Have you ever had something happen in your life that illustrated the power of doubt verses belief? A time you were telling someone a simple truth, but concerning which you met with skepticism? A time when you tasted something and people doubted that you ate? I have, and I’m about to tell the story. (Note this post is a shortened, edited version of something I first wrote about for my personal blog, Travissbigidea, in Nov of 2017.)

I’m in the Army Reserve and in 2017 I and other members of my Army Reserve unit attended a training exercise that lasted a month for my unit (called JRTC) held in Fort Polk, Louisiana. Fort Polk is rather infamous among people in the US Army for not being a very pleasant place. Perhaps some of its reputation isn’t completely deserved, but I personally had a miserable time at Fort Polk.

That misery included many particular aspects of my experience, including sleeping in body armor many nights and not having proper bathroom facilities (so I had to go to the woods and dig a hole on numerous occasions) but especially touched on food. Not only had I been in a field training environment for two weeks in which we ate field rations (MREs and and “First Strike” rations), we had been poorly fed during the week prior to going out into what everyone called “the box”–the place where the training exercise took place.

US military dining isn’t usually bad, not anymore. The modern Army usually has contractors provide meals, unlike the infamously bad Army cooks of the Vietnam War and earlier. And it happens to be true that the contractors feed us very well, almost always. The food I ate while deployed to Iraq was especially good–and I realize that may sound like a joke, but it really was true. KBR (later BR) ran the military dining facilities in Iraq while I was there in 2008 and the food was actually amazingly good at times.

But in the week of getting ready to go to the field in Louisiana, we had eaten hot food provided by one of the supporting units for our JRTC exercise, the 52nd Brigade Support Battalion (BSB). Which meant that instead of the contractors who usually feed troops in the modern Army, our food was actually supplied by US Army cooks. What they prepared wasn’t very tasty,  plus, the dining area was horribly mismanaged, with thousands of troops trying to pile into the same single fabric-topped building at the same time. The building was large; it sat hundreds, but the demand was in the thousands, so lines were long; sometimes food ran out before everyone ate and the hot portion of the meals usually wound up being cold. Plus there were limited places to sit, so you had to rush through the bit of food you got and the trash cans that filled up with accumulated debris from the cardboard food trays and cups and plastic eating utensils were not quickly emptied out, so piled up garbage in the back of the building became common. It was better than eating grass and dirt, but wasn’t very nice, overall.

So after coming back from the “box” we spent the night at one of the mock bases that wasn’t far outside the training area (i.e. the box). (It was called “FOB Warrior.”) We finally were in the position where we had some freedom back, even though we still were going to sleep in a barracks building that night. Some members of my Army Reserve unit were talking about ordering pizza for everyone.

But I didn’t want to pay for pizza (I’m awfully cheap at times). So I decided to trudge out to the military dining facility this base had and eat whatever food they offered. My expectations were pretty low, but food is food and its primary job is to keep you alive, so I was willing to put up with whatever they served.

I came to a building with a fabric top, not too different from the place where the 52nd BSB had poorly fed us. But to my surprise, contractors were serving the food. And the meal was steak and shrimp. With fresh salad and fruit. With cheesecake for dessert (chilled cheesecake). The building was clean, the contractors were polite; it was really good food and furthermore, was free.

I returned to the barracks we’d been put in with the good news of how surprisingly good the food was. And I immediately met with skepticism from two soldiers, a sergeant and a captain, who both reasoned with me that what I was saying could not be true.

In fact, they acted like they believed I was trying to pull the wool over their eyes. To make fools of them. And as we talked, I remembered more details than what I had already mentioned. I said, “And they had mashed potatoes. And cans of soda in the corner, Cokes, Dr. Pepper, Sprite, lots of brands. And in addition to the cheesecake, they had chocolate chip cookies, really big cookies, soft, with M&Ms in them.”

“And I bet the woman serving them was a beautiful blonde who had really big breasts pouring out of her blouse,” said the sergeant with obvious snark.

“Yeah, Perry, I can’t help noticing this story keeps getting better and better,” added the captain with a laugh.

Answering the sergeant, I said, “Um, no. But the woman taking our numbers was really cute.” Turning to the captain, I added, “Yeah, I recognize this sounds incredible, but every word is true. Honest.”

The conversation went back and forth like that, never in the exact words I just used, but along those lines. In the end, I failed to convince them that the shrimp and steak meal really existed. But it did.

This struck me after the fact as being something like sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with people. I had a story to tell, a true story, but my story was not believed, because it did not match things the people I told had already seen and experienced themselves. It was easier for them to think I was making it up and dismiss what I said than investigate for themselves.

It would have taken the two members of my unit a mere five minutes to walk down the road to find out if what I was saying about the meal was true or not. But they would not do it. If people won’t even walk five minutes down a road, how much more will skepticism prevent someone from giving the Gospel a chance?

“Taste and see that the Lord is good,” begins Psalm 34:8, implying the God can be known by those who want to find Him. Those who seek out and test the truth about God can find not only that He is real, but furthermore, that God is good.

My experience led me to make a few observations:

1. Those who disbelieve may in fact be very intelligent people and very convincing in their disbelief. The captain and sergeant I was speaking to were actually very smart guys. I wound up laughing after a while talking about the meal because I knew from their point of view what I was saying sounded ridiculous. Of course, when I laughed, they were only even more convinced I was trying to play a joke on them. I promised them I was not and in fact gave them more details—which should have helped them realize I wasn’t making things up (plus, I’m not the kind of person that plays this kind of joke), but that didn’t actually help. Again, these were not dumb guys—they were two of the smartest guys in my unit. They didn’t manage to convince me the meal I’d eaten didn’t exist, but they did have me doubting my own credibility.
2. Those who have tasted the meal (or otherwise experienced something good) are in fact under no obligation to explain how it happened. At the time I was talking about the meal I ate, I could and did give more information that should have made the meal make more sense, i.e. it wasn’t the 52^nd BSB serving the meal, it was civilian contractors.  Plus maybe Fort Polk wanted to make the experience coming out of field training more pleasant than going into the training. But in the end, I did not know why the change in food happened. I just knew it had happened. I offered my speculation as to why the food changed to the skeptics to help them make sense of the event I was describing. And doing that was actually a good thing. However, all I really knew is what I’d witnessed myself. A meal was served; I partook. Likewise, I experience the presence of God in my life every day. My experience is real—I can attempt to explain logically the role of God in the universe to the doubters in order to attempt to make the path to “tasting” themselves easy for them. But in fact I don’t owe them that explanation. My experience requires no explanation to make it true. And I actually may not be able to explain very well, if at all. It doesn’t matter—what I have witnessed is what I have witnessed. Which leads me to the next point:
3. Explanations of witnessed events are not required to believe them and it’s unreasonable to expect otherwise. Yes, it’s possible for people to delude themselves. Yes, it could be I imagined the meal I ate, though for me that would be more unlikely than me eating it, since I don’t regularly have delusions of eating imaginary food, no matter what the skeptics thought about the situation (though in fairness, they maintained I was trying to pull a joke on them, not that I was delusional). Yes, it could be I have imagined God’s presence in my life, but other than God, I do not in fact routinely sense people who are not around. I have every reason in fact to believe what my experience tells me, even if I cannot fully explain it. And that’s normal. Not irrational, not weird. Simply how experience ordinarily works.
4. Getting a detail wrong does not invalidate the entire witness. I realized after a bit that I had misspoken—the potatoes were not mashed potatoes, they were scalloped, though served with the kind of scoop you normally see with mashed potatoes. But getting that detail wrong did not invalidate the overall tenor of what I witnessed. Likewise, a person can be mistaken about elements of their religious life and belief while still in fact witnessing something that’s true at its core. Which leads to my final point:
5. Disbelief can be a choice. The guys I spoke with about the meal were bright. They knew they were bright. They weren’t willing to be suckered in with false info, which they knew could happen. They may have even noticed a contradiction in what I was saying, that I first mentioned mashed potatoes but later changed to scalloped. But in fact their skeptical reasoning did not and could not trump something that I had eaten myself. Something could happen they had not planned for, something that did not make sense to them. Reality can in fact go in directions they had previously ruled out as “not possible.” But instead of giving the idea they might be wrong a chance, they in effect chose to disbelieve by not even investigating what there was to investigate, by not even walking down the road for five minutes. By ruling out what I said in advance, by deciding in advance not to investigate, they decided to disbelieve. If that happens with something as simple as people disbelieving in a meal, it should be no surprise that some people in fact choose to disbelieve in the existence of God.

So for readers of this post, have you ever had a similar experience in which you were telling people truths that could have been easily verified, but you were treated with skepticism instead? Have you ever been told that something you knew happened, could not have happened? Please share your experience and thoughts in the comments below.

I love architecture. My tastes lean towards the European medieval and Renaissance eras of structural achievement. Put me in a Gothic cathedral or a Baroque palace and I will see you in a couple of days. On a recent trip to Savannah, Georgia, my family was amused at my excitement at the abundance of Victorian- and Colonial-style homes that were thankfully spared General Sherman’s fiery March to the Sea during the twilight of the Civil War. I devour books and documentaries about historical architectural marvels, and while I appreciate modern steel-and-glass structures (I’ve seen the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, with my own eyes), I feel more in awe of the ornate stone and woodwork in structures built centuries that end with “teen.”

Simply put, architecture is the language of empires, dynasties, and conquerors. Manuscripts can be lost, food and fashion can transcend eras, language changes constantly, but every time a new ruler emerges or a culture shifts, these transitions are clearly delineated in the buildings and monuments that are subsequently produced. It’s a way for kings to leave their mark on their kingdoms during and after their lifetimes. It’s a way for colonial powers to remind the conquered of their masters, even if those masters aren’t present as a significant population. It’s a way to inspire awe and reverence and to instill pride in one’s homeland. Even the smallest village or farm town has a building or structure of note, at least for the locals.

If we look at the Bible, we also see the importance of impressive buildings, particularly in construction of the temple in Jerusalem. The description of Solomon’s temple is glorious, and while we have numerous examples of elaborate structures intended for worship throughout history, none has actually been inhabited by the presence of the Lord itself. The temple in Jerusalem was truly more than just an incredible building, and it represented more than just an imposing space for the Jews to worship. It was consecrated ground with clear boundaries. There was a place for everyone, a place for the priests, and a place for the Holy of Holies.

The rule of thumb for architecture is usually “bigger is better,” and this applies even to fictional structures. The Empire in Star Wars built enormous cruiser ships and of course, the Death Star. The Borg in Star Trek built massive cubes. The Lord of the Rings has a number of structural marvels, such as Barad-dûr, Isengard, the White City, the mines of Moria, Rivendell, and more. Just as real-life kingdoms and empires build things to leave a lasting impression, many realms of science fiction and fantasy devote keen attention to the structures in their stories, which can become characters themselves.

I don’t expect everyone to share my enthusiasm for architecture, but there is far more to a building than just bricks and mortar, especially if it has survived the sands of time. I would encourage you to dig into the history of notable buildings in your area, and I assure you that you will find more than you would expect. And when you come across prominent structures in books or movies, take note of how well (or how poorly) the writers give a sense of historical depth to these buildings, even if it is just in passing.

The old saying goes “If these walls could talk…” As a matter of fact, they do.

 

Do all stories of sacrifice point to Jesus Christ? I mean, clearly His sacrifice is the central tenet of Christianity. In His death He bore our sins; by His stripes we are healed; through His resurrection power, we are raised to newness of life.

But in stories, are all sacrifices re-telling, in miniature, this same old story upon which our salvation hinges?

Some of the classic fantasy stories have been tied to Christ’s sacrifice: Aslan in Narnia, Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter in Harry Potter.

But there are any number of other stories that also contain a self-sacrificing hero. Katniss in Hunger Games, for example when she went to the games in place of her sister. The hero in Sally Apokadak’s The Button Girl, who appears to sacrifice himself for the king. Shannon Dittmore’s hero in Angel Eyes, and on and on. In most cases, the connection between the sacrificing hero and Christ seems tangible. He willingly puts his life on the line so that another may go free.

I’ve explored this topic of sacrifice and Christ-figures before. Perhaps more pertinent is Shannon McDermmot’s article “What Isn’t Christian Fiction” in which she says

I’ve heard of a lot of Christ-figures in famous fantasy, whether Gandalf or Harry Potter or Aslan. They usually aren’t; Aslan is the exception that proves the rule. A heroic death, followed by resurrection, holds scant parallel to Christ’s death and resurrection. In the first place, the evil Christ died to save us from was our own; this is rarely echoed even in fantasy’s heroic deaths. In the second, there is nothing extraordinary about resurrection in science fiction and especially in fantasy. Characters in fantasy novels are like witches in Narnia: You can always get them back.

I can’t help but wonder, though, if the “magic” of bringing a character back isn’t in many ways the same magic of spring: the plant dies in the winter, only to come back in newness of life the following spring.

In those cases, though, there is no sacrifice—only death and resurrection. The issue of sacrifice seems more determinative to me in identifying the work of Christ. After all, Easter isn’t just the miracle of Christ coming out of the grave. He didn’t die of old age and then gain new life as an example to us what our future holds.

Before resurrection came sacrifice. Christ died to do what we could not do for ourselves. He died as the sacrificial Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. Perhaps the earliest picture that pointed to Christ was God killing an animal to provide covering for the sinful pair in the garden.

Clearly sacrifice and death are tied together when it comes to what Christ did for us, but perhaps in fiction the whole story doesn’t have to be represented. Perhaps an aspect—a sacrifice that isn’t a death—can still point to Christ.

I’m not a comic book person or a fan of superhero stories, but the little I’ve gleaned about various stories (or movies I’ve seen), lead me to believe that sacrifice is a centerpiece in many. As E. Stephen Burnett wrote in “Thunders Of ‘Thor’ Echo Biblical Truths, Part 2.”

Naturally this [Thor’s self-sacrifice to save the lives of innocents] reminds me of Christ. Any hero who sacrifices himself to save others will do that. It’s part of the all truth is God’s truth that can get into even pagan mythologies.

Pagan mythologies, Christian fiction, secular fantasy. What about science fiction or horror? Again, my knowledge of those genres is thin. Was Luke Skywalker a Christ figure when he took his ship into a dogfight he had no business winning in an attempt to destroy the Death Star? Was Hans Solo a representative of Christ when he gave up his will to leave the fight and go back to save Luke? Or how about Spock when he apparently dies, only to return in a later Star Trek movie?

Aren’t all these stories echoes of the Greatest Story ever told?

No, they don’t give the details (except perhaps for C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe), but in the same way that spring points to the promise of new life, don’t these stories of sacrifice point to the sacrifice that makes a difference for all time, for every person?

Perhaps Easter is the best time of year to read a great novel, one that portrays a hero’s sacrifice.

Our guest blog this week, part of our From The Writers’ Tool Chest resources, is an article by soon-to-be published YA fantasy author Jillian Boehme. Her first published novel, Stormrise, will come out with Tor Teen in September.

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Once upon a time, I swore I couldn’t write novels.

It’s funny, isn’t it, the stories we tell ourselves? I self-published a non-fiction book in 2002—a collection of anecdotal stories about stay-at-home motherhood—and was convinced I was an essayist and nothing more. (Not that there’s anything wrong with being an essayist. It just . . . wasn’t really me.)

Then one day I read a children’s novel and absolutely hated it—and had the notion that I could, perhaps, do better. Fiction was, after all, my go-to for reading pleasure. Especially fantasy.

So I wrote a YA fantasy novel, and oh, what a glorious mess it was. I didn’t realize it was a mess, though, and I gleefully passed chapter after chapter to my two oldest children, who devoured it and created fan art and GIFS and wrote letters to my characters. Just the fuel a write-at-home mom needs to keep the literary fire burning, yes?

I wasn’t just writing, though; I was researching the publishing industry. At the time, electronic submissions were new, and not many agents accepted them. My first stack of rejection letters was comprised of honest-to-goodness paper and envelopes. (I keep them in my bedside drawer tied with a red ribbon.)

I wrote a second novel. And a third. In 2008, I started Miss Snark’s First Victim, a blog for aspiring authors. It was a wonderful way to connect with the vibrant community of writers online, offering them encouragement and advice while continuing to press forward with my own journey. The in-house critique sessions and Secret Agent Contests (with a “secret” guest agent critiquing each entry and offering requests to the winners) created an environment in which participants were not only growing as writers, but also were landing agents—and eventually book deals.

Imagine the headiness of watching other people’s success unfolding as a result of the blog! And imagine the sense, as the months and years continued to pass, of being left behind, as my colleagues went on to publish their debut novels while I continued to despair of ever landing an agent.

Sometimes I cried. Sometimes I declared that I was giving up (my husband never let me get away with that one). But always I kept going. Kept writing. Kept dreaming.

After five (long) years, I finally signed with an agent, who had fallen in love with my YA science fiction novel and was eager to sell it.

He didn’t. We submitted a different novel. That one didn’t sell, either. Neither did the third. As time wore on, friends and colleagues started to counsel me to leave him. “The wrong agent is worse than no agent at all,” they would say. “He’s not selling you; move on.”

I really loved this guy, though. And every time I asked God if I should leave my agent and find a new one, the answer in my deepest heart was “no.”

So I stayed.

Midway through my time with him, my agent hired an assistant who became involved with the editing process of my novels. I loved her immediately! She was bright and talented and very soon began to take on clients of her own. By this time, I was on my fourth novel-on-submission (which also didn’t sell). My new manuscript was a YA fantasy, and I was concerned that my agent wouldn’t be a good fit for it—he didn’t represent fantasy.

His assistant, however, did. And so I asked him, over a sushi lunch in New York City, if perhaps Danielle could take over my next project. He gave me an enthusiastic yes, and several months later, with a completed draft in hand, my relationship with Danielle was formalized.

Five years and four unsold novels later, I was ready for a fresh start. My season of waiting wasn’t over, though; the YA fantasy didn’t sell, either, bringing my unsold total to five.

Not a very impressive track record. And an interesting thing happened at this point: I stopped dreaming.

I didn’t stop writing. I didn’t stop doing everything I needed to do to make sure my next novel was the best it could be. But the wild-hearted hope for a book sale—and a future as a published author—had died. Instead, I plugged on with the doggedness of someone who keeps going because there’s nothing else to do. Quitting was never an option.

Never.

And the novel I wrote without dreaming was the one that sold. Danielle cried more than I did during the big phone call; I think I was too stunned to feel the moment.

Twelve years. Two agents. Five unsold novels.

Honestly? I wouldn’t trade my journey for anything. Over the lifetime of my blog (which I still run), many of my readers were encouraged to keep writing—to never give up—because I kept writing and never gave up. And, let’s be honest—it’s harder to walk away from something when people are watching you, cheering you on, waiting to celebrate your success with you.

I’m thankful for who I am because of this (long!) journey; I’m thankful that I can look other writers in the eye and say, “If I could keep writing for twelve years, you can keep writing for another day.” Because it was always one day at a time, one paragraph at a time, one story at a time.

Now? I’m living my dream—the one that had to die so I could be about the business of writing without emotional encumbrance. Though, really, I suppose it never actually died. Just went to sleep for a while.

Is your dream sleeping? Give it a gentle poke. Your gifts, no matter what they are, were planted in you for a purpose. Making the decision not to give up will be so worth it.

I promise.

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Author Bio

JILLIAN BOEHME is known to the online writing community as Authoress, hostess of Miss Snark’s First Victim, a blog for aspiring authors. In real life, she holds a degree in Music Education, sings with the Nashville Symphony Chorus, and homeschools her remaining youngster-at-home. She’s still crazy in love with her husband of more than thirty years and is happy to be surrounded by family and friends amid the rolling knolls of Middle Tennessee.

You may find her online in these places:
Author web site: www.jillianboehme.com
Twitter: @Jillian Boehme
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JillianBoehmeAuthor/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jillian.boehme/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7234281.Jillian_Boehme
Miss Snarks’s First Victim: www.misssnarksfirstvictim.blogspot.com

Stormrise Blurb

A combat warrior will risk everything to awaken the dragons and save her kingdom in Jillian Boehme’s epic YA Fantasy debut, Stormrise, inspired by Twelfth Night and perfect for fans of Tamora Pierce.

If Rain weren’t a girl, she would be respected as a Neshu combat master. Instead, her gender dooms her to a colorless future. When an army of nomads invades her kingdom, and a draft forces every household to send one man to fight, Rain takes her chance to seize the life she wants.

Knowing she’ll be killed if she’s discovered, Rain purchases powder made from dragon magic that enables her to disguise herself as a boy. Then she hurries to the war camps, where she excels in her training―and wrestles with the voice that has taken shape inside her head. The voice of a dragon she never truly believed existed.

As war looms and Rain is enlisted into an elite, secret unit tasked with rescuing the High King, she begins to realize this dragon tincture may hold the key to her kingdom’s victory. For the dragons that once guarded her land have slumbered for centuries . . . and someone must awaken them to fight once more.

What I’ve written here is an acknowledgment of the power of fiction and the presence of God wrapped in a type of emotional appeal, an appeal that starts with talking about dreams. Note that I’m not limited to making emotional appeals when I talk about God—I also can make an intellectual case, as I did writing for Speculative Faith with my “Car-Universe Without a Motor” series. But note also that unlike someone who is convinced human beings are nothing more than a product of evolution, for whom emotion has no deeper meaning (much of it supposedly a leftover from our so-called “reptile brain”), a believer in God has grounds to think emotions as well as reason matter in their proper context–that emotion can bring a person to acknowledgement of truth. God created feelings as much as rational capacities and each have the power to point the way back to their Creator.

My emotions were wrapped up in a vivid dream I had as a child in which I extended my arms and a strong wind wrapped around me and lifted me into the sky. The wind followed me, like Elijah perhaps, and whirled around me. But unlike Elijah, who went where the Lord directed him, the wind in my dream carried me wherever I wanted to go, me tilting my arms like a bird to fly wherever I wished.

I awoke from the dream saddened by its loss—but determined to retain that memory forever. I of course only partially succeeded. Now it’s just a faded memory of a memory, drained of all its color, but still retaining a very small portion of its power.

Recently I had a similar dream, of being an acrobat of such effortless skill that my leaps and twists In the air didn’t drain me of energy and left me hanging upward long seconds before coming back to ground. This is of course something I’ve never actually done and probably could not ever do the way I dreamed of it even if I had trained to be an acrobat from my childhood—at least not in the gravity of Planet Earth. On the Moon, or “a” moon, such activity would be much easier.

There’s something in me that is not limited to a desire to fly—or leap—and wishes it could be in a world other than my own. I want to see alien stars. And vistas. And explore strange worlds.

Speculative fiction taps into some of these desires, doesn’t it? We with our protagonists via our imaginations get to hunker down on the neck of our trusty dragon as it glides through the air.

Or we can maneuver our starship to the place we see the entire galaxy stretched out before use like a gem-studded tapestry. Or many other things.

Why do I dream of walking on the Moon or other moons? Why do I long to see alien stars?

Why, if I am the supposed product of vast ages of evolution, would I not be much more automatically focused on my own survival, much more interested in keeping myself alive? Why do I long for beauty? And not just the familiar beauty of things I’ve seen, but also the beauty of things I have never seen? The thrill of experiences I’ve never had?

Could it be that fiction that steps out of the world we live in on a daily basis has the power to point out that this world, the one we reside in, is not enough for us? That we long for more because more must surely exist? That we long for a form of eternity and transcendence because God has stored up these things for those in a relationship with Him? That these treasures can be found in a spiritual sense in this life but also in a very literal sense in the next?

Speculative fiction can do much more than point the way to unseen beauty—it can even do harm, by glorifying evil and mocking that which is good. But heroes who stand of for what is really right and true in fiction reflect the genuine struggle that exists between good and evil, a struggle that’s not limited to events our human eyes can see during our earthly lifetimes.

A hero I have never met, because he never existed, of a species which never existed, faced a villainess who tried to overwhelm all sense of anything the group could see beyond the Underworld. “There is no sun” she said, strumming music as she enchanted them. She told them the sun was something they imagined based on lamps, that Aslan was something they imagined based on housecats, that the very “Overworld” was simply a product of their imagination, that the world around them of underground caverns was all that existed. All that had ever existed.

The hero stomped on a fire, burning his marshwiggle flesh, and said, in part:

“All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.”

Our longing, our dreams of other worlds are worth having, our God is worth following, even if we had no rational grounds to believe in our God or in the real existence of a life after this one. We do have a number of logical grounds, but even if we didn’t, our dreams, our so-called play-world, as Puddleglum said, “licks the real world hollow.” So we should live then for that “play-world,” for its values and the values of its Master, and not for this grungy world of grubbing to survive, advance, and dominate. And the very best speculative stories have tremendous power to remind us of that.

Let this perspective on dreams of other worlds shape what you write, my friends.

Amazon sends email adverts from time to time, based on a customer’s viewing or buying history. As expected, I get pages with writing books and others with fantasy. The thing is, in the last couple “you might also like” pages that they’ve sent me regarding fantasy, I haven’t recognized a single author or title. Not one.

Use to be, when I would window-shop in a bookstore (if you can actually window-shop when you’re already inside), I would see many books with familiar names: Robert Jordan, J. K. Rowling, Orsen Scott Card, Brandon Sanderson, George R. R. Martin, Stephenie Meyer, Holly Black, Terry Prachett, Suzanne Collins. You know—the authors who hit the best-seller lists or who had their books turned into movies or TV shows.

A lot of these stories were familiar even if I hadn’t read the books myself. Others were talking about them. They were familiar. They had the attention of a lot of readers, a lot of fantasy fans.

Christian fiction has had its own list of authors: Karen Hancock, Donita Paul, Bryan Davis, Jill Williamson, Patrick Carr.

Since the explosion of indie books, I have done more reading of authors who haven’t attracted as much attention: K. M. Weiland, for instance, or D. C. Marino, or Sally Apokedak.

When I received those Amazon emails promoting fantasy they thought I might want to read, I was left scratching my head. Who were those authors? Have they gained popularity and I just didn’t notice? It’s possible. Made me feel out of touch. I mean, this is my genre. I should know who’s writing the good books, who readers are reading.

So I’m wondering: Who would you all consider the good, contemporary fantasy writers? Not those writing superhero books. Or science fiction. Or supernatural. I know that steampunk fantasy became popular in Christian fiction (and in indie publishing) for a time. Was it (is it) also popular in general market books?

I’ve heard traditional or classic fantasy has made a resurgence. Who’s writing those books?

In reality, I just want to pick your collective brains. Do you read fantasy? Who are the authors—general market, Christian, or indie—that you have read recently? What author would you recommend?

Gillian Adams got us started last month in her article “What Wonderful Worlds.” Your turn.

I want to have some working knowledge next time Amazon sends me a fantasy book recommendation. (It’s a little embarrassing for a fantasy writer not to know who is the most popular fantasy writer of the day! But please, don’t rat me out!)

Hi, I’m Travis Perry–yeah, I know there’s a short bio of me with this article, but I think I’d like to introduce myself in a different way. Most of you have most likely seen at least an article or two I’ve written here for Speculative Faith. What you may not realize is how much I like so-called “hard” science fiction. Which has lead me to ask, “Where are the hard science fiction writers who are Christians?” Please allow me to explain the question:

Hard science fiction, in case you didn’t know, is the name for sci fi that treats the laws of physics as if they really matter. Hard science fiction tries to explore things that really could happen in the future, as opposed to space opera, which is really about telling an exciting story with space as a backdrop.

Star Wars is of course classic space opera, widely considered science fiction by most people, but you could just as well call it space fantasy. Not because it would be impossible to make a sword based on highly heated plasma (to pick just one example), but if you managed to to make such a machine and held it anywhere near your face (as Luke Skywalker often did), you’d burn your face off. (Though Darth Vader’s face mask would presumably provide some heat protection, so he’d be okay, I guess 🙂 .) Star Wars light sabers don’t exist because they could work, but because they parallel real swords. There’s something cool about imagining sword fighting returning in a new, sort of space-magic way.

Just because I prefer hard science fiction doesn’t mean I don’t ever like space opera, by the way. I’ve enjoyed Star Wars. Please note that Star Trek is also basically space opera, however, Star Trek at times plays with ideas that relate to real physics. We could maybe call Star Trek “hard science fiction-flavored space opera.” (Ditto for Dr. Who, though Who has somewhat less of the flavor of scientific plausibility than Star Trek.)

Superhero stories are another kind of fantasy. Getting bit by a radioactive (or bio-engineered) spider would kill you, not make you into a superhero. The Incredible Hulk might grow larger in rage, but his own body cannot simply get bigger to become the Hulk, not from a hard science fiction point of view, because the law of conservation of matter would apply so as he got bigger, so his body would become less dense. The Hulk, even if very strong, would have the body consistency of the Stay Puft marshmallow man (from Ghostbusters). (For Hulk to get bigger and weigh more, he’d have to steal mass from another dimension or something. But where does that extra mass go when he turns smaller again?)

Plus wearing Iron Man’s metal suit would not spare him from g-force damage from hard impacts. Or saying a yellow sun gives Superman the power to fly doesn’t even have a hypothetical explanation, but if it did, wouldn’t he have less power at night? Etc. Etc.

I personally prefer fantasy to be forthrightly set in another world or dimension with magical creatures over pseudo science, though I have a little bit of tolerance for pseudo science. One thing I especially like about epic fantasy is the way such stories can contrast the struggle between good and evil in a way that some people may complain is not realistic, since so few villains or heroes in the real world are so wholly good or bad. But by showing the baddest possible bad, an epic fantasy story can comment on what evil actually is, what the nature of true wickedness is–and of course the nature of goodness as well, illuminating moral truth in a way a more realistic story often fails to do. (E.g. no one can turn the power of evil into good, proclaims The Lord of the Rings–the best good can do is put away evil, first by resisting it, then by appealing to the type of destructive event seen at Mount Doom, liberation coming through the hero’s self-sacrifice.)

My favorite space opera and superhero stories also feature strong contrasts between good and evil. In fact, a common criticism of mine concerning superhero stories is they far too often fail to show either convincing villains or sufficiently evil villains.

So having said all that, how is it that I can and do like stories that aren’t hard sci-fi, yet still say I really like it? What’s the reason I like hard science fiction at all?

I used to be one of those dinosaur book readers as a small child and I followed it up by reading about outer space and rockets and history and many things. While fantasy has its appeal, the real universe is cool–things that have really happened in human history and the history of the universe are fascinating. God is painting on a canvas of actual events and through the laws of nature, if we have the eyes to see his working through the real world.

So I read science first and then checked out the “science fiction” section of my middle school library because it had the word “science” in it. Seriously. I immediately ran into stories (from the 50s) that talked about exploration of the moon and other planets. For me at that time, what was interesting about all this was the idea it could really happen–that maybe someday I would get to see another world, that maybe I would walk on Mars myself. These story worlds, these projections onto other planets were inherently more interesting than whatever was going on with the characters–though of course the characters could be interesting, too.

I found myself liking stories driven by ideas that at least seemed very plausible. For example, what if there was a story in which scientists used modern DNA techniques to bring dinosaurs back, so they live today? Of course, I’m laughing as I write that–this idea has already been done in Jurassic Park and its many sequels, a story much more fascinating because of the ideas behind it than because of any of its characters. Though I suppose the characters were at least somewhat engaging, too. Especially Malcolm.

In fact, virtually every Michael Crichton story qualifies as hard science fiction, even the novel he wrote set in the dark ages (Eaters of the Dead) made into the movie The Thirteenth Warrior, in which Crichton in effect sent the closest thing to a scientific observer of the era (the Arab character), into the world of Vikings. And then established a credible scientific explanation for the type of monster known as “Grendel” in Beowulf. 

Ideas that are not fully “hard” have influenced science fiction beyond what you may realize. The novel series Dune has a very medieval feel to it–lots of personal combat, though with knives instead of swords. But why do they fight with knives?–because personal shield technology is so common in the story world that guns are largely useless. The idea of personal shields may not work as far as the technology involved would be concerned, but the story gives a real reason why knife fighting is a thing in a way that makes internal sense to the story. There are many examples of this sort of thing in the history of science fiction.

In films, hard science fiction shows itself in realistic pondering of the effects of genetics testing and engineering on human society in Gattaca. This kind of story that realistically looks at future technology and its effects on society with implications that could easily been religious and which would seem to be a natural zone for Christian authors to engage. But I don’t see much sign that we are.

Hard science fiction is also in many other (but not all) dystopian tales, military science fiction (Starship Troopers is probably the most famous example in film), and in cyberpunk stories or LitRPG tales like Ready Player One (since they are based on actual computer technology or tech-coming-soon). Space opera and superhero tales gather greater box office sales, but stories with more of a “science” quotient in their science fiction represent a major segment of speculative fiction sales in print and in films worldwide.

So hard science fiction or stories that trend that direction are a major, worldwide thing. Yet among those Christian friends writing speculative fiction with Christian themes (or at least not in complete opposition to a Christian world view), how many are writing hard science fiction or even leaning that direction? I know of two, Kerry Nietz, who often writes cyberpunk and in general incorporates hard science fiction ideas in his stories and Steve Rzasa writing things that at times are probably space opera, at times hard sci fi. And Lelia Rose Foreman, who almost always sticks to scientific plausibility, including showing realistic shifts in language and culture. (I suppose I might constitute a fourth such writer, especially in anthologies I’ve published and contributed stories to like Medieval Mars and Victorian Venus or Andrea J. Graham’s WebSurfer antho). And…surely I must be missing somebody, right?

Yeah, I know there has to be others. And I actually do know some short story writers also veering in the direction of hard science fiction. But not many. At the primary conference focused on speculative fiction writers “of faith,” Realm Makers, science fiction of any kind is very much outnumbered by fantasy. And among the science fiction that’s there, most is space opera– the selection of hard science fiction is pretty small, comparatively speaking.

And that brings me back to the question I used to title this post. Where are the Christians writing hard science fiction? Why does my intuitive sense of proportions sense that the percentage of hard sci fi types is much lower among Christians than in the speculative fiction world overall? Am I even correct about that? And if I am correct, what do you think is the cause of this phenomenon?

And who did I forget to mention among Christian authors writing hard science fiction? Let me know in the comments below.