Hi, my name is Beth Goddard and … oh, wait. Beth was up for today, but due to a melding of our minds, errr, a sharing of our brains … well, anyway, Beth and I will be trading off on Thursdays and I offered to go first.

Okay, so … I’m Shannon, and I’ve been dreaming up stories and living in alternate realities as far back as I can remember. I grew up listening to Star Trek on syndication after The Tonight Show, because although my mom would put me to bed at 8 pm or so, I’d lie awake for a long while. I think I’ve heard every episode at least twice.

My discovery of written SF/F came at age ten, when a slightly older friend corrupted me with my first reading of Terry Brooks’ The Sword of Shannara. (Of course, I didn’t know then that it’s a “Tolkien ripoff” because I hadn’t yet read Tolkien.) Then came Heinlein, with Door Into Summer—I still remember the cat insisting on trying all the doors because he didn’t want to go out in the snow—and Anne McCaffery’s Pern series—until at last, in junior high, a fellow student loaned me The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis. When my mom explained that Aslan was symbolic of Jesus, my world was transformed. Science fiction and fantasy could be merged with my Christian faith? What an absolutely cool idea!

Much later came the discovery of contemporary SF/F written from a Christian worldview—Stephen Lawhead, Robin Hardy, Calvin Miller. I devoured all I could get my hands on, even when I thought it was a bit cheesy.

Then, the wave of Christian speculative fiction just subsided. At least I still had C.S. Lewis.

Tune in next time for a discussion of the “current wave” of Christian spec fic …