. More than one writer, it seems, identifies with Lord Byron when he said, “If I don’t write to empty my mind I go mad.”

I understand the sentiment to a certain extent but wonder if we writers fail to understand how Byron came to say such a thing. We write from an innate drive to tell a story, to unveil a mystery, to ask big questions, and to entertain and challenge readers.

Sometimes, however, we writers have a pesky habit of getting a bit too full of ourselves. Visit the blogs and websites of various writers and you will come across impassioned and often volatile conversations about the craft of writing. To read some, one would think we are developing cures for cancer or have been called to lead readers to the promised land of “good writing.” Let me be the first to confess I have been at the front of the line for such parades at times.

There’s more to say about this later, but perhaps we should stop and think about the poet Byron and his quote a little longer before making it our brand.

Just to refresh your memory; Byron is considered to be one of the greatest poets of the last few centuries. He is also often credited with being the inspiration and impetus for the popular mythos of the vampire. Years before Bram Stoker came on the scene, John Polidori spent the summer of 1816 with Lord Byron and then wrote, The Vampyre. Most believe Poliodori used Byron as his inspiration for the pale, decadent, and aristocratic image so common in the genre.

Along with being an accomplished writer, George Gordon Byron had a number of other less worthy accomplishments. His life was marred by aristocratic decadence, debt, and numerous affairs (including it was rumored with his half-sister). Modern researchers are confident Byron was decidedly bi-polar. When he died at the age of 36, Lady Caroline Lamb remarked that the poet was “Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know.”

Now back to that quote, “If I don’t write to empty my mind I go mad.” We writers are prone to present our stories as the byproduct of almost uncontrollable forces. Some talk about their muse that wakes them up with a new scene for their work in progress. Stephen King offers an earthier and less Greek goddess image when he speaks of his ideas coming from “the boys in the basement”.

Don’t get me wrong; I understand fully that feeling of being overwhelmed by a story or a character. Ask my wife. It took her a while, but she finally found a way to lovingly tell me to shut up about these mental convolutions and just write for goodness sake.

At the same time, it seems the idea we are on some kind of an urgent mission to get those words out of our heads and into other people’s heads is a bit overblown. I don’t know about you but I read because I like to read. And, I write because I want to and I can.

Writing isn’t my life. As a believer in Christ how can it be? In the same way your job, hobby, family, football team, political persuasion, etc. shouldn’t be your life either. Ask yourself this; when people read your stories, observe you at work, talk with you at school, do they perceive “if you don’t do that one thing you will go mad?”

Now before you think I don’t have the same off-the-chain thoughts that come to other writers consider the following bit of prose. I jotted them down at 3 AM months ago and for the life of me I still don’t know where they came from or where they belong.


Angels whispered at the far edge of the creosote flats, the persistent hum of their wings hinting at rescue from my darkness. And then in the acrid void they grew silent. Of course they must. After all, I once killed an angel.

Focus on Kerry Nietz

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A review of Freeheads and the Darktrench Saga by Kerry Nietz

image thumb Focus on Kerry Nietz


Man is man regardless of the century. Every struggle is ultimately with one’s self. Every decision a choice. An opportunity to be either zero of one. More often than not, we choose zero. But sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we win over the darkness. Exceed our specifications

He stoops. Touch the steam. Be a one.

 

Sandfly is a debugger. For all us freeheads that means he serves at the whim of my masters, the Abduls, to correct whatever goes wrong with their machines. And they have many machines, all designed to do their work for them. But is hard for us to understand that since we are freeheads, unhindered by the constraints of an implant that prevents us from disobeying our masters in any way.

Sandfly is sent by his master to a place few of his world ever go – space. There he discovers a fantastic secret tool of interstellar exploration known as Dark Trench. What happens next is left for you to find out. You, meaning all you freeheads that dare read A Star Curiously Singing. People like Sandfly have paid a terrible price for instant and direct access to all the information of the world, freedom to think for themselves. And, freedom to know the truth.

More importantly it leads the reader to consider what Sandfly discovers on Dark Trench. “A” is not God. There is another. One who is so much more. He is “A3”.. Does “A” stand for Allah in this story? We are never told. But there is no doubt who “A3”is. He is the One “who stoops” down to man and becomes one of us. He is the One who created all. The One who the stars sing about.

Continuing Sandfly’s story in The Superlative Stream, Nietz carried us on an adventure with Sandfly and his female companion, Hardcandy that is both dazzling and introspective. What they discover when they reach their destination challenges everything they have ever believed and known. With Dark Trench disabled, Sandfly and Hardcandy find themselves on a world of seeming blissful perfection. On this planet, the beings all seem to work in perfect harmony with no laws or implants to force them to do anything. But like many things in life, Sandfly comes to wonder if there might some hidden agenda in the beings’ interest in earth. What follows is beyond description.

Completing the Dark Trench Saga, we now have Freeheads. Sandly is determined to return to earth and see what has become of those he sent back with his revelation of a Star Curiously Singing. But Einstein was right about the speed of light (more or less). The 300 or so days Sandly has been on his journey equates to 40 years when he returns. Much has changed – much has not.

In spite of a brief stop on the moon and a reunion with an old friend, Sandfly can’t shake the calling he feels to take his newfound freedom to Earth. He been found by the One who Stoops – one totally opposite to “A”, the tyrannical god invoked to enslave earth’s masses. Now faithful to the true God, A Cubed, he determines to stoop as low as required to free mankind. In the words of Eric Wilson, “Burroughs and Bradbury, it’s a thrilling, deeply intelligent and deeply spiritual journey through a future that is all too real.

 

Visit my fill reviews of A Star Curiously Singing and The Superlative Stream at Unveiled. If you are interested in the historical, political, and religious foundations for the Dark Trench Saga, check out Sharia Law: Coming to a Courtroom Near You and Sharia Law in America- It’s Not Fiction.

 

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image thumb1 Focus on Kerry NietzKerry Nietz is a refugee of the software industry. He spent more than a decade of his life flipping bits, first as one of the principal developers of the database product FoxPro for the now mythical Fox Software, and then as one of Bill Gates’s minions at Microsoft. He is a husband, a father, a technophile and a movie buff. He has one non-fiction book, a memoir entitled FoxTales: Behind the Scenes at Fox Software. His first novel, A Star Curiously Singing, was published in October of 2009.

Will the Real Villain Stand Up

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image thumb6 Will the Real Villain Stand Up
IN THE MOVIE UNBREAKABLE Samuel L. Jackson tells Bruce Willis that a hero is defined by his arch-nemesis. No villain – no hero. In the twisted mind of Mr. Glass, it took a determined and unrepentant villain to draw a hero out into the light.

But is that the way it really works? And what place should evil have in faith based fiction?

Some answer these questions by ignoring evil all together. As a suspense writer, and more importantly as a human being and a follower of Christ, that simply is not an option. Evil is real and the only explanation for so many of the inexplicably dark things around us. Glossing over that is not realistic and worse yet dangerous.How else can you explain the way officials at Pen State overlooked young boys’ lives  being ruined by one they so trusted?

In a rare interview, Dean Koontz spoke of this with the National Catholic Register:

Evil walks among us. We don’t always see it. Each of us, in our daily lives, encounters evil; we are tempted to evil every day of our lives. If we don’t want to read about it or think about it, I don’t think that’s a truly Christian point of view. We have to acknowledge it, face it and defeat it. That’s what each of my books is about.

I don’t shy away from having violent things happen, but I don’t dwell on it. I feel, as a Christian, writing books that have a moral purpose to them, it’s actually incumbent upon me to write about evil, because this kingdom is Satan’s and he is the prince of the world. It’s here and it’s among us

But once a writer decides to tackle evil, how far should he or she go? We’ve come a long way from Jimmy Cagney in Angels With Dirty Faces where Cagney’s Rocky pretended to be a sniveling  coward as he’s executed to set a good example for the Dead End Kids. More often than not today, darkness wears the crown rather than light.

My villains are pathetic. I never glorify a villain. I couldn’t write something like Hannibal because there’s something there that makes the villain the most glamorous person in the piece. I can’t write that. I don’t find evil glamorous. You’ll never find it that way in my books.

Dean Koontz

Steven James has found a healthy balance in his Patrick Bowers Thrillers. He has more than raised the bar with villains that are both unthinkably evil and yet at times tragic. Jack M. Bickham in his book “Scene and Structure,”says fiction should make more sense than real life. In real life, sometimes murderers don’t have a motive for killing. With at least one villain in The Knight, James disagrees. Near the beginning of the book, a young man exults in what it felt like to kill his grandmother. Why did he do it? Simply because darkness ruled every corner of his heart and mind.

As much as I like shows like Criminal Minds, they too often paint a sympathetic portrait of evil. Yes, people sometimes are driven by psychological scars from their childhood. But other people bear the same scars yet don’t grow up to dismember their entire family on the day of some dramatic emotional stressor.

For me, darkness should be used to expose the difference between it and the light. In the end, all evil is pathetic more than anything else. Consider the images of the assistant coach of Pen State being led away by police. No glory there – just darkness. A more dramatic image is that of Adolph Hitler, gun in mouth and watching his bride of just 40 hours convulsing from the cyanide she has just ingested. That is a fitting image of the last thing evil sees  before facing judgment.

With all that said, there is still a compelling case for not creating card board cut out villains that are easy to hate and impossible to care about. If my goal is to contrast light and darkness, I should lead readers to explore a reality few of us want to admit; without The Light, we are all villains of one sort or another. At least that’s what the Author who exposed the greatest villain and offered the greatest Hero has to say on the matter.

 

Every hero needs a villain. Samuel L. Jackson as Mr. Glass in Unbreakable.

Dean Koontz Made me Think

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While he was creeping me out …

A common complaint about faith based fiction is it is often too preachy, and in many ways, I couldn’t agree more. Christian fiction has been equated far too long with generic moralisms embraced by all but the evil protagonist. Christian writers seem to have an aversion to painting a picture of the real world in which some believe, some do not, and some are doggedly ambivalent to the bitter end.

In reaction to this other authors seem to almost pride themselves in how spiritually neutral their stories are. In fairness, much of that is a result of editors and publishers fearful of alienating any segment of a relatively small pool of potential readers. Nevertheless, the result is nice, clean stories that are careful to challenge no one about anything.

authors Dean Koontz Made me Think

The ironic side effect of such generic writing is that stories that grapple with deeper questions of life and our own existence don’t tend to be found with a Christian fiction label at all. Dean Koontz has written stories with increasing frequency that reflect struggles with faith, hope, and even the afterlife. One of his recent novels spent 100 pages weaving the doctrine of purgatory into almost every suspenseful scene. Orson Scott Card’s “The Homecoming Saga” is without a doubt a retelling of the Book of Mormon in a science fiction setting.

Does this mean I shy away from Koontz or Card because I disagree with the theological underpinnings of some of their stories? Not at all. Koontz is a master of prose who, even on his bad days, writes a better story than 99% of the rest of popular writers today. And Enders Game still ranks near the top of my best 100 list. Neither Koontz nor Card is preachy and both are excellent writers. They simply don’t try to sanitize their world view to the point it becomes invisible. And, they find ways to write stories that convey their worldview without beating people up with it.

So when Christian writers grapple with the mysteries of life, why is it so few Christians read their books? Athol Dickson’s novels have won three Christy’s since 2006 and “secular” reviewers repeatedly recognize the power of both his prose and storytelling ability. In spite of this, Atholhas written honestly about the limited commercial success of his novels.

I’m not offering any answers here, just questions and observations. Hopefully, I will be able to write with enough transparency that whatever is inside bleeds through and with enough creativity even those who don’t embrace what they see come back for more.

The INSPYS and Speculative Fiction

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image thumb5 The INSPYS and Speculative FictionFOR THE SECOND YEAR in a row I have been invited to be a judge for the INSPY awards. The INSPYS are somewhat unique in that nominations are accepted for CBA, independent, and general market novels alike. One overriding criteria is that for a novel to be considered it must have faith at the heart of the story.”

If you removed that faith element, the book would differ drastically. And the literature criteria requires that the book possess exceptional literary qualities, including but not limited to: innovative, original writing, and depth of characterization.

This year I have been asked to step outside my comfort zone just a bit as I will join the panel that picks the best speculative novel of the year. The titles our panel of judges is considering in the speculative fiction category this year include:

Heartless by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

The Charlatan’s Boy by Jonathan Rogers

The Falling Awayby T. L. Hines

The Resurrectionby Mike Duran

The Skin Mapby Stephen Lawhead

Have you read any of these this year? If so what did you think? If not, I can give one free copy of the one’s highlighted to the first person who leaves a comment here and requests it.

Sibella Giorello – Dealing with Fear

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I’m rerunning this great article from Sibella because I needed it and because many who expressed a desire to receive the free book never indicated a mailing address. Check the comments. If your name is there and you still want The Mountains Bow Down, email your address to tegeorge@att.net. If you didn’t leave a comment before, leave one now because I have a few extra copies.

image thumb Sibella Giorello – Dealing with FearTHAT TERRIBLE SECRET carried since childhood. The time you didn’t get busted, because nobody witnessed the crime. How you feel about that person — that person everybody else adores. Painful, personal things we want to avoid thinking about.
Writing books — novels in particular — is a perennially fearful journey.

With each book, the writer begins with a flat field of good intention but soon enough everything is getting tilled, furrowed, hoed, seeded and then this strange unexpected harvest appears, the kind of odd fruit that causes the writer utter defensive statements to editors. Things like: “Well, I know I said the book was about quilting, but that was before I realized all these quilters were serial killers.”

Writers sympathize with bad guys, because an author who doesn’t creates cardboard villains. We show the worst things happening to the nicest people, because conflict turns pages. We dig down to the messiest parts of the soul because — wait, you are digging down to the messiest parts. Aren’t you?

Because that’s where the reader needs us — and wants us. More importantly, that’s where God wants us. Consider the disciples in the boat: “On that day, when evening had come, [Jesus] said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. . . . A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” Mark 4:35-40 (NRSV)

If I could invent one tool for writers it would be a Fear-o-Meter. Looks like a hand-held compass but emits an ear-piercing screech whenever pointed at the writer’s worst fear. More than an embarrassing device for a humiliating profession, the Fear-o-Meter’s real purpose would be to make writers stop, and consider.

Maybe all that’s needed is confession and repentance. Maybe more trust in the power of Jesus Christ. But for writers, fear is usually a signal to start writing, start looking deep into those swirling emotions. Of course, that kind of examination requires hard work. Really hard work. And in the meantime, writers have thousands of ideas. Hundreds of stories. Dozens of great characters. Unfortunately, most of them are worthless.

Nobody can guarantee that writing about what scares you will automatically bring a best-seller. But it does mean your books are much more likely to have passion, and life, and that undefinable quality that draws in readers who later say, “Gee, I thought I was the only one who felt that way . . . .”

Those two highly esteemed theologians, Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello, sat down last year for an interview before a live audience at the Apollo Theatre.

image thumb1 Sibella Giorello – Dealing with Fear

Springsteen offered some insights into writing songs, and since his songs always sound like short stories to me, I sat up to listen.
Guess what? The Boss has got a Fear-O-Meter! And he never leaves home without it:

“I’ve always believed the greatest rock and roll musicians are desperate men. You’ve got to have something bothering you all the time. My songs are good because … it’s like in art and love, hey, one and one makes three. In music, if it makes two, you’ve failed, my friends . . . . If all you got is your notes, you’ve failed. You’ve got to find that third thing that you don’t completely understand, but that is truly coming up from inside of you. And you can set it any place, you can choose any type of character, but if you don’t reach down and touch that thing, then you’re just not gonna have anything to say, and it’s not gonna feel like it has life and breath in it, you’re not gonna create something real, and it’s not gonna feel authentic. So I worked hard on those things.”

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