If you take four women with a few things in common and sit them around a breakfast table on New Year’s Day, what are the chances they’ll decide to start a publishing company together? The chances probably aren’t very good, but that’s what happened to us. This is our story.

Where we were

The omelets and bacon and hashbrowns weren’t the center of conversation that New Year’s Day morning in 2014. No, even as we slathered jam on our toast, we recognized that we were discussing something impossible.

Start a publishing company? Were we crazy? Looking back, maybe we were, but I don’t believe insanity played any role in our decision to start Crosshair Press. Maybe the four of us didn’t have a lot of business sense or money or time, and we certainly had no idea what we were getting into. But there was one thing we knew for sure—there was a need, and God had given the four of us a desire to do something about it.

So when He told us to take the leap, we did, and none of us have looked back yet. Honestly, we still marvel about how much fun we’re having. With all the crazy stress and ridiculous things that have happened in the last year, you’d think we would have felt like throwing in the towel at some point. But instead of wanting to bail on our fledgling independent press, we actually are more and more excited for all God has for us.

Where we are now

Crosshair Press wants to provide excellent stories full of action and adventure, all written from a biblical worldview. At first, we only wanted to offer speculative fiction, because that’s a genre all four of us really love, but after consulting with a true industry expert (the incredible Mr. Jeff Gerke), we decided to spread our bets a bit and diversify, if you’ll pardon the over-used cliché.

In 2014, we released two titles, Overcomers and Nameless: The Destiny Trilogy, Part One.

Overcomers didn’t get a lot of fanfare, even though it was technically our very first release (November 2014). Overcomers is an ironic book. We never planned to get into children’s fiction, but the Lord opened a door for us to do something awesome for one of His precious children.

Overcomers is a book of short fiction for tweens (ages 8 to 12). It’s probably best suited for girls, but boys might enjoy it too. It has everything—sports and spaceships and everyday life. But the best thing about Overcomers? Crosshair Press doesn’t make a dime on it. All profits from Overcomers go directly to Team Mallorie, the support group behind a girl who was diagnosed with leukemia at age 11.

Seven published authors, including several from Focus on the Family, donated their work to make the book happen. A fantastic graphic designer donated the cover. So far, Crosshair Press has been able to give Team Mallorie more than $400. And that’s in the same year that we started our small press and were paying back our start-up costs. If that’s not a God thing, I don’t know what is.

Our second title, Nameless, was released through our mature reader imprint, Steel Rigg. Nameless (December 2014) is the first book in an epic, gritty space opera. In six months, Nameless has racked up nearly 20 4-or-5 star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, a spectacular review in Publishers Weekly, and a thrilling endorsement by New York Times Best-Selling Author Tosca Lee. The book paid for itself in its first print run. We’re overwhelmed by its popularity and the incredible support from our awesome fans.

Our most recent release, Finding Fireflies (February 2015, is a laugh-out-loud romantic comedy set in Kansas, featuring a perpetually single, 30-something church secretary, an engineer, and a prostitute. Funded primarily through a crowdfunding campaign on Pubslush.com, Finding Fireflies made a huge splash—but not for the reasons we expected. The book was intended to entertain people. Quite frankly, the four of us at Crosshair designed it to fund our science fiction habit, as we like to call our other works.

But Finding Fireflies has ended up becoming a vehicle to talk about an issue every major U.S. city struggles with—sex trafficking. It’s an issue every city faces but nobody knows how to stop, and it’s central to the storyline in Finding Fireflies. The reviews are in, and it’s already generating conversations.

What’s next for Crosshair Press?

After a successful 2014 and a great start to 2015, we have more great stories on the way. In May or June of this year, the world will get to experience one of the most exciting adventures we’ve ever come across, a brand new series called The Katiller. It’s action/adventure at its very best, packed with bright characters, snappy dialogue, and questions that challenge the way you think.

Then, what everybody has been asking for! The sequel to Nameless hits the shelves in December 2015. Namesake picks up where Nameless leaves off, with Xander and the valiant crew of the Prodigal poised to attack the flagship of the Knightshade Syndicate. All we can say, folks, is buckle your seatbelts and have your tissues ready.

Author A. C. Williams

2016 is wide open. Crosshair plans to open for submissions in January, and we already know 2016 will bring the conclusion of the Destiny Trilogy as well as the introduction of an epic urban fantasy series for young adults, 25 years in the making. We’ve already started pre-production work on it, even though it’s not slated for release until early 2016. It’s that huge.

The future is bright, and the four founders of Crosshair Press are more excited today than we were a year ago when we were just starting out. At least one of us will be at Realm Makers in St. Louis this year, and if you want to hear more about our awesome God-story, please come track us down.

It’s His story, after all. We’re just along for the ride.

I remember studying various Shakespearean plays when I was in school. A notable character named Falstaff (Sir John Falstaff, “one of the most famous comic characters in all English literature,” according to Encyclopedia Britannica) appeared in four of those illustrious dramas, albeit not as the protagonist in any of them. The only knock on Falstaff was that he was such a great character, so larger than life, that he stole the scenes in which he appeared.

Great secondary characters are like that. The story is not about them really, but they add so much, they make the story so much richer, that they become as memorable as the protagonist. Recently my thoughts have gone to secondary characters in speculative fiction. Are there any truly outstanding ones?

At once I thought of books by J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, the giants of fantasy, who in so many ways have shown the way for all speculative writers. In The Lord Of The Rings trilogy Gandalf comes to mind as a memorable secondary character. But so does Golum and so does Sam Gamgee.

Aslan in Lewis’s Narnia series is also a memorable second. Of course an argument can be made that Aslan is actually the protagonist because he is the unifying factor in all seven books; in essence, the stories are all his stories. But none of them is actually about him, the way we usually think of a story being about a protagonist. So I suppose that example is somewhat ambiguous.

But what about recent speculative fiction? More specifically, what about recent Christian speculative fiction—are there any memorable secondary characters? Tat their heart, these are characters so unique, so well drawn, they can be scene stealers, or nearly so.

A handful came to mind—and primarily because I read more fantasy than science fiction, these examples are mostly from fantasy.

Perhaps the most notable to me is a recurring character in Anne Elisabeth Stengl’s Tales Of Goldstone Wood series. Anyone who’s read the books probably knows to whom I refer—the shape-shifting faery Eanrin, sometime cat, sometime man, always faery. In truth, his role in a number of the books is critical. While adding some humor from time to time, a la Falstaff, Eanrin definitely contributes more to the stories than comic relief.

In Donita Paul’s first series, the DragonKeeper Chronicles, several characters stepped forward as memorable seconds. First came Wizard Fenworth, with bog creatures nesting in his beard and his habit of becoming treelike to the point that it’s hard to tell him apart from an actual tree.

Another is Rigador. This last (or so we thought) of the meech dragons is fearsome, precocious, elegant, and strong. He commands the page as much as any room he might walk into.

In Ms. Paul’s latest series The Realm Walkers, another dragon takes the key role as significant second. Bridger, one of the intelligent mor dragons who become constants with the Realm Walkers, wants to attach to Cantor, the protagonist. He fills the bill when it comes to humor because his bumbling ineptitude can be comical, but he nevertheless comes through when it counts most.

Bryan Davis created a memorable secondary character in his first series, Raising Dragons. Billy’s friend Walter is funny, forthright, and sometimes clueless. But he was such a delightful character, in large part because of his strong voice, that he later became one of the main characters in an ensuing series.

In the future-release side of things, an Enclave Publishing series, Space Drifters (book due out in June 2015) by Paul Regnier, has a comic relief character in this comedic adventure science fiction. The quirky, quick-witted character, however, is actually the spaceship’s computer.

I think it’s interesting that these memorable characters often have an element of humor associated with them. I’m not sure that’s a requirement, but the more I thought of other secondary characters in other books, the more I realized not a lot of them were memorable.

But maybe that’s me. What secondary characters are memorable to you? Do they add humor? What qualities cause them to stand out in your mind?

Have you ever listened to a song so powerful it brought tears to your eyes? Or heard a melody so strong it set your heart pumping and stirred your limbs to action? Music forms an integral part of my novel Orphan’s Song, so naturally, I wish I could claim credit for first dreaming up the concept of blending music and magic and powerful songs in fantasy.

But I can’t.

Honesty chains my tongue.

The “greats” beat me to it, not to mention the authors since their day who have penned novels with powerful music forming anything from a side-note to a central piece of the story. To which “greats” do I refer? I’m talking, of course, about Tolkien and Lewis — probably two of the most oft-quoted fantasy authors in the history of mankind … and elvenkind … and talking animalkind.

(I realize that I risk being relegated to the realm of the stereotypical when I admit Tolkien and Lewis were some of the authors who shaped my early reading and writing years, but once again honesty, right?)

From the first moment I picked up The Silmarillion, I was captivated by the story. But when I stumbled across the following snippet from the Lay of Leithian, the words seized me by the throat and refused to let go. Like Beren at the first sight of Luthien, I stood as one under a spell.

Then sudden Felagund there swaying
Sang in answer a song of staying,
Resisting, battling against power,
Of secrets kept, strength like a tower,
And trust unbroken, freedom, escape;
Of changing and of shifting shape,
Of snares eluded, broken traps,
The prison opening, the chain that snaps.

— The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien

I was held captive by the hypnotic cadence, enthralled by the force of the lyrical words, and fascinated with the concept of the “songs of power” with which Felagund and Sauron fought.

Another powerful song makes its appearance when Luthien sings a deep sleep over all of Angband, enabling the heist of the Silmaril from Morgoth’s crown. And in Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, music summons the dawning of a world when Aslan sings Narnia to life.

The Lion was pacing to and fro about that empty land and singing his new song. It was softer and more lilting than the song by which he had called up the stars and the sun; a gentle, rippling music. And as he walked and sang, the valley grew green with grass.

— The Magician’s Nephew, C.S. Lewis

Beautiful, isn’t it?

But what about more recent fantasy—does music make an appearance there as well?

In recent years, the realm of Christian speculative fiction has seen the Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson where the songs of the ancient stones possess the power to transform and those of the Songmaiden are powerful. Or D. Barkley Briggs’s Legends of Karac Tor series where one of the characters has the ability to play the powerful “song of Aion.”

There are other speculative fiction titles I have discovered—in both the Christian and secular markets—that utilize music or melody or songs of power in some unique way.

Naturally, it set me to wondering, “Why music?”

What was it about music that drew me and these other authors to write it into our storyworlds? I pondered the question for some time before settling on what I think is the answer. A remarkably simple answer, actually.

I think it is because music possesses an undeniable power. As with the written word, the combining and blending of notes and rhythms offers endless possibility and carries the ability to strike at the hearts of all who listen—to both convey and produce emotion. The ability of music to sway the heart is something most people would acknowledge. Because of that, envisioning music as magic doesn’t require a great leap of the imagination on the reader’s part. It is hardly more than a child’s step.

Because the power of music is something most readers have experienced, when it is portrayed in fantasy, it is understandable, relatable, and resonates deep within the soul.

If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is.

Deep below, a sepulchral rumbling from the depths of the earth—a distant melody—rose to greet her. Warm as a summer sunrise, the song caught her up in its embrace. The tears dried on her face. Her sorrow eased. The song was familiar—she had known it all her life—and yet new and wondrous, something too great to be fully known or understood. It spiraled upward, carrying her soul to reach for the sky.

— Orphan’s Song, Gillian Bronte Adams

Have you read a novel where music and magic became one? Why do you think music is often portrayed as powerful?

Occasionally at SpecFaith we discuss why Christians condemn fantastical stories, and may forget that secular authorities hold even worse views about fairy tales or science fiction.

This month’s fantasy controversy is inspired by Cinderella, director Kenneth Branagh’s live-action adaptation of the classic fairy tale (adapted from the original Disney animated film). I loved the film, because thanks to positive reviews I expected a classic, fantastical, and fun yet thoughtful version of the fairy-tale story that respects the source materials.

But that wasn’t good enough for some reviewers and high-falutin’ Child Specialists who expected the film to be something more, something More Important than silly fairy tales.

Where have we heard that before?

One reviewer¹ said she wanted Cinderella somehow to marry her childhood princess dreams with secular-feminist empowerment fantasy. She concluded the new Cinderella just doesn’t have a waspishly narrow social-justice waistline as it should. Also in her view the movie is not nearly as amazing and progressive as Frozen.²

Second we hear the “be careful little eyes what you see” response, courtesy of someone who probably never heard the catchy yet arguably moralistic Sunday-school song:

“Depicting a female who appears utterly helpless until a male swoops in and rescues her from all of her troubles sends a troubling message,” [psychotherapist and author Amy Morin] tells Yahoo Parenting. “Girls may learn, ‘I can’t solve my problems, but a boy could.’ It’s much healthier for girls to recognize their own problem-solving skills, rather than look to boys as the solution.” ³

And finally, the “mind of metal and wheels” response, courtesy of this chap:

“It’s a misguided notion that these stories are going to have lasting significance to a child,” David Elkind, a professor and department chairman of the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University, tells Yahoo Parenting. “Cinderella doesn’t do any harm. It’s just a charming story. Kids enjoy fairy tales and these stories fulfill fantasies.”⁴

I don’t know these speakers’ motives or personal backgrounds. But I do know that some who condemn fairy stories, or who hold themselves above stories, end up effectively cast in the story. Professing to be very important real-world heroes, they become something else.

Materialist magicians

Three materialist magicians from three different stories come to mind — Uncle Andrew from C.S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, the formerly white wizard Saruman from The Lord of the Rings, and Lord Voldemort from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.

Uncle Andrew is likely Lewis’s personification of a phrase Lewis used in The Screwtape Letters.⁵ Andrew is not a true magician (whether good or corrupt), but a dabbler and a fool. In the new land of Narnia, with magic blossoming all around him, he only thinks how impossible it is. The man who made magical rings refuses to believe a Lion can sing. And his sense of “wonder” is only aroused when he wrongly concludes he can use Narnia’s magic to get rich.

Saruman is similar but far more sinister and ambitious. A member of the magical Ishtari charged with helping Middle-earth, he becomes ensnared by misdirected pragmatism— use any means necessary to “help” the land. Finally his goal is corrupted. He does not enjoy or help the land, only uses it. As Treebeard says, Saruman “has a mind of metal and wheels and he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment.”

Lord Voldemort has no family built on love. Only servants.

Lord Voldemort was literally conceived under the effects of a spell that replaces true love with illusory infatuation. The wizard grows to use magic not in the standard, daily-life scenarios normal witches and wizards use it, but for his own selfish and loveless ends.

If you see a film like Cinderella (or only hear about it, as some critical voices seem to have done) you may have two responses. The first is like mine: happiness that a team of creators got it right and made such a splendid spectacle filled with pictures of restored humanity. The second is not like my response but is close enough: you don’t like those kinds of stories but at least recognize what the creators wanted to do for those who do like these stories.

But the response of the materialist magician is like this: “That sort of story is of no practical value. It doesn’t help with my own work. It won’t be Useful to help people be educated, or find jobs, or spend their lives enslaved to my joyless struggle for some kind of Social Justice. And there’s no way this story could inspire my (vaguely defined) view of better humanity.”

The materialist magician dabbles with beauty and truth but refuses to embrace its wonder and its Maker, uses magic as a machine to achieve selfish political ends, and even replaces a vision of restored “normal” humanity with into a life of loveless and naked ambition.

Sour stepmothers

The “materialist magician” motif explains the aloof and patronizing responses to Cinderella and other fantastical stories. That doesn’t yet explain the bitter and hostile responses.

One reason may come from Cinderella itself, at the moment when the film’s supposedly weak and helpless princess confronts her stepmother. Lady Tremaine, having subjected her stepdaughter to verbal and other ill treatment, now brings her abuse to a whole new level. She even shares her tragic backstory, the kind that often gets some villains off the hook, but this story will have none of that: Tragic backstory does not excuse abusive behavior.

“Why are you so cruel?” Cinderella asks her, genuinely struggling to understand

“Because you are young, and innocent, and good,” stepmother spits back. “And I …”

Brilliantly for the film, Lady Tremaine leaves it unfinished before locking Cinderella away.

In my interpretation, even the sour stepmother can’t admit the fact: She simply wants to destroy goodness because she herself is not good and can’t stand the reminder.

In this story version, Cinderella has not been merely a suffer-in-silence figure. She is a true heroine who strives for impossible ideals — an attitude of servanthood and love for others, despite their wickedness. Her outlook reflects Christ (who does take human crap on himself but only for so long). And Cinderella’s outlook happens to balances dual biblical truths near-perfectly: that yes, people must turn the other cheek in response to some attacks; but also that we must wisely discern between such surface attacks and worse attacks on our very humanity, when we must defend not merely ourselves but the image-of-God within us.

That balance of suffering-servanthood and human-rights-defense makes no sense to some activists. Their lives, too, are often driven by of metal and wheels and not love of growing things: No, everything must serve The Cause, and The Cause must serve My Rights (under the guise of improving mankind and such). And when someone opposes you — or seems to — why, that’s an attack and you must strike them down or else get hurt or abused again!

Is this why some reviewers can’t stand Cinderella and make their opposition so personal?

Is this why some recoil from the story’s picture of a more-biblical response to injustice?

If so, then we definitely need more fairy tales like Cinderella. We also need a certain other Story that is even more beautiful, bursting with color and good conquering evil, and that refuses to go away or serve our lesser goals of materialist-magic or sour-stepmothering.

I thought that, this Wednesday, we could all have fun talking about the things that bother us. Yes, it’s time to air our pet peeves – literary pet peeves, of course, which is why I’m not going to bring up cluttered countertops and the evident conviction some people have that anything slipped between the fresh fruit and the bread never has to be put away.

I’ll start. One thing I can’t stand in fiction – it’s a deal-breaker in any novel or movie – is …

No truly good or likable characters. I once saw a black-and-white film called Christmas in Connecticut. It had every appearance of being a quaint, old-time movie, until I realized that every character in it was a jerk. The heroine wrote a column for a magazine, a job she had gotten by lying to everyone about her life. With her boss about to find out, she agreed to marry a man who could bail her out, and together they commenced Operation Fake Out the Boss. Or as the movie is called, Christmas in Connecticut.

The boss, a presumptuous and, yes, unlikable sort, invited a few people to go along to Christmas in Connecticut. One of them turned out to be The Hero, and of course he and the heroine fell in love, which meant dumping her fiance. But don’t feel too bad about it! He wasn’t too pleasant a guy, either. It would have involved The Hero dumping his girlfriend, too – who, by the way, he had romanced solely to get privileges at a military hospital – but shortly before the curtain closed, she dumped him. For his friend.

In a story like this, there is no character worth rooting for. In a better world, they would all lose. What I want in fiction is heroes I can root for, not heroes whose moral deficiency leaves me feeling the same ambivalence a writer once expressed regarding the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s: “Why can’t they both lose?”

Excessive romantic sap. Note the word excessive. I don’t mind romance at all, but sometimes authors lay the sap on too thick. I once read a book – a good book, despite the fact that I’m dragging it into my literary complaints – that had one too many I love you, you love me! moments. I wanted to take the heroine aside (it was written from her viewpoint) and say, “Look, I’m not in this to hear how your boyfriend’s eyes make you feel. I’m here for the superpower-inducing bracelet and the master criminals and the supernatural warfare. So let’s get back to the plot, shall we?”

The Missing Number. In these days, when every book becomes a series and the story never ends, you never want to read a book without first finding out its number – you know, whether it’s number one, three, nine, et cetera. This is important information, and if it’s not on the front cover, it ought to be prominent on the back cover.

But publishers have gotten furtive. I can’t recount the number of times I’ve stood in an aisle examining a novel, trying to determine if it was (1) part of a series, and (2) if so, which part.

It’s true that if you really examine books – if you read both covers thoroughly, including the author’s bio, and skim through the first pages – you will probably be able to figure out what the vital number is. But you know something? We readers don’t want to really examine every novel that interests us. And we don’t think we should have to. We think all you publishers should just let us know. We don’t like getting a book only to be sandbagged by the revelation that it is #2 (3, 4, 5 …) in a series, nor do we like to be made to parody Edgar Allan Poe’s detectives, searching for the missing number, so GIVE US A FRIENDLY TIP-OFF, OK?

Okay.

Now it’s your turn. What are your literary pet peeves?

Covers, covers, covers. What’s in a book cover, particularly in this day and technological age when covers are likely thumbnail digital images? Apparently they still matter to the extend that publishers are re-releasing books with revamped covers.

Just recently Spec Faith carried the news announcement that Enclave Publishing has given the first two books in Morgan Bussey’s fantasy trilogy, Sons of Truth, new covers. Then this weekend Ashlee Willis contacted me about the new cover for her fantasy, The Word Changers. She now has an entirely different (and very gorgeous) cover—a sharp contrast, in my opinion, to the original.

But I hardly consider myself a good judge. My reading developed in an era that didn’t put a lot into book covers. Take, for example, the covers on my copies of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy—rather plain. Consequently, I went for most of my reading life not really looking at covers and certainly not judging whether or not I wanted to read a book based on its cover.

When I started writing full time, I had the opportunity to talk to other writers who told me how much they paid attention to covers. I thought it was simply a matter of preference until I heard feedback on Karen Hancock’s first book in her Guardian-King tetralogy, The Light Of Eidon. In fact, the feedback might have been on the first three books. At any rate, this group of readers/bloggers (part of a tour, as I recall) agreed that the covers had dissuaded them from reading the books sooner, that they appeared to be more like romance covers than fantasy covers, and therefore didn’t appeal, especially to male readers (even though the protagonist is a man).

I heard similar feedback about Anne Elisabeth Stengl’s first six books in the Tales Of Goldstone Wood series. Of course, her protagonists are most often women, but men figure prominently in the stories. And although there might be romance in some, they are by no means romance stories. They are solidly and irrevocably fantasies.

Clearly some readers are making reading decisions based on covers. I’ll admit, I’ve started taking more notice of them. I don’t have a practiced eye, but I generally can spot what appears to be a cover created by an amateur. I don’t know enough about the process of designing them to know why one looks professional and the other looks like a low-budget production, but I do know the cover influences my expectations of the book.

On the other hand, I can think of several books that received great covers from their publishers. I mean, great! I ordered one from a bookstore, and when I went to pick it up, the clerk gasped. Actually gasped. Then said, I didn’t know there were any Christian fantasies.

The sad thing is, the stories didn’t always match the great covers. Some were too predictable or the characters weren’t well drawn. Some opened too slowly and didn’t hook readers enough to keep reading. In those instances, the gorgeous covers caught readers attention and many bought the books. But they didn’t buy the next one or the next, even though the covers were equally well done, because the story let them down.

All that to say, covers are important, but they can’t make up for a deficient story. They are like first contact. If it goes well there will be a return visit and perhaps a cultural exchange, then a treaty and eventually admission into the Federation.

Covers are also like job applications. If they communicate what the reader is looking for, then a back-cover-copy interview is in order, then perhaps a chapter-preview second interview, resulting in “hiring” the book. Sitting down to read it is like job-probation. As long as it’s fulfilling expectations, readers will keep going, but if there’s any loafing on the job, there might be a second chance, but probably not a third. That book will get its shiny, well-designed cover sat down on the shelf, never to see the light of day again.

So what are your thoughts about book covers? What makes them particularly enticing to you? Do you think Christian publishers are purposefully trying to make their speculative covers more appealing to women? Do men read fantasy even if the cover seems slanted toward women?

If you’re interested, Steve Laube is running a poll today on book covers

The SpecFaith Library is a comprehensive guide to every published Christian fantastical novel. Anyone can submit a novel to the SpecFaith Library using the submission form.

Since SpecFaith’s initial 2015 site upgrade went live on March 1, we have added more than a dozen new titles to the Library. Most of those titles are thanks to our readers who use the submission form to add their favorites. Some titles are added by authors who want to share their stories. Some are added by fans who happen to know of a novel we haven’t yet found.

The SpecFaith Library may list any novel that is:

• Based on a biblical Christian worldview;
• Fantastical in nature and theme;
• Complete and published (includes self-published titles).

Yet questions about the Library remain. This article will address some of those, starting with possible questions that I (Stephen) make up and then answer. In the comments we can have further discussion about the Library, including non-made-up reader questions.

Then this Q and A page can be available as evergreen content to answer Library queries.

Let’s begin now:

Q. What do you mean by ‘based on a biblical Christian worldview’?

A. Articles and whole books can be written — and some SpecFaith writers have done so! —about “a biblical Christian worldview” or exploring the definition(s) of “a Christian story.”

For the SpecFaith Library, readers or authors who submit a novel are themselves declaring that the novel is based on a biblical Christian worldview. But SpecFaith’s volunteers do not usually have the time to “vet” the book’s content (to say nothing of the near-spiritually-impossible task of investigating whether an author’s faith counts as biblical Christianity).

Occasionally someone will submit a novel that is clearly written to advocate beliefs that do not qualify as even minimal, quasi-biblical Christianity. One Library submission was turned down because cursory research showed the novel advocated anti-biblical “spirituality.”

Q. I read a novel from the Library and it didn’t seem very Christian!

A. This is a side effect of following the honor system — and it’s a good opportunity for you to be a discerning reader, who can nonetheless glorify God in contrast to the novel’s view.

Post a comment about the story. Or write a 300-word-plus review for a wider audience.

Q. What do you mean by ‘fantastical in nature and theme’?

A. Other sites list novels across all genres. But SpecFaith exists to explore fantastical stories for God’s glory. Thus, the Library lists only novels with stories, characters, and places not normally found in reality. Fantastical genres include, but are not limited to: fantasy, fairy tales, science fiction, space fantasy/opera, alternate history, paranormal suspense, magical realism, and superhero/urban fantasy (and stories that combine any of these genres).

Occasionally someone will submit a novel that includes only minimal fantastic elements. For example, a contemporary or historical novel could have a character who pursues dreams or visions from God, or other subtle miraculous elements. But it’s not fantastical.

Q. What do you mean by ‘complete and published’?

A. Once a literary agency proposed an unpublished novel series to the SpecFaith Library. (The project was later picked up by an independent Christian fantastical-fiction publisher.)

But the SpecFaith Library is not a manuscript vetting service or a publishing company. Our goal is to help readers find novels that are already published and available to read. Thus, we include old books, new books, physical books, e-books, and books from any publisher.

Q. What if I found an error in a Library listing?

A. Please let us know using the suggestion box. Also be aware that occasionally a book will change publishers, covers or even titles — changes not immediately shown in the Library.

Q. What if a book says it’s “self-published,” but it’s not a self-publisher?

A. As of March 2015, the SpecFaith Library includes nearly 140 publishing names. Given the growth of print-on-demand publishing, that number is always increasing! Moreover, it’s not always clear from novel submissions if the publisher is the author’s or is an independent company. If after initial research we have still made the wrong call and classified the publisher as a self-publisher, let us know using the submission box.

Q. Why does the page look weird for some titles?

A. The upgraded site displays Library novel covers differently. We’re cleaning it up.

Q. Can you review my novel?

A. We can’t necessarily promise a review (even in exchange for free novels, as tempting as that is!). But you can start by submitting your novel for possible inclusion in the SpecFaith Library. Good stories rise to the top, and we have seen popular novels listed in the Library spark thriving conversations and many reviews.¹

What’s your SpecFaith Library question?

One of the knocks on Christian fiction, or readers of Christian fiction, depending on who is doing the criticizing, is that there are taboos against profanity and graphic or explicit sexual activity but all stops are out when it comes to violence. Speculative fiction, by the nature of its good verse evil trope, seems to lend itself to a lot of violence, so the increase in Christian speculative fiction, whether provided by traditional publishers, small presses, or self-publishing, seems to add to the “all stops out” perception as far as violence is concerned.

Interestingly, most of the critics don’t seem to be saying violence should be tempered, even reigned back, in order to be more consistent with the language and sexual standards. Rather, the approach seems more to be a means to shame readers for tolerating such “hypocrisy.”

I’ve answered those criticisms from my own personal perspective. Language goes straight into my mind and sexually explicit scenes can be titillating, for men or women, or both. On the other hand, violence on screen doesn’t incite in me the desire to perpetrate violence. It doesn’t induce me to hate.

But . . .

Recently I saw the trailer for the movie version of Insurgent, book two of the Divergent series by Veronica Roth, a professing Christian. Even before realizing what I was watching, I thought that the story seemed particularly violent. Too violent? Did I want to see a movie with such willful inhumanity to man?

The fact that I had those thoughts is an indicator that even I, who do not find violence an enticement to do evil, have some innate sense of enough is enough.

Yet the fact remains: speculative fiction is built upon a violent struggle. The goal is never to learn to co-exist with evil or to just learn to get along or to agree to disagree. Instead, two opposing forces, two incompatible worldviews square off. Because they are mutually exclusive and both have their fierce proponents willing to die before they’d surrender, a lot of people die.

Rick Copple brought up some important points in his excellent article this past January entitled “Christianity, Gore, And Death.” Essentially, he said our culture, including Christians, has become fascinated with death, but only on the entertainment level. We still hide actual death away, whereas the Bible confronted it head on. The question for writers as believers is how do we handle death:

Are the “bad guys” consistently ending up dead while the “good guys” always avoiding it? Is death seen mainly as a punishment or defeat?

These questions seem squarely aimed at fantasy. If evil doesn’t die, won’t that be giving the false idea that evil can escape punishment, or worse, that evil might find a way to win? If good doesn’t win, won’t that paint stories with hopelessness—life is struggle and in the end we die.

But good versus evil stories are fraught with problems.

(1) They can be predictable. As soon as the moral lines are drawn, we know who wins and who loses.
(2) They can trivialize the loss of life. Hordes of goblins die in The Hobbit and an equal number of orcs die in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, yet readers or viewers are only glad or maybe relieved, even as two of the heroes keep score of their kills.
(3) They can over exaggerate the ease with which evil dies. Though the trolls were larger and stronger than Bilbo and the dwarfs, they nevertheless could be outwitted and thus turned into stone.
(4) They can over exaggerate the strength of the oft out-manned forces for good. In The Lord Of The Rings, while surrounded in the Keep, the Riders of Rohan were able to withstand assault until help came unexpectedly.

Admittedly dystopian fiction seems less likely to follow these patterns. Good guys die. In the Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins), many of Katniss’s allies die. The inciting incident in Jill Williamson’s Captives, the first book in the Safe Lands series, is the slaughter of the elders of Glenrock and the capture of all the women, children, and youth. And in Divergent, Tris’s parents both die.

In addition, Williamson eschews the obvious “small, rural community is good, and advanced, techno-savvy big city is bad” metaphor, meaning that the divergent worldviews aren’t of necessity mutually exclusive. Collins also brings into question the whole concept of winning by violence, and in the end, Roth uses violence and death to show a different kind of victory.

J. K. Rowling also broke the mold in the Harry Potter series by having a number of the good guys die.

But is all that violence necessary?

In many respects, I think speculative fiction is more honest than stories without violence. Life is a struggle, not for the things we often focus on—a better job or a raise in pay, what to watch on TV, whether to go cable or Dish, who’s going to make the Final Four, whether the lump you felt is cancer, whether there’s enough money to buy a new car and to do the remodel you need—but a spiritual struggle, often embedded in those other, everyday life things that stare us in the face all day long.

The good-versus-evil trope in speculative fiction can open our eyes to the good versus evil in real life. The violence and the life-and-death nature of the struggle can show us the seriousness of our everyday choices. In other words, violence has an important part to play in speculative fiction.

Readers are still debating what Suzanne Collins intended in the Hunger Games, especially in regard to the use of force. Is there a way to combat evil without mimicking evil?

In many respects it’s the question J. R. R. Tolkien asked in The Lord Of The Rings. Had Frodo claimed the ring or given it to Gondor, he or they would have eventually become the evil the forces of good were opposing. The quest, then, was to destroy the ring, not to assassinate Sauron.

But in taking on those questions, writers must still show violence. The goal is to do so without being predictable, without using excessive and graphic depiction, and without misrepresenting either the forces of evil or the forces of good. In other words, some evil may escape and some good may die—unless, of course, a story is about the final showdown of evil against God when He will judge His enemies for all time.

In the end, I think violence is here to stay in speculative fiction, and I don’t think it’s hypocritical to admit it belongs while rejecting crude language or depiction of sexual activity.

Once people learn your web ministry, Speculative Faith, exists to explore fantastical stories for God’s glory, they rightly figure you’re into that sort of thing. And once authors learn that this mission includes publishing lengthier Christian reviews of any fantastical story, they figure you could use some free books—especially digital versions—to read and review.

At SpecFaith our requests for reviewing books comes from social-network posts, Tweets, and messages sent to site editors (currently Rebecca LuElla Miller and E. Stephen Burnett).

We are grateful for every one of these requests. We’re especially grateful because most authors who make these requests understand three truths about SpecFaith:

1. SpecFaith is a web ministry based on biblical Christianity.
2. We are led by volunteers, such as our writers of daily feature articles.
3. We are not a publisher or editorial service. We explore published fantastical stories.

Most also understand that volunteers write our reviews. Anyone can submit a review. We even feature previously published reviews, such as from Amazon or Goodreads. We only require that reviews are:

1. Based on a biblical Christian worldview;
2. Of any fantastical story;
3. At least 300 words long.¹

Authors, here’s the part where I offer a very mild “however” in hopes of encouraging you!

However, we are often unable to promise reviews of your book for the following reasons:

1. We do receive more requests for reviews than we are able to fulfill.
2. Most of us have pre-existing family and career obligations—or freelance writing, sometimes for extra income—that precludes taking on more volunteer work.
3. Most of us also have stacks of books (including free ones) we haven’t yet read.²

So if SpecFaith can’t promise to review your book, here is how we can help you help us:

1. Suggest review arrangements with individual SpecFaith contributors.

Several volunteers have written reviews regularly for SpecFaith, and as volunteers they are free agents. One of them may be kinder (or meaner!) than SpecFaith’s daily feature writers such as myself. Try approaching a reviewer about a possible book-for-review arrangement.

2. Add your novel to the SpecFaith Library.

The SpecFaith Library is a comprehensive guide to every published Christian fantastical novel. So if you have written a novel and it is 1) published (self-published too), 2) Christian in worldview, 3) fantastical in nature and theme, we want to list your novel in the Library.

Search the Library or the site for the novel’s title. If we do not already list the novel, then authors, fans, or passersby can submit the novel using the share your story form.

Christian-made fantastical novels in the Library have a better chance of being noticed.

3. Notify SpecFaith of free e-book news.

Scripture says workers, including ministers of the Gospel, should get paid.³ Authors should receive compensation for their hard work and should not feel forced to give away their work constantly because this will supposedly “get their name out there.”

Still, my own stack of unread books includes e-books I’ve downloaded free, thanks to the generosity and media-savviness of authors and fans who shared the news about the offer.

So we also want to know about other fantastical novels that authors are making available for free download for limited times. Share that news with us. We may be able to notify others in our news section. And that increases the chances potential reviewers will find the story, download the story, read it, and then potentially write a review for SpecFaith.

Authors spend years or even decades crafting their stories. We want to honor this effort and be fair to authors, while also recognizing our volunteers’ own (present) limitations.

Thank you for supporting SpecFaith in its mission to explore fantastical stories for God’s glory, as we do our best to support authors in their mission to explore their own fantastical stories. And who knows? If God is good and this ministry can expand, serving a broader readership that includes Christian fans (not just authors) of fantastical stories, someday we may be able to offer more volunteer reviews. After all, who doesn’t like a free novel?