It’s occurred to me lately that, for being one of the good guys, Jonah spends a lot of time being held up as a bad example. As much as people talk about him, they almost never say anything good. Jonah was a prophet, but he gets no respect.

I would guess that it’s not the running away from God that we really hold against him. Adam hid from God, Jacob wrestled with God, Jonah ran from God: We can understand. What cements Jonah’s status as a Negative Example is the last chapter of his book, where it is revealed that he ran away because he wanted Nineveh to get blasted off the face of the earth. David was angry that God’s wrath broke out against Uzzah; Jonah was angry that God had compassion on Nineveh. So angry, in fact, that he wanted to die. Then his vine withered, and he was ready to die over that, too.

Jonah is often portrayed as something of a grouch, and there is reason for it. Anyone who is angry enough to die over a withered vine has anger issues. But you know something? I think we give Jonah short shrift. I think his performance, bad as it was, had better reasons than we give him credit for. People ask, “How could you not want God to have compassion?”

Let me tell you. Because I understand.

Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, the evil empire of Jonah’s day. Jonah saw Israel’s last revival of fortune, prophesying the great successes of Jeroboam II. But the stormclouds of Assyria soon overtook his victories: Within a decade of Jeroboam’s death, Assyria invaded Israel. Assyria would take territory and tribute from Israel until it finally destroyed Israel as a nation, ousting the Israelites from their homes and forcing them into exile.

Israel’s fate – death by Assyria – was by no means unique, nor surprising when it happened. The Book of Nahum – “an oracle concerning Nineveh” – is an instructive, if grim, companion to the Book of Jonah. Nineveh’s repentance did not last; neither did God’s forbearance. Nahum is all about God’s final judgment on Nineveh, and lays out the casus belli for the city’s destruction. Chapter 3 opens:

Woe to the city of blood,
full of lies,
full of plunder,
never without victims!

And a few verses down:

Many casualties,

piles of dead,

bodies without number,

people stumbling over the corpses –

all because of the wanton lust of a harlot,

alluring, the mistress of sorceries,

who enslaved nations by her prostitution

and peoples by her witchcraft.

So you can see why Jonah didn’t like them.

And he wasn’t the only one. This is how Nahum concluded the judgment against Nineveh:

Everyone who hears the news about you
claps his hands at your fall,
for who has not felt
your endless cruelty?

Jonah ends with the prophet angry that God had compassion on Nineveh. Nahum ends with Nineveh’s victims rejoicing that God had judged Nineveh. And if we can’t understand that joy – if we can’t understand why Jonah was angry that Nineveh wasn’t destroyed – it’s because we never had our own Nineveh, our own city of blood to fill our world with cruelty. There comes a time when you want justice, not mercy.

I am not arguing that Jonah was right. Jonah, who preached God’s undeserved mercy to Israel, had little right to complain of God’s undeserved mercy to Nineveh. Nor, as Jesus taught, are sinners like us in any position to demand grace for ourselves and sternness for others. Even justice was dealt out in the end: God did everything to Nineveh that Jonah could have wished. But He did it in His own time, and only after showing them mercy.

Jonah was wrong. But he was eminently understandable. It just takes a little imagination.

One of the greatest powers of fiction is its ability to present a viewpoint, to make us see through other eyes. There is no viewpoint harder to do justice to than one like Jonah’s – a viewpoint that is not only wrong but fundamentally unsympathetic. Have you ever read a book that made you understand, and even feel, a perspective you knew was skewed?

Speaking of King Manasseh of Judah, the Bible counts him as an evil king because:

And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.
(2Chron 33:6)

Such verses, there are several, never have a positive thing to say about these common fantasy tropes. It is also why some Christians have a hard time accepting Christian fantasy that uses these same names for the abilities of characters in their novels. So some condemn J. R. Tolkien for using a wizard as one of the primary hero-protagonists in his story, Lord of the Rings, as a “good guy.”

Most people of sane mind get that in a fictional novel the world will not work like ours. Indeed, when is the last time you saw a wizard in a long, pointy hat casting a spell? Much less a spell that worked? My last time may have been while watching a magic show, which everyone knew wasn’t real. Middle-Earth—full of wizards, elves, dwarves, and hobbits among other fine folk—our world is not.

Likewise, often magic in the fictional world doesn’t work by the same rules as it does in ours. It can range from being sourced by God, God’s creation, use of creation, deception (trickery), and accessed through actions, words, thoughts, or will. As is often used in time travel stories, much of our technology and knowledge today would earn us the title of wizard, which literally means one with knowledge or a wise one, if we were transported back even 100 years ago.

Still, some will choke on the use of such titles in a Christian fantasy novel. They might also choke when King Nebeccanezer gives Daniel the title of “master of all magicians.” (Daniel 4:9)

Could it be that such titles are context sensitive? What is the real-world usage and meaning of the Bible’s denunciation of those titles?

Based upon Biblical examples like Moses and Elijah, the issue isn’t about the ability to do seemingly magical miracles. Moses even gets into a contest with Pharaoh’s magicians in order to prove whose god is greater. A contest which Moses handily won. (Exodus 8)

Rather it is the perceived source of the ability where the Bible makes a distinction. When it condemns things like sorcery, enchantments, astrology, and magic, it does so because those doing them don’t acknowledge that these abilities come from God. They are the names used by pagan nations often pointing to their gods as its source, rather than the God of Israel. Such people are like Simon who wanted to buy the power of God so he could own it rather than become a servant of God. (Acts 8:18-19)

Those who acknowledge God as the source of any “magical” abilities and are humbly submitted to Him, using it for His purposes and will, are instead called holy ones, prophets, servants of God.

One group of pagan magicians the Bible does paint a positive picture of, are the wise men who come to see the baby Jesus. All indications are they came from the Babylonian region and were part of the “magicians” of that land. Based on the writings of the “Master of Magicians,” Daniel, they interpreted the unusual star in the night sky to indicate the birth of the Christ. These pagan wise men—that is, wizards—are praised because they recognized who God was and paid homage to Him.

Likewise abilities inherent in God’s creation are not considered evil. Instead how we use them might be.

Having the knowledge to know when to plant a crop and the best conditions for its growth isn’t frowned on in the Bible. Indeed, Jesus uses such examples in his teachings. (Matt 13) We are not considered to have evil powers because we have the knowledge of how to make plants grow.

Nor would we consider the harnessing of radio waves in order to talk to one another over great distances to be evil. Transport cell phones to Biblical times and you would have magic. But it has nothing to do with a power inherent in the person, only the knowledge of how to use the power God created around us.

In most fictional universes, such “amazing” abilities are sourced from one of these three fountains: power inherent in the created world, power inherent in a person or group of people, and power derived from an outside source or person.

For each of those categories, what makes it compatible with Christianity, no matter the term applied to it or the persons involved, is whether it is sourced from God or not. If God created the world or people with those powers, then it is a Christian-compatible form of “magic.” If God is ultimately the source of any wizard’s/enchanter’s abilities, as opposed to demonic or pagan beliefs, there is no contradiction between it and the Bible’s denunciation of such secular and pagan practices.

For a Christian fantasy, my line has always been that the good guys, whether they be called wizards or prophets, are those who use their power in the service of God, knowing it comes from Him, while the bad ones are those who believe it is a power they control apart from God. This fits with the dividing line drawn in the Bible more so than mere titles attached to persons.

What is your dividing line and why do you draw it there?

After the feedback I received last week, specifically how Spec Faith visitors would like to know more about the Christian speculative fiction that’s coming out, I thought I’d do a little research and make a short list of books that look intriguing, that we might all want to put on our to be read lists.

Well, I’d have to say finding good books is harder now than ever before. I went to Amazon first, thinking they list books in categories. Sure enough, I quickly located the Religion & Spirituality : Christian Books & Bibles : Christian Fiction : Fantasy list. I clicked sort by publication date which called up, what I assumed would be the list I could share with you all.

However, the first couple pages were books that have not released yet. In addition, there were books that clearly did not belong in the category. One identified itself as WWII Historical Fantasy, another as lesbian erotica. OK . . . So clearly, selecting books for this list was going to take a bit more work!

I scanned titles and clicked on a few that seemed promising. One had a book description that had me wondering if it was, in fact, Christian. I went to the customer reviews and began to read. Some were glowing . . . excepted they were written back in 2011. This book, despite its brand spanking new publication date, was not a new book at all.

As an alternative, I also searched Books > Religion & Spirituality > Fiction > Science Fiction & Fantasy. The results here were worse than the first effort. Many seemed to be supernatural, angel versus demon struggles. A good many others looked like end-times stories, and a bunch more seemed to be unconnected to the genre, either the spirituality end or the speculative end. Even he ones that identified as religious, there was no indication if that religion was Christian. Apart from going to each page and reading the description and reviews, I couldn’t figure out how to cull the list to those I could set before you with any confidence.

I decided the next step would be to look at the books Christianbook.com listed. Yes, they had a “fiction, science fiction & fantasy” section. Yes, I could sort by publication date. Except their list also included picture books. OK, just a little more to sort through. But surely I could find a list of the most recent releases. Except once again, a book that had recently come out in a Kindle version garnered a recent publication date, so all kinds of older books surfaced as if they were new. There were also some series collections. In other words, lots of books.

I eventually came across some authors whose names I recognized. One was a writer I’ve actually met in real life. We were in a critique group together for one week. I really like his writing and was thrilled to see he had something new out. Except, when I looked at the description, I discovered it’s just a short story. A good one, though, I think. The story is called “Time Jump: Apocalypse” and the author is Brandon Barr. Here’s the product description:

Time Jump: Apocalypse . . . an end of the world short story

Jack Henshaw and the millions left alive on Earth are desperately looking towards a time jumper to help them elude the cataclysmic disasters wreaking havoc across the globe. If a jump is successful, those seeking refuge might maintain some semblance of civilization. The problem is, there are only two men genetically able to handle the extremes of a time jump . . . and one of them has been lost. Henshaw, the head of NASA’s JUMP program must race time and disasters to unravel the mystery of the first jumper’s disappearance, all the while struggling to find the answers to his own urgent question: What is causing Earth to destruct . . . and why has his wife vanished without a trace?

Doesn’t sound like a typical Christian end of the world story at all. And it’s only a short story . . .

The hunt for new books continued. I came across the books that Enclave will be releasing this spring. Since we already mentioned them in a news item, I didn’t think repeating them here would actually be adding anything new. I had found one book last week that I hope to include in our Fiction Friday series, and which actually gave me the idea for this post. Because I was coming up nearly empty, I decided to share the description of the book here. The author many of you know since she used to write for Spec Faith. I’m talking about Yvonne Anderson, and the book is The Last Toqeph (Gateway to Gannah Book 4):

While traveling through desolate terrain, Adam stumbles upon an impossibility: a village of Old Gannahan survivors. Hard to believe. Harder yet, it seems one of them is the true heir to the throne.

Will Adam right an ancient wrong and lose his inheritance? Or ignore the truth and lose his integrity?

Book 4 is a little problematic for a reader just coming to the series. So maybe the best thing is to start with book 1. However, one reviewer came to the series with this book first and had this to say:

Yvonne Anderson does something that I wish other authors would do- she includes a detailed preface for people like yours truly who have not read her previous books in the series.

In my search I did recognize another author’s name: Cindy Koepp. Her new release is Interference The Web Surfer Series – Volume 4. Again the Volume 4 part is a little problematic for those of us who have not read Volumes 1-3, but here’s the description:

One of the Web Surfer AI’s many personas is Sander’s sister, Lexus. Sander must stop her from attacking one user for another user.

At the turn of the Twenty-Second Century, cyberspace had no bad AIs, only bad coders. However, AIs measure their lives in days, eternity is out of their reach, and they fail to bring about the advent of a holy infant in cyberspace. Alexander Lloyd McGregor is an infant, but he isn’t holy, and only he is saved from death by his father converting his cells into biological supercomputer components. The child develops an AI mind called Sander and a human mind called Alex. Sander is a bad AI subjected to slavery’s chains to get him to obey his code as he serves a billion users all around the world. He’s also a king who reigns over most of Earth’s computers, in a global society where tech-dependency can kill. Freedom’s calling to Sander like a siren. His answer could shake the earth.

I don’t want to just rely on authors I know, however. Plenty of good authors I’m not familiar with yet are out there. So I’ll add Beneath the Forsaken City, #2: Song of Seare Series by C.E. Laureano (I think we have the first book in the series here in the Spec Faith library). Here’s the description:

Conor and Aine have barely escaped Seare with their lives. Conor knows he must return to find the harp that could end the Red Druid’s reign of terror, but in the midst of their escape, he and Aine are torn apart once more. Surrounded by despair and thrown into as much danger as they left behind, Conor and Aine must cling to the whispers of Comdiu’s plans for them and the homeland that depends on their survival. But at what cost? Will they learn to depend on Comdiu completely? Or will they give up hope?

I also came across a middle grade novel published by a general market house, Katherin Tegen Books: The Castle Behind Thorns by Merrie Haskell

Sand is a blacksmith apprentice who wakes up, alone, in a ruined castle, with no memory of how he got there or why. . . but the thorny brimbles that grow on the walls of the castle prevent him from leaving. Doing what he knows, he lights up the castle’s forge to mend what he needs. But these things are working even better than they did before. . . is there magic involved?

Sand finds the castle’s lost heir, and the two work together to uncover the secrets behind the castle’s mysteries.

Here’s one I found amid the Amazon offerings that has me intrigued. I don’t know anything about the author, Heather Letto, other than what she put in her bio. The book is Impervious (The Ascension Series Book 1). Yea for book 1! Here’s the description:

The residents of Impervious survived the War of Annihilation. And though the city is chock full of pleasures to tantalize and entertain, a Beast lurks in its corners. This Beast has destroyed most of Generations One, Two and Three. Therefore as Gen-Four prepares to take the stage, a provocative, yet questionable, method to avoid an untimely death becomes a cultural rage.

Fran is counter-cultural, living off the grid in true Rebel fashion. Her life is far from opulent as she scurries through dark tunnels, searching for hot meals and ditching the holographic security team. Yet, it’s a healthy trade-off. Unaccountability means The Council can’t wrap their cold fingers around her sliver of hope in the the Epoch–an end to the madness.

With the Beast on her tail, Fran grasps painfully onto this splintered sliver until, through a miraculous discovery, a new hope is born…

If she can she outrun the Beast.

In all this, I’m more convinced than ever that we here at Spec Faith need your eyes and ears. What books do you know about that have recently become available? Maybe you haven’t read them yet, but you’ve heard about them and you’re intrigued. Because the truth is, there are just so many books out, it’s really, really hard to sort through them all to find the ones which could become our favorites.

SpecFaith Library 2015: upgraded with a powerful menu search.
Readers can also hover over each book cover to learn more.

Building a Christian Fantastical Galactic Alliance is challenging on a budget of roughly $0.

For a few years that’s been our mission at SpecFaith: to grow into a resource hub for fans¹ who love fantastical stories and want to explore them for God’s glory. Other limits to this vision include family and career needs — and for some of us, pre-existing writing commitments.²

All that provides only a slight cause for letting a few secondary needs slide at SpecFaith.

Some readers have mentioned those needs in reply to Rebecca’s Monday feature:

1. The SpecFaith Library is in disrepair. It has mainly older books on the shelves, fewer newer offerings, difficulty finding items, an organization system still based on old Dewey Decimal 3-by-5 cards, etc. That last item aside—the SpecFaith library is digital!—a lot of these are similar to the struggles of real-life small-town libraries.
2. A little confusion persists about what reviews SpecFaith accepts and why.
3. Sometimes it’s just plain difficult to find things, especially with the search option.³
4. Options break suddenly and vanish from the landscape.⁴
5. Email subscriptions only released for daily features and did not notify subscribers of new SpecFaith Library additions, short news and reviews.
6. No one mentioned this, yet I will: Not all the site options are available when you view the site on a smartphone. At present if you tried to view the site as-is — without the benefit of a “cheater” software add-on — it would be far too wide.
7. Some uncertainty continues about SpecFaith’s mission. Why this pervasive sense of continually “justifying” fantastical stories for Christians? Why not simply move on?

Here’s the good news: Your webslinger (me) has already been working on such changes. And on March 1, SpecFaith 2015 will look better and will be easier to navigate than ever.

1. The SpecFaith Library will look fantastic. See at a glance all the published Christian fantastical novels we list. Hover over each novel cover to fetch more information and cross-reference by author name, age group and BookTags.
2. Find SpecFaith’s Christian reviews of any fantastical story far more easily (and get help for how to submit your own reviews).
3. Use a powerful search engine to fetch instant and relevant results. The search page will list results from among SpecFaith’s expanding collection of features (the daily articles), Library novel listings, news and reviews.
4. With fewer and more stable add-ons, there’s less chance that options will vanish.
5. Subscription emails will (and to some extent already do) notify subscribers of all new SpecFaith items — not only daily features, but Library titles, news and reviews.
6. Future: The entire site will be optimized for smartphone viewing, Library included.
7. Finally, a word about SpecFaith’s mission. Some readers have certainly matured in their understanding of fantastical stories. They feel no need to return continually to more-basic truths (e.g., fictitious “magic” actually does glorify God, and here’s how).

   Yet SpecFaith’s mission is not only to help mature fans. We also seek to seek and help new fans. Already we have been able to reach out to readers — including some from more-restrictive and less-biblical evangelical backgrounds — who still believe fantastical stories are just past suspect (or else of the Devil). Other readers have just discovered they enjoy fantastical stories, but are not certain (or else do not yet care to ask) how this enjoyment can honor Jesus according to our loving Creator’s word.

SpecFaith is a gathering place for fans, and a guide to Christian-fantastical novels. However, SpecFaith is also a ministry. Yes, ministries and their role can be overvalued; God’s people can honor him even in non-overt-“ministry” ways. However, we do need overt ministries (starting with local churches!) to train us overtly how to discern, engage, and enjoy all things — including fantastical stories, anywhere they’re found — for God’s glory.

Thank you for joining this mission, supporting this ministry, and pardoning our dust!

Curse Bearer (The Risen Age Archive Book 1)

by Rebecca P. Minor

An epic tale of curses and miracles, where headstrong ignorance creates bondage, and the desire to serve offers freedom.

An oppressor’s assault, a father’s terminal illness, an elder knight’s enigmatic challenge…could a single thread interweave them all? When Danae Baledric leaves home in search of a cure for a degenerative malady that’s killing her father, she never expects her journey to teach her the price of her own ignorance. In Curse Bearer, Danae learns the eternal war between The Creator and the Impenetrable Darkness is waged one soul at a time. Danae’s investigation reveals not only the spiritual nature of her father’s danger, but that the forces of Darkness are hunting her as well. For power, even employed in ignorance, has its cost. A commitment to a life of service to the Creator extends Danae both deliverance from her debt and the ability to intervene on her father’s behalf. But something bars Danae from claiming redemption—her insistence she must achieve her goals in her own strength.

Excerpt

Part I

The Knife

Something unsavory was brewing outside the front window of Baledric’s Apothecary and Alchemy shop.

Danae stared beyond the final customer of the day as he passed through the shop’s front door. The bronze bell over the exit jingled the farewell she was too preoccupied to utter. Just visible through the rippled panes of the shop window, Danae’s father huddled in hushed discourse with a handful of men. Their murmured conversation pulled at her. Papa’s repeated glances up the street bespoke more than idle chatter with the neighbors. Danae focused her tension into persistent picking at already-short fingernails, until what was left of the white rim on her ring finger broke and peeled. A red streak seeped along the exposed quick, and she shook her hand against the sting.

She forced her attention away from the discussion between Papa and the other merchants and onto the vellum-paged ledger before her. A quick dip into the inkwell filled her quill with iron gall ink. Danae swept the instrument across the page’s surface, penning the day’s last sale into the book in flowing script.

A few packets of Aconite Root and Henbane for pain, a flask of ginger and pippali, a bundle of matches. Sure, they added a few more gold to the till, but did they make a difference?

Danae sighed and scattered a pinch of fine-ground pounce across the lettering, shook the excess back into the pounce pot, and closed the cracked cover of the book. The crumbling binding heralded the ledger’s many years of service, but despite its dilapidation, it would continue to serve. After all, replacements for such luxuries came at a stiff price.

The beams of afternoon sun slanted through the front windows and kindled ever-present dust motes to an amber glow, a hint of the magical amidst the mundane. Danae sought her father beyond dancing specks of light. His jaw was tight and eyes narrow, but the men in his company had grown pale and careworn.

She hesitated. Behind her, the cauldron burbled its demands for the next batch of ingredients. The dust in the air insisted the grime left about by customers and craft be swept. As much as she burned to lean out the front door and nose into her father’s discussion, her day’s end work would encroach upon supper if she dallied. Danae turned for the laboratory at the rear of the shop.

Just as she reached the laboratory doorway, to her left, the iron-bound door that set the boundary between the Baledric home and business burst open with a crash. She dodged the charge of a dark-haired brother, whose exact likeness barreled in after him.

“Would you two watch where you’re going?” Danae said. “Honestly! Can’t you take your sparring somewhere, anywhere, else?”

The coltish boys, too young to be reckoned men, but tall and lanky enough to encroach upon an adult’s height, aimed slaps at one another’s heads. A blocked punch, a kick to the shins. More of the usual, with the day’s schoolwork likely done and idle time goading the boys into another of their intermittent scuffles.

Danae shook her head. Brothers.

Her glance flicked to the delicate composition that bubbled in the iron cauldron over the fire. How was she supposed to help their father with his work if her seven younger siblings kept popping in and out of the laboratory and shop like ground squirrels in a burrow? Tristan and Connall proved the worst of them, continually.

The boys’ skirmish raged past the laboratory, banging against the long counter and rattling the bottles, boxes, and tools that sat upon it. Danae dove to catch a tipping flask of lavender. Their small-scale war risked upsetting every stack or shelf of goods in range.

“You watch yourselves.” Danae set the flask gently back in place. Papa will have you apprenticed now instead of holding off until next summer.”

Tristan ducked his brother’s swinging fist and dared a scoff in Danae’s direction. “Wishful thinking. You know he can’t—oof!”

Connall’s knee connected with Tristan’s side.

“Overconfidence strikes again,” Connall laughed.

The brawl rumbled toward the center of the room, and Danae breathed a sigh. The breakables on the counter had survived. For now.

Was Papa coming in any time soon? He would put an end to the tussle. Danae craned her neck to peer over her brothers who obstructed her view of the window. Where had her father and the other merchants gone?

The twins’ wrestling match ground to the floor, where Connall pinned Tristan’s chest and shoulders to the floorboards.

“Mercy?” Connall leaned all his weight forward.

Tristan groaned.

Judging by past bouts, Tristan’s groan closely preceded surrender, so Danae turned her back on the conflict.

She pulled a stoneware mixing bowl from a laboratory shelf. Her workspace brimmed over with supplies and raw materials: chemicals and shavings, ores and herbs that she surveyed with an adept eye. Danae’s smooth script graced every front-facing label, each one an obedient soldier awaiting command. A pinch of powdered iron, a tiny scoop of sulfur, the bark of the mournbriar. . . these and many more exotic ingredients made the journey from shelf to bowl. Danae blended them into a blue-gray slurry with even strokes.

As she stirred, Danae could just make out her brothers’ shuffling feet and then their voices.

“You really shouldn’t let me get you on the floor like that,” Connall said.

“Let you?” Tristan snorted. A few more padding footfalls, and then a pause. “Do you think this one could explode?” He whispered with a hint of awe in his voice.

“How should I know?” Connall hissed back. “Anyway, we shouldn’t be messing with Papa’s work.”

Good. At least Connall had an iota of sense. Left to Tristan’s sagacity, the twins might have long ago meed a foolish end.

She wafted the scent of her concoction toward her nose. It needed more sulfur.

“What if we sloshed a little, just a tiny bit, into the fire?”

Danae dropped the mixing bowl and bolted for the shop. As she reached the doorway, rebuke poised on her lips, the front door swung open with a tinkle of its bronze bell. Danae’s lean father stepped through. His gaze descended upon the twins by the cauldron, and he folded his arms across his soiled oilskin apron. The tightness in his face deepened the usually-faint wrinkles around his eyes and across his forehead. His frown struck Danae as more than his typical consternation at her brothers’ meddling. Perhaps a warning.

“Tristan, Connall!” His tone was businesslike and unamused. “Out of the shop. Join your mother in the house, please.”

One less hassle I have to handle. Danae turned her back on the scene to finesse her batch of ingredients.

“Aw, Papa . . . Mama’ll just give us more chores,” Tristan’s voice sagged.

“Boys! I expect you to—”

The bell jangled, knocked about by a forceful swing of the entry door. Whoever entered stumped across the floorboards, and their heavy footfalls drew groans from the wood. The smells of horses and sweaty leather preceded the newcomers. Danae wrinkled her nose.

“Afternoon, Baledric!” a thickly accented voice called.

Question: would you rather read a book by an unknown author slotted in your favorite genre (in my case, epic fantasy) or a book outside your genre written by an author whose work you enjoy? I’m tempted to run a poll to find out, but I think I already know.

I suspect the author you know and whose work you enjoy trumps the genre you love written by an unknown. For one thing, most of us are not tied to one genre. If we are readers, we may have a favorite and even some I-could-care-less categories, but we aren’t reading exclusively in a single genre.

When I was young, for example, I had some favorite authors. Perhaps the first was Carolyn Keene who turned out to be a pen name for the group of authors hired to write the Nancy Drew mysteries. Later I found Walter Farley who wrote The Black Stallion. I read all the books my library had of his, including ones that we not about the Black. Next was Louisa May Alcott of Little Women fame. I discovered that I actually liked some of her lesser known works more than the most famous offering.

These don’t prove the point, however, because each of these author stayed within their genre, as most do. But I can think of a handful who ventured away from their first success, and which I for one followed.

Karen Hancock is the first in this group. I read her debut novel Arena which is a sort of science fantasy/allegory, but I became a fan when I read The Light of Eidon, first in her Guardian-King tetralogy. Four books later, Karen shifted gears and wrote Enclave, a contemporary science-supernatural stand alone. I dutifully followed and have every intention of reading her next book when it releases.

I’ve done the same with Jill Williamson. She first published By Darkness Hid, a 600-page installment of her epic fantasy Blood of Kings trilogy. While the ink was still drying on the final book, she published New Recruit, first in her contemporary, with a dash of supernatural, young adult series aimed primarily at tweener boys. Next cane Replication, a soft science fiction young adult stand-alone. Next came her dystopian young adult Safe Lands trilogy. She’s planning a spring release of the next Mission League book and has a new fantasy in the works with Bethany house. And the newest? She and her son wrote a children’s chapter book called RoboTales, and if all goes well with their Kickstarter campaign, the book will be out later this year.

Then there’s Stephen Lawhead who has written epic fantasy, alternate myth, historical, science fantasy, and probably others I don’t know about. Chances are, with Stephen Lawhead’s name on the book, it’s guaranteed good sales no matter what the genre.

So here’s the question: given the tight hold established authors have on their readership, how do new authors, especially self-published authors, find their audience? Who will take a chance on a new author when they could spend a few extra dollars for a book by one of their favorites—an author they have enjoyed in the past and who they trust to deliver the kind of story they love?

Are new authors doomed?

I can think of a group of authors who released their debut novels with much hope, only to complete their contracts with established publishing houses and not receive a new offer. They haven’t found their readership within the length of that contract, and the publishing house isn’t giving them more time.

How about those who started as self-published authors? Has their fortune proved more successful? I think not. I don’t have any numbers to back this up, but I know what self-pubbed authors have said about their efforts to market and promote their books. It’s hard work, first of all. But it also seems to yield few dividends. Sales numbers remain small.

Of course a small number of authors have broken out from the pack and give writers everywhere the hope that their book will be the next phenomenal success to be discovered. But discovery seems to be more a result of time than it does instant success. Unfortunately few publishers in the present writing climate seem willing to give authors the time to build a solid following.

Is there anything readers can do? How can we support small press authors or self-published authors when we don’t know if what they write is to our liking? Should we try? Or should we be content to let traditional publishers narrow their offerings while we scramble on our own to find the books we like—books we hope are out there but can’t know for sure if we’ll find?

I have hoped that Spec Faith would be part of the solution. We’re in a position to let authors and friends submit their books to our library where readers can find them. We also are in a position to let readers shout loudly about the books they like by writing reviews.

The problem is, only a few authors/friends submit their books and even fewer write reviews. Is anyone using the Spec Faith Library as a resource to make reading decisions? Is this tool viable or should those of us at Spec Faith spend our time elsewhere?

And if creating a listing of books and reviews to go with them is not something that helps readers find good books, what is? What can we do that will connect readers and books?

I Am Ocilla

by Diane M. Graham

Open your heart and mind to the simplicity and complexity of a name.

I know only my name. Beyond that is confusion, a void where fantasy and reality swirl together. Fairies, Giants, Elves, Dwarves, ancient Keepers, and…Dragons?

A dark soul threatens the Five Kingdoms, but I am powerless to stand against it, overwhelmed by phantom memories, broken and lost.

Somehow, I must live. I must find my purpose. There are friends to love and battles to fight.

I know my name. Perhaps that is enough.

I am Ocilla.

This is my story.

Excerpt from Chapter 1

The darkness of my abyss consumes. Direction is irrelevant and time is worthless. If only I could pinpoint the moment when it all faded, maybe I would be able to crawl back into existence.

I slip in and out of reality. My heartbeat taunts me with hope for life, but the aches and emptiness pounding within the rest of my body only offer death.

I am Ocilla. That I know for sure.

As I sit in this prison, no other memory surfaces. No matter how hard I try, I cannot get past the barricade in my mind. The only sound is the drip, drip, dripping in the distance. The moisture leaks down the walls like tears unshed for too many years, finally escaping.

I am alone in this hell. They will come for me soon, and then I will be no more.

A few minutes, hours, or days later, footsteps echo far away. My lungs labor. My breath is kept shallowed by the splintered shards of my ribcage. Each intake of air is a reminder of my frailty. I hurt from head to toe, but I am separated from the pain by a thick haze.

Where am I? How did I come to this place? It is dark, damp and moldy. The cold seeps into my bones. My teeth chatter and my body shakes. The room in which I am imprisoned has a cavernous echo, and my pulse pounds rhythmically against the walls. Memories do not come.

The footsteps come closer, but all I can do is sit in a heap against the slimy interior of the chamber and wait. The fog of my mind thins. There is my heartbeat again. I am indeed alive. Water drops, footsteps and heartbeats play a syncopated tune. Plop! Smack! Smack! Thump! Thump! Plop! Smack! Smack! Thump! Thump!

Are they coming for me? I almost hope so. But who are they?

A flicker of light crosses under the door. My tired limbs move. I cannot stop them, even though my muscles rip with pain as I drag useless legs behind me. The door is a great wooden beast. Splinters pierce my fingers as I pull myself to sitting and rest my cheek on its grain. The smacking steps cease and heavy bolts scrape as they move. The metallic clatter vibrates my face like a growl.

The light. I want it. I need it. Something in my head connects light to comfort and safety. I claw to get to it. The skin splits and tears on my hands.

“Quiet!” A soft masculine whisper carries through the door.

A vise of fear grips everything inside of me and my hands drop. Evidence of recent brutality mars my flesh, and I push back to distance myself. Cold stone scrapes my bear flesh. Should I care that my captors see my body? They have, no doubt, seen me already.

The final bolt slides away and the heavy door swings in. Fresh air sweeps away the smell of death. Torchlight pierces my eyelids with a thousand needles, forcing them shut and my arms to cover my face. Shuffling feet approach. Someone squats next to me, and lovely heat pours from the torch. I brace for the blow I am sure will come. Gentle hands wrap under my body. I flinch with contact and wait for the pain, but none comes.

“Shh! I will not harm you, little one.” The man cradling me smells like wood, sap and sweat.

“We have to hurry, Ash,” says a raspy whisper full of command.

“Yes, Father!”

He hoists me from the ground like a child. He is as warm as the torch, and I cannot help snuggling myself closer. I want to wrap that warmth around me like a blanket, let the heat soak in and stay there forever. It may be a false sense of security and well-being, but it’s all I have.

I am rocked by Ash’s light strides. I can barely hear his feet on the rock, even though he carries my added weight. His father must be relatively close with his torch, for weaker heat radiates from somewhere ahead, and light filters through my eyelids.

Male voices echo in the distance, rising and falling in what sounds like drunken song. We climb steps and Ash’s muscles bunch as he moves upward. The brighter light filling this new area hurts too much so I squeeze my eyes tighter and turn my face into Ash’s chest. My breathing is unstrained now, as if the walls of my prison were the clasp on my lungs and his smell burns into me like a branding iron.

The voices sound close enough to touch. Ash’s steps slow and then come to a halt.

“There are too many to go by unseen,” Ash’s father says.

“We are running out of time.”

“I know. You stay here. I have this.”

A loud crash sounds ahead and the singing comes to an abrupt halt. Liquid splashes and metal skitters across the stone floor. The odor of fermented fruit wafts into my nostrils. Ash’s muscles tense and he curses under his breath, but I can hear it rumble his chest. He squats down. A large shadow blocks most of the glow through my eyelids.

“Are you ready?” Ash’s father says a short distance away.

“Ready for what?” someone slurs.

“To get out of my way,” Ash’s father answers.

“Hey! Aren’t you . . .” The voice strangles to silence. Others rise in alarm. Metal clashes, but not the same frail sound from before.

Ash curses again. “I’m going to set you here for just a minute, little one. I’ll be back to get you.”

Have you ever read or re-heard one of Jesus Christ’s parables and found yourself slipping into the role of casting director? Only instead of casting certain actors as the merciful father or good Samaritan, we cast Moral Virtues — or even people we know — in place of each.

• The self-righteous Pharisee¹ becomes a mere stand-in for that annoying evangelical leader on TV, or that hypocritical pastor or deacon or parent.
• The rich fool² becomes a mere stand-in for wealthy businesspersons and capitalists who don’t care for the poor or for biblical social justice.
• The servants entrusted with literal “talents” to invest³ becomes a tale of our individual use of metaphorical talents or literal wealth. This leads to support for growing money with investment (a questionable application!) or justifications for using our abilities wisely (a better application, yet one that could miss the Kingdom context).

Not long ago I never even questioned the assumption that Jesus’s parables are simple this-for-that allegories. But Christians who want to enjoy fantastical stories for God’s glory, or even create such stories themselves, ought to re-evaluate this assumption. That way we can honor God’s Story and understand other stories better—including fantastical stories.

If we assume that Jesus only spoke in direct-allegory parables, we can get into trouble:

1. We may miss Jesus’s own points when he often introduces his similes or long-narrative parables with the comparison phrase, “The kingdom of heaven is like …”.
2. We may twist other texts, even real-life narratives, as similar “allegories” — e.g., the main lesson from David’s faceoff with Goliath⁴ is not that God worked through David at this point in the Story, but that we must confront “our own giants.”
3. We may wrongly conclude simple allegory is more spiritual or more godly.
4. We may misread other stories as simple allegories — either positively, such as when we praise C.S. Lewis for his “allegories” (the Professor’s mansion = the tabernacle!), or negatively, such as when we condemn a story for including images or symbols that merely tap into our own fears or mythologies (Plugged In likes the Illuminati!).
5. We may ignore the God-glorifying human found in non-allegorical stories in which the characters, events and plot are, for the sake of the story, meant as “real.”

Biblically reboot the parables

Here’s why Christians must reconsider the limited-to-allegory view of Jesus’s parables, according to the nonfiction book How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth.

… For all their charm and simplicity, the parables have suffered a fate of misinterpretation in the church second only to Revelation.

The Parables in History

The reason for the long history of the misinterpretation of the parables can be traced back to something Jesus himself said, as recorded in Mark 4:10-12 (and parallels, Matt 13:10-13; Luke 8:9-10). When asked about the purpose of parables, he seems to have suggested that they contained mysteries for those on the inside, while they hardened those on the outside. Because he then proceeded to “interpret” the parable of the sower in a semi-allegorical way, this was seen to give license to the hardening theory and endless allegorical interpretations. The parables were considered to be simple stories for those on the outside to whom the “real meanings,” the “mysteries,” were hidden; these belonged only to the church and could be uncovered by means of allegory.

… It is extremely doubtful whether most of the parables were intended for an inner circle at all. In at least three instances Luke specifically says that Jesus told parables to people (15:3; 18:9; 19:11) with the clear implication that the parables were to be understood. Moreover, the “expert in the law” to whom Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) clearly understood it (vv. 36-37), as did the chief priests and Pharisees the parable of the tenants in Matthew 21:45. Their problem was not with understanding but with letting the parables alter their behavior!

If we have trouble at times understanding the parables, it is not because they are allegories for which we need some special interpretive keys. Rather it is related to some things we suggested in the previous chapter on the Gospels. One of the keys to understanding the parables lies in discovering the original audience to whom they were spoken; as we noted, many times they came down to the evangelists [that is, those men who wrote the Gospels] without a context.

If the parables, then, are not allegorical mysteries for the church, what did Jesus mean in Mark 4:10-12 by the mystery of the kingdom and its relationship to parables? Most likely the clue to this saying lies in a play on words in Jesus’ native Aramaic. The word methal, which was translated parabolē in Greek, was used for a whole range of figures of speech in the riddle/puzzle/parable category, not just for the story variety called “parables” in English. Probably verse 11 meant that the meaning of Jesus’ ministry (the secret of the kingdom) could not be perceived by those on the outside; it was like a methal, a riddle, to them. Hence his speaking in mathelin (parables) was part of the methal (riddle) of his whole ministry to them. They saw, but they failed to see; they heard—and even understood—the parables, but they failed to hear in a way that led to obedience.

[… N]ot all the sayings we label as parables are of the same kind. There is a basic difference, for example, between the Good Samaritan (true parable) on the one hand and the Yeast and the Dough (similitude) on the other, and both of these differ from the saying “You are the salt of the earth” (metaphor), or, “Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?” (epigram). Yet all of these can be found from time to time in discussions of the parables.

The Good Samaritan is an example of a true parable. It is a story, pure and simple, with a beginning and an ending; it has something of a “plot.” Other such story parables include the Lost Sheep, the Prodigal Son, the Great Banquet, the Workers in the Vineyard, the Rich Man and Lazarus, and the Ten Virgins.

The Yeast in the Dough, on the other hand, is more of a similitude. What is said of the yeast, or the sower, or the mustard seed was always true of yeast, sowing, or mustard seeds. Such “parables” are more like illustrations taken from everyday life that Jesus used to make a point.

Such sayings as “you are the salt of the earth” differ from both of these. These are sometimes called parabolic sayings, but in reality they are metaphors and similes. At times they seem to function in a way similar to the similitude, but their point—their reason for being spoken—is considerably different.

It should be noted further that in some cases, especially that of the Wicked Tenants (Mark 12:1-11; Matt 21:33-44; Luke 20:9-18), a parable may approach something very close to allegory, where many of the details in a story are intended to represent something else (such as in Augustine’s misinterpretation of the Good Samaritan). But the parables are not allegories—even if at times they have what appear to us to be allegorical features. The reason we can be sure of this has to do with their differing functions.⁵

Because Jesus Himself shared many types of stories — including but not limited to allegory — we need not feel we must hold other stories, even secular ones, to any higher standard.

We need not insist any fantastical tales be limited to allegory, and if they are not (especially if an author said they were not) suspect those stories are not “useful.” Christ himself did not follow such a “rule.” He can be glorified in many story genres, allegory and otherwise!

Every once in a while, you come across a book that strikes you like lightning; it’s a glorious time to be a reader. A few years ago, G.K. Chesterton’s The Napoleon of Notting Hill came to me like that. I loved the humor, the dialogue, the surprises, the two starring lunatics; I loved the ending, which was a revelation of the entire book. I was fascinated by what questions the novel raised, and how. I wrote about it, more than once. If my weekends ever free up, I’m going to write a screenplay of The Napoleon of Notting Hill.

Still, even books that strike like lightning are eventually subject to cooler analysis. Although I didn’t notice it much at my first reading, Notting Hill has a certain peculiarity: There are almost no women. I don’t mean this the way people usually do, which is that there were women, just not enough or not very important. I mean it literally; if there was a single named female character, or a single sentence spoken by a female, I can’t remember it.

I was unrepresented in The Napoleon of Notting Hill. And yet there I was, enjoying it.

People talk about the need to diversify speculative fiction, about how women and various ethnic groups are underrepresented or excluded in the genre. One writer asserted that “people of color” don’t read speculative fiction because of its lack of diversity.

I don’t object to anyone’s desire to diversify speculative fiction, though I would have a thought or two about the methods. (No quotas.) What I disagree with is the notion that people are unrepresented in stories that do not offer skin-deep reflections of themselves, or that it should be hard to connect with a story that does not have characters like oneself.

This fixation on the male/female divide, or physical diversity (pretty much a matter of pigmentation), can become myopic. People lose sight of the universal humanity that transcends all our natural human differences. If an author has created any character well, giving him or her a sense of life and complexity, then that’s enough for us to connect with. Any character that really seems human is enough like ourselves.

We are not, in any deep sense, “represented” in our stories by specific types of people, but simply by people. Even the alien races of speculative fiction, from Elves to Klingons, are made in our image, sprung wholly from our imaginations and self-knowledge; we are the only rational species we know. C.S. Lewis, criticizing Orwell’s 1984, said that its hero and heroine were not nearly as human as the animal protagonists of Animal Farm. True likeness is made of deeper things.

“People are all the same,” P.J. O’Rourke once declared, “though their circumstances differ terribly.” Authors will frequently fail to capture our circumstances, except in the most general terms; in speculative fiction, that’s pretty much the default. But good authors and good stories capture the sameness, the unchanging humanity that is as consistent as the sun itself. Jealousy and courage were no different when Shakespeare wrote about them in the foreign country of the past; love and hatred were felt the same from the first illiterate bard to the Age of the Computer.

Heroes who show us what we admire, villains who show us what we fear or hate, characters who dream, struggle, fail, hope, give up – all these represent us. Every good story is one thread of our human tapestry spooled out. There are no limitations of appearance or circumstance. It is all us.