Last week, I began a look at the Clive Staples Award voting standards in order to help readers make the tough selection. In summary, this award of Christian speculative fiction is not a popularity contest. Consequently, no voter should choose a book he has not read! Our aim instead is to honor fiction well written.

We are hoping to identify the best book, based on five categories: writing, setting, characters, plot, and theme.

In review, the standards for the first area–writing–can be encapsulated by saying good writing is not boring. I should also add, good writing is not distracting either, because of errors or because of an effort to be poetic which calls attention to itself.

The standards for setting, can be condensed to two questions: is the worldbuilding consistent and does it convince readers to believe it?

This brings us to the remaining three categories.

Characters. A well-developed character will be relatable, believable, and active. Many readers want to like the protagonist, but actually, that’s another way of saying we can relate to the character. We like characters we get; we care about ones with whom we can sympathize. Generally speaking, we don’t like ones who whine or who are selfish and prideful. We also are less likely to relate to perfect characters–though we admire good characters who suffer and handle their suffering courageously.

In reality, this issue of “relatability” bleeds into believability. If a character has motives readers believe, even odd or anomalous behavior is acceptable. Do monsters take care of the children they are supposed to scare? Only if they have a believable motive for doing so. Does a Texas Ranger don a mask and partner with an Indian to roam the country doing good? Only if he has a believable motive for doing so.

The third factor is this: a good character needs to be active. When confronted with a problem, strong characters look for solutions, make plans, do what they think is best to better the situation. They aren’t simply in reaction mode, doing something only because they have no other choice.

Which leads to the next area for consideration.

Plot. A good plot starts with a problem, has ever-increasing complications, and resolves in a satisfying way–none of which is predictable. A story needs a problem to be a story. Something must happen to disrupt the main character’s world and cause him to take action.

Of course his initial action must add to the problem, not solve it. This deepening of the problem can happen because of or in spite of his efforts; it can be a result of new information gained, new enemies encountered, new hardships uncovered.

In the end, the problem comes to a satisfying resolution–though not necessarily a happy one–without being predictable. If a reader “sees it coming a mile away,” the ending is too predictable. That’s different from thinking the ending might be X, Y, or Z or hoping that such and such happens. If the reader continues to think there’s a possibility the story could go in several directions, it isn’t predictable.

Theme. The story says something important that is consistent with a Christian worldview without being preachy. Sometimes this area is the hardest to nail down unless it has been done badly.

Because there’s been so much talk about Christian fiction being preachy, it seems some people have concluded that if a reader can discern what a story is saying, then it is preachy. C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe serves as an example of a story that says something important without being preachy.

The key, I believe, is that the author doesn’t explain the message, either in narrative summary or through character dialogue. There is no, “So, dear reader, Aslan, like Jesus, sacrificed himself for the sin of the wayward son of Adam.” In fact, there’s no explanation of what Aslan did. The action is left to stand on it’s own, to show the reader rather than to tell him, what the author wants to say.

So there you have it–the ways we hope readers will evaluate the nominees for the Clive Staples Award.

As a reminder, to be a voter, a reader must have read at least two of these books. You can help by telling others in your network about CSA and sharing the list of nominees below (in alphabetical order by author’s last name). In the comments pass on to others any ideas you have about letting readers know about the upcoming vote for the 2013 CSA winner. Where have you shared information about CSA? Where else could you share it?

Words in the Wind by Yvonne Anderson (Risen Books)

Daughter of Light by Morgan L. Busse (Marcher Lord Press)

Devil’s Hit List: Book Three of the UNDERGROUND by Frank Creed (Splashdown Books)

Liberator (Dragons of Starlight series) by Bryan Davis (Zondervan)

A Throne of Bones by Vox Day (Hinterlands / Marcher Lord Press)

Mortal (The Books of Mortals) by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee (FaithWords)

Angel Eyes by Shannon Dittemore (Thomas Nelson)

The Telling by Mike Duran (Realms Fiction)

Risk by Brock Eastman (P&R Publishing/Focus on the Family)

Live and Let Fly by Karina Fabian (Muse It Up Publishing)

I Am Ocilla by Diane Graham (Splashdown)

Seeking Unseen by Kat Heckenbach (Splashdown Books)

Remnant in the Stars by Cindy Koepp (Under The Moon)

The Unraveling of Wentwater (The Gates of Heaven Series) by C.S. Lakin (Living Ink Books)

Prophet by R. J. Larson (Bethany House)

Judge by R. J. Larson (Bethany House)

Spirit Fighter by Jerel Law (Thomas Nelson)

Fire Prophet by Jerel Law (Thomas Nelson)

The Spirit Well by Stephen Lawhead (Thomas Nelson)

The Wrong Enemy by Jane Lebak (MuseItUp Publishing)

Alienation (A C.H.A.O.S. novel) by Jon S. Lewis (Thomas Nelson)

Curse Bearer by Rebecca P Minor (Written World Communications)

Rift Jump by Greg Mitchell (Splashdown Darkwater)

Bid the Gods Arise by Robert Mullin (Crimson Moon Press)

Prophetess (Winter Book 2) Keven Newsome (Splashdown Darkwater)

Failstate by John W. Otte (Marcher Lord Press)

Soul’s Gate by James Rubart (Thomas Nelson)

Starflower by Anne Elizabeth Stengl (Bethany House)

Moonblood by Anne Elisabeth Stengl (Bethany House)

Star Of Justice by Robynn Tolbert (Splashdown Books)

Daystar by Kathy Tyers (Marcher Lord Press)

The New Recruit by Jill Williamson (Marcher Lord Press)

Replication: The Jason Experiment by Jill Williamson (Zonderkidz)

Editor’s note. Our guest this week is Michelle Levigne, the author of over thirty-five speculative novels, a number set in a science fiction universe known as The Commonwealth. Those books include the following:

* Sunsinger series — 10-book YA series about a boy growing up on a small starship: Sunsinger, Spacer’s Creed, Dead World, The Lady and the Order, Fever, University, Leap Ships, Aramar, Gemar, Scouts.

* Chorillan Cycle — Azuli Eyes, Scouts’ Pride, By Fire and Stars, Chorillan, Silver Azuli

* Hoven Quest, and tie-ins, The Meruk Episodes I-V and VI-X.

* Wind Walker and sister novel, Moonbirds
* True Caderi
* The Downfall series — Norbra’s Children, The Pirate and the Professor, The Saddle and the Sleuth

* The Order #1 — Undying

Enjoy this introduction to Michelle’s fiction.

– – – – –

In the beginning … long, long ago, in a writer’s cluttered mind far, far away …

Sound familiar? There’s nothing new under the sun — no matter what galaxy or fantasy world you care to mention. The challenge is weaving it all together so it feels fresh and new … or at least nobody notices you inserted an homage to a favorite author or TV series, or you grafted in something with roots in fan fiction.

How did I start writing my sprawling SF series, the Commonwealth Universe? Truthfully? I don’t know.

I’ve been saving rough drafts, notes, and ideas since the early 80s. The more stories I assemble for the Commonwealth, the more of these bits and pieces and rough drafts and outlines I dredge from my files, insert to fill holes and provide history and background details and launch new ideas. It’s a little scary, how well these disparate scraps fit together, like a dozen puzzles tossed into the jumbled bag of my imagination. But that’s the fun part. Making matches, seeing the pictures that don’t quite work, but give me ideas of what’s possible.

Look for these titles (and more) in the future: Virtually Dead, Star Dances, Peregrine, The Talon, Nova Vendetta, Khybors, Lin of Sunsinger.

While trying to start this blog post, I recalled that Hoven Quest started as “Metamorphycs,” a short I wrote for a friend’s multi-verse fanzine. When I was writing the Sunsinger books, the planet Gemar sounded like a good place for the ship to visit. I dusted off the story, changed names and details — because honestly, “Metamorphycs” was just too hokey a name for a story about shapeshifters …

I wrote a story for a fanzine for the TV show, “Highlander.” The story of Maria and her immortal sweetheart, separated for centuries, stayed with me. I rewrote it as a wretched SF romance that languished in my computer. During a Sunsinger novel, Captain Lin gives Bain a lesson on Commonwealth history. Specifically, the Downfall, where the previous galactic civilization imploded under its own corruption, and the Order, a branch of the Church brought civilization back from barbarism to the stars. It occurred to me it would be “easier” to do that if everyone in the Order were immortal. Thus were planted the seeds of the genetic manipulation/quest to breed the perfect Human being, slave classes, and fears of mutation that spawned the Downfall, the genetic terrorists called the Set’ri, and how the Undying/the Order came to be.

In The Lady and the Order, Bain meets Sister High Scholar Marnya, who started out as Maria from that “Highlander” story. I excavated that bad romance and salvaged bits and pieces to create the early days of the Order, part of the novel, Undying.

From the hazy details of the Downfall, now I had places to plug in story ideas that had been sitting in my files for years. Don’t ask which stories came first — when is a story a story? When you get that image that sticks in your head, like the faun trudging through a snowy wood that sparked the Narnia stories? Some ideas have been waiting to be fleshed out into Commonwealth stories longer than my oldest published Commonwealth books.

True Caderi started as a present-day story about a girl kidnapped by the father she never knew, to brainwash her into supporting his nefarious plans for conquest and riches. During early outlining and assembling details, I realized it would work better as SF. I already envisioned the Commonwealth as a highly moral, ethical government, so obviously Adlan Caderi, the planetary pirate lord, was not a citizen of the Commonwealth. But I wanted to use the Leapers — a race of female pilots who mentally link with their ships to travel between dimensions — who belong to the Commonwealth. Caderi wants to breed his own Leaper pilot/captain, so True Caderi had to be in the same universe. Well, duh, Captain Lin had taught Bain that a group of colonies, abandoned during the Downfall, had loosely allied together for survival. They refused to join the Commonwealth, and … let me check my notes, what did I call them? The Conclave. Okay, Caderi owns a planet in the Conclave. Problem solved. That spawned the Sunsinger novel Leap Ships, as well as a side trip to Caderi’s planet during The Lady and the Order.

And that’s part of why I can’t honestly say what book came first!

I desperately need a guide to the Commonwealth books, all the people, places, theology, science, history, technology, who descended from whom, and where in the time line of the Commonwealth all the books take place, so I can go to one place to find out what I need instead of reading and re-reading published or rough drafted books or sifting through notes.

Confession: I’m working on a guide to the Commonwealth, starting with the Hoveni, to offer readers on my web site, followed by a guidebook to the Khybors — once I finish writing the book about the Khybor race, which begins with the Downfall, and exists as several totally unrelated short stories that link together beautifully if I just cut some pieces here and stitch them together in these places and rearrange this history and change these names and …

Maybe I should have gone to medical school — life would be a whole lot simpler!

But not as much fun.

– – – – –

On the road to publication, Michelle fell into fandom in college (she is a recovering Trekker, and adores “Warehouse 13” and “Stargate SG-1”), and has 40+ stories in various SF and fantasy universes. She has a BA in theater/English from Northwestern College and a MA focused on film and writing from Regent University. She has published 50+ books and novellas with multiple small presses, in science fiction and fantasy, YA, and sub-genres of romance. She has been a finalist in the EPIC Awards competition every year since 2004, winning with Lorien in 2006 and The Meruk Episodes, I-V, in 2010. Her training includes the Institute for Children’s Literature, proofreading at an advertising agency, and working at a community newspaper. She freelance edits for a living, but only enough to give her time to write.

Her publishers include the following:

• Writers Exchange: www.writers-exchange.com (Commonwealth novels)

• OakTara Publishers: www.oaktara.com (Commonwealth novels)

• Desert Breeze Publishing: www.desertbreezepublishing.com (Tabor Heights, Ohio series)

• Amber Quill Press: www.amberquill.com

• Uncial Press: www.uncialpress.com (Zygradon — Arthurian fantasy series)

• Mundania Press: www.mundania.com (fantasy)

• Hard Shell Word Factory: www.hardshell.com (fantasy)

You can contact Michelle at her website or blog.

Different kinds of critics filled the world, surprisingly enough even before the internet.

I count at least four kinds: constructive critics, trolls, silly cheerleaders, and silly critics.

Delightfully, Anton Ego is proven a serious and constructive critic by the Pixar film Ratatouille’s end.

Naturally I want to encourage the constructive critics, and hope to remember “don’t feed the trolls.” And I want to chide the final two groups of “critics,” especially when they cross onto our enjoyments of God-exalting stories (speculative and otherwise).

Here’s how I define those final two groups:

• Silly cheerleaders — Rah rah rah! Yay Christian fiction! It’s like the fiction you love, only, you know, Christian. No, the story style and craft don’t really matter. Stop being so elitist. After all, God Himself didn’t give His own Story with the best craft and genre diversity and most wonderful style in the world — all that matters is the Content.

We often challenge silly cheerleaders at Spec-Faith. So I feel free to address only:

• Silly critics — Christian fiction sucks. It’s not reaching people. It’s not Realistic and Artistically Excellent and too often offers Easy Resolutions that gloss over suffering and nastiness. Look at the success of “secular” fiction. When will Christians achieve that?

What am I to do? Criticize silly critics? Not at all. I want to be a positive speculative-story explorer. I cannot curse the darkness without lighting candles. Naturally I present:

“Too long, didn’t read.”

Seven Ways to Be A Silly Christian Fiction Critic

1. Don’t read the actual books.

One can’t become a silly critic who bashes all available Christian fiction by actually reading all available Christian fiction — which includes not only the stuff found on Christian store shelves, but independent publishers and even self-publishers. Limit your reading choices.

2. Compare Christian fiction’s most popular novels to the best literary novels.

You must be casually aware of Christian fiction’s dominant genre and/or authors, and set those in your mind against the (real or perceived) dominance of Classic Works written by Christians past or present. Result: “Oh dear, oh dear, why are Christian readers favoring books with titles like Amish White Christmas Pie instead of the value of a Flannery O’Connor short story?” But you cannot carry out this criticism without subconscious belief that:

3. “High culture” is better than “low culture.”

As author Ted Turnau points out in Popologetics, many Christians accept (or suspect they must accept) an elitist notion that “words are better than images” or that “this music genre is simply better than that music genre.” Accept this dichotomy. Really, Christians should not be reading or writing “popular” level novels anyway; we should only read the best classic novels. (We must also avoid reading Turnau’s annoying and Biblical rebuttal of this view.)

4. Avoid recalling the “bad” Christian stories you may (have) truly enjoy(ed).

… Or is it just me?

Did you read, say, the Left Behind series? Did the Holy Spirit use even that questionable-eschatology-filled, seemingly-never-to-end thriller franchise in your life? Well then, isn’t He an idiot. The Holy Spirit doesn’t know excellent Art and can’t possibly use it to help anyone.

5. Avoid asking, “What exactly would change my opinion?”.

It’s much easier to keep one’s standards vague and floatey than to put them in writing. What exactly makes for “bad Christian fiction” over and above “bad secular fiction”? What is the mathematical ratio? Twenty parts bad to one part good = all bad? If there are but ten righteous in the city of Christian fiction, shall we spare the industry for their sake?

No, of course not. After all, all these other secular critics are not impressed with Christian fiction (for whatever reasons, genuine or otherwise). And we do want to show them that Christians can be artistically cool and also agree that the Church sucks, do we not?

Actual cures? Those can come later, after just one more blog re-re-re-identifying the illness.

But if you do happen to think about exactly what would cure this disease, then you must:

6. Offer yourself and your idea for another novel/publisher/universe as superior.

Who else to reverse the course of history and finally Take This Town for Christ than us?

Finally, this seventh point is the most vital to being a reflexive, silly Christian fiction critic:

7. Don’t challenge your silent acceptance of evangelical change-the-world tropes.

Many evangelical readers, authors, and publishers seem to think something like this:

We must change the world through our fiction. Story’s purpose is not to glorify God by exploring beauties and truths of Himself, people, and His creation. Instead story’s purpose is to entertain, or evangelize, or morally edify, and Change the World.

So as a silly Christian fiction critic, you are bound to respond:

Yes, oh evangelical fiction industry, your core assumptions are exactly correct.

Your only problem is: you’re doing it wrong.

Your stories must be more entertaining, and not so “cleaned up.” That way you’ll be able to do evangelism better, and will not put people off Christianity.

Also, in all your moral edification — family values and patriotism and anti-abortion are nice, but they’re also very off-putting. Let’s have more stories about the values I support, such as challenging intolerance or hatred of gays, or caring for the poor, or even squishy beliefs like ecumenism or universalism.

Maintain this line. Never give up, never surrender. Never consider whether subpar stories result because of these assumptions, not despite them. Never consider what Scripture says about great stories: that they’re not for its own sake, or ours, but to reflect our Author.

I should have known better.

The last time I was on here (a month ago?!?!? It seems a lot shorter than that!), I did some complaining about the long-cancelled TV show Enterprise (because, hey, I’m up on the latest entertainment options). In that column, I rehashed my disappointment with the show, specifically about how they seemed to rehash a lot of the same tired old tropes from previous Star Trek incarnations. The worst of these tropes was time travel, as embodied by the temporal cold war that Archer and company found themselves in. It was this nonsensical garbage that caused me to stop watching the show in its original run a few episodes into the third season.

In the comments, Adam Collings had this to say:

Unfortunately, you gave up on the show just when it got awesome. Seasons 3 and 4 were very good in my opinion, and I was very disappointed when it didn’t get renewed for season 5.

I was skeptical, Adam. So far, what I had seen only confirmed my prior judgment of this show.

Then I got into the heart of the Xindi episodes of season three and I realized what a mistake I had made. I should have remembered: every Star Trek show stinks in the first couple of seasons. It takes a while for them to find their footing, figure out the crew dynamics, and tell some awesome stories. Next Gen‘s first two seasons were abysmal, but once Captain Picard got assimilated, it really took off. Deep Space Nine only mentioned the Dominion once up until the end of season two, but they went on to tell some powerful stories in the final seasons. And the same can be said for Voyager, especially after they realized what a snooze Kes was.

I now am over half-way through season four and approaching the end point and, after each episode, I keep thinking, “Now this . . . this is what I wanted!” Give me the political machinations of the corrupt Vulcan high command! Give me the diplomatic wranglings that bring the Andorians and the Tellarites together. Keep the Romulans skulking in the shadows, plotting to overthrow the whole region. That’s what I want from a Star Trek prequel!

And really, the Xindi episodes were pretty great too! Once they started looking into the origin of the spheres which warped space around them, I was hooked. I had to know how the spheres and the Xindi were connected. I had to know!

Until this guy came along again:

Watch, Captain, as I singlehandedly destroy your show’s lucrative potential!

Ah, Crewman Daniels. Popping into the Xindi plot to give Archer all sorts of information about his future. Every time Archer seemed ready to do something dramatic, there was Daniels to muck it up again. But this time around, I figured out why Daniels bugs me so much. He’s a deus ex machina. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a deus ex machina a person or item that’s suddenly introduced into a story, usually towards the story’s end, that conveniently resolves everything in a neat and tidy way.

And that’s precisely what Daniels is. For example, in one episode, Daniels yanks Archer into the future, to the Enterprise-J, and hands him an item that should help him resolve the entire conflict. In other, Archer is considering a kamikaze run to destroy the Xindi superweapon. Once agian, Daniels pulls him into the future to show him the founding of the Federation, once again trying to help him keep on the right path.

To put it bluntly, Daniels and the time travel nonsense in Enterprise is a cheat, evidence of lazy writing. It’s a way to fix a sticky issue in a story without a lot of thought or effort. There’s a reason why deus ex machinas are derided and have been for many, many years.

But it hasn’t always been that way. And it still isn’t in some circles today.

That’s where I’m going to leave things this time around. Next time, we’ll take a look at where the whole deus ex machina concept comes from, and then, after that, we’ll see how this might apply to Christian speculative fiction. Until then, I’m curious to know: Have you ever seen an example of deus ex machina in a movie, book, or TV show? How well did it work?

For those of you following along from previous weeks, I apologize for being so off and on lately. My work schedule has been an odd one and I’m squeaking in any hours I can to my writing projects (this being one). I’m thrilled with this week’s entry into the Last Son of Earth project, however and look forward to hearing your thoughts as we forge ahead in making a story together.

For this section, I wanted to focus on the “Call to Action”. Our hero’s ordinary world needed to be interrupted by an outside influence. I am especially enjoying the development of Tin Man – there is much to explore here, methinks.

If you haven’t been following along with our story, it’s best to start from the beginning and work your way up to this post today.

Enjoy.

Prologue – The Parting

Chapter 1 – The Gulf

Chapter 2 – One of Them (Part 1)

Chapter 2 – One of Them (Part 2)

And now, Chapter 3 – Another Night in Steel City

Alden trudged home through the darkened, cobblestone streets of Steel City, kicking every scrap of trash in his path. He was furious with himself for having been so careless with his Compendium. After the Red-Eyes escorted him from the Lord’s Manor, Alden had been informed that his cycle permit had been temporarily revoked. He would have to walk five miles home tonight – just another way the arm of CON flexed its muscles to remind him who was really in control.

And so he walked, a bitter soul under the ever watchful eye of CON.

The city of industrial wonders, as it was known, was in many ways a machine to itself. Built on the backs and sweat of the citizens of the Construct, the man-made marvel formed of steel, stone and steam pipes moved with a life of its own. Like clockwork its citizens kept marching in lock step with CON’s orders and schedule – the lifeblood of the the perfect system formed for the common good.

After a citizen was assigned to his/her role in the grand Construct, you became part of it all. So long as you showed up each day, put in minimum effort for the Lords and Ladies who oversaw the system, you were rewarded with entertainment credits which could be used to dull the mind with further indoctrination through approved radio broadcasts and stage shows from the CON Network.

Beyond this, everyone received the same rewards for their labor. Food, shelter, and simple clothes were provided as a necessary means of keeping the populace happy. This was the only way of life the million men, women and children who resided within the great walls of the city had ever known.

Alden should have been happy here in the city of his birth, but as Assignment day neared he had become increasingly agitated. On one hand he was counting down the days until he would move out of his fourth mother’s home. She had been the worst of all moms he could recall. But there was always an underlining fear that the next phase of his life might be worse than even this one and so, he remained nervously conflicted about the fast approaching date.

When at last he did arrive at 52 Silver Lane, it was well after midnight. The only light left on in the entire complex was in a lower level bathroom window. Hoping to avoid any confrontation with his “mother”, Alden circled around to the back of the stone complex, shimmied up a drain pipe to the iron balcony on the second level and hoisted himself up and over it. From there he could access the window of the small bedroom that belonged to him. He gently worked the window frame loose, tossed his satchel inside and slipped inside onto his desktop.

He let a full minute pass in dead silence to ensure he made it without detection before hoping off the desk and heading across the room for his bedroom door. He inched it open and peered down the hall. Even from here he could hear his mother’s snoring through her own bedroom door.

Confident of his successful break in, he spun around and found himself instantly face to face with a pair of glowing amber eyes beneath a grey hood. It was all Alden could do to keep himself from screaming.

“Home so soon,” a dark, static voice asked from under the hood. The face upon which Alden looked was not that of a man, but of machine. It was an expressionless flat mask of steel accompanied by two circular electric eyes. Alden recognized the face immediately.

“Tin Man,” Alden gasped, “Don’t ever sneak up on me like that again. I nearly peed my pants.”

“I don’t sneak,” Tin Man replied, “I have been waiting here precisely as we decided.”

He had recovered the elaborate steam powered man from a junkyard just over a year ago. Having carefully reassembled the wonderful machine over the previous year, creatively improvising with random scraps of machinery where necessary, Alden was delighted upon completion to find that his hunk of junk could actually walk and talk and seemingly reason with him. Because of his creative construction, Tin Man walked in a lopsided manner, making him appear ready to fall over at any moment.

Though he was only scraps of metal, Alden soon came to realize that he had constructed much more than a machine. Tin Man had quickly become his only true friend. It was both extraordinary, and disturbing at the same time.

“Did anyone see you?” Alden asked, quickly moving to close the blinds on his window. Keeping Tin Man a secret was Alden’s primary concern. So far as he knew, the only ones who knew of Tin Man were himself and his mother. She kept quiet about it because she was worried the punishment for Alden’s actions would fall on her shoulders. Alden got the feeling that she was just as anxious for him and his things to move out as he was.

“Only your mother,” Tin Man explained. “Which reminds me, I have a message for you. Would you care to hear it?”

Alden rolled his eyes. “Not really,” he said glumly, pulling his outer jacket and t-shirt off as he prepared for bed. “But lets have it over with.”

At this Tin Man rewound an internal tape recorder and played back an audio message from a shrill voice through the speaker in his mouthpiece.

“Alden Two One. I’m extremely disappointed in you, young man. How many times have I told you to be back before curfew? Don’t you realize that if you are discovered, it is my head, not yours, that is going to be on the chopping block? Do you? What am I saying? Of course you do. It’s probably why you are doing it, no doubt. You are probably hoping they come looking for you so they’ll do away with me. Well listen here, son. You are NOT going to make a fool out of me. I’m eating your supper tonight. You can starve for all I care.”

“And another thing – would you tell this mechanical menace of yours to stay out of my bedroom? I caught him looking through my scrapbook again. It’s a meddlesome monster if you ask me. Nothing good can come of having a machine that can move about like this. I don’t care how friendly it seems.”

There was a brief pause and then, his mother added.

“Oh, and one more thing. I received a telegraph from some man who claims to be an uncle of yours. He said they’ve recovered something that belongs to you. He gave a strange sort of address. It’s on the counter. Nonsense if you ask me. Don’t let me catch you sneaking in the back window again. Heavens knows I’ve got enough trouble without you breaking your neck. I’m going to bed. Don’t expect breakfast in the morning either.”

At this, the recording ended abruptly.

“Is that all?” Alden asked.

“Yes.”

Alden snuck quietly out of his room and recovered a scrap of paper from the kitchen counter then hurried back into his bedroom. He closed the door and read the telegraph aloud with curiosity. It read:

——————————————

Alden Two One,

An article of some significance has been recovered for you.

It is worth your time to meet.

Back of the Scabbard

One Tonru St.

You’ll know when.

Uncle Jonas

——————————————

Until that moment, Alden had never heard of “uncle Jonas” before. It all seemed a bit strange.

“I wonder what it could be?” Alden pondered aloud.

“Perhaps a scabbard of some kind?” Tin Man ventured.

“I dunno. It’s probably just some kind of prank. I’ve never even heard of Tonru Street before.”

Alden tossed the note carelessly on his desk and threw himself onto his bed. It was getting late and he was getting tired. It had been a roller coaster day.

“Are you going to go?” Tin Man asked, his unblinking amber gaze still trained on the paper.

“Maybe,” Alden said with a yawn. “Right now, I just want to sleep. I’ve had a pretty crazy day.”

Tin Man moved to the corner of the room to shut down, but before he did he paused and asked another question.

“Why did you ignore my warnings in the field today?”

“I wasn’t ignoring you, I was listening to my instincts,” Alden responded. “Just a gut feeling I had that I was going to be able to make it.”

“Mathematically you were incorrect. Your instincts almost got you killed.”

“Maybe,” Alden said, mostly to himself. “But if we can’t trust ourselves, who can we trust?”

Tin Man seemed to ponder this for a moment.

“Good night, Alden Two One,” he said, shutting down at last.

“Good night, Tin Man.” Aldan said back.

He lay in bed exhausted, but too many questions gnawed at his mind to allow sleep to find him quickly. How did the CON Men know where he was? Who had found his Compendium? And what should he make of this mysterious new message from an uncle he’d never even heard of? Eventually sleep did come, but it was not without its own worries. It was a restless night for Alden.

At the end of May, the Gospel Coalition posted an article entitled “How to Discourage Artists in Church.” While there was much in the article that I didn’t agree with (not the least being that the author left off writers from the list of artists!), one thing that came out in the discussion was that Christians need to learn how to evaluate art.

A number of writers have said something similar, in particular pointing to a lack of informed reviews that help readers evaluate beyond determining whether or not they liked a book.

I happen to think liking a book is important, but there is more to evaluating a story. I liked Avatar, for example, but I also thought the story was derivative and preachy and the theme was anti-Christian. I was happy it did not win the Best Picture Oscar. But I really did like it. It was entertaining, kept my interest the whole way, and had stunning special effects. Stunning!

As it happens, we are drawing close to the time when readers will be voting for the 2013 Clive Staples Award for Christian Speculative Fiction. We have thirty-three nominees. How are we to choose one Best Book?

Already some of our commenters have said they are going to have a hard time voting because there are so many good books to choose from. I also think there are good books on the list, and I don’t think it’s going to be easy to pick the one I want to vote for as best of the lot. But I’d like to think through the process of making that choice.

First, no reader should pick a book as best if they haven’t read it. This seems obvious, but the problem is, there are a number of online contests that are nothing but popularity contests. I’m thinking of the Predators and Editors contests (which they may or may not still hold). In the past, on any number of email loops an author would say that their book was nominated for best cover or best fantasy or best inspirational or whatever else, and please go to the link and vote for their book.

Of course, not having read the book or any of the competing books makes it impossible to actually say, yes, book X is better than all these others. But we can say, I like the author who asked me to vote, so I’m going to vote as requested.

The author, then, who has the most friends willing to respond, is the one declared the winner.

This is not consistent with the goals of the Clive Staples Award.

Instead of identifying a popular author, we want to honor fiction well written. The method we are currently using to determine this is Readers’ Choice–readers who read the book declare with their vote, this book is better than the others they read.

But what does “better” look like?

There are Standards posted as part of the contest rules, worded in a sort of “judge’s sheet” format. Any reader who wants to play judge is welcome to print out the standards and rate the books they are considering in each of the categories, then vote accordingly.

I know that’s a lot of work though, so maybe we can simplify the process for the rest of us. There are five sections in the CSA standards–writing, setting, characters, plot, and theme.

Writing. Good writing is not boring. It doesn’t go on and on, isn’t too flowery, filled with repetition, or too hard to understand. It might be lyrical, poetic, even beautiful in painting a picture, but it doesn’t do so at the expense of the story. In other words, the writing in fiction should serve the story rather than the story serving as a frame for the writing.

Setting. Speculative fiction often refers to this element as worldbuilding. Good worldbuilding comes down to this: do you, the reader, believe it and is it consistent? If you ever find yourself reading along and think, Really? the world is probably not as believable as it should be.

At the same time, if you’re reading along and say, Wait a minute! What happened to the . . . or, Weren’t there two of them in the last chapter? then the setting, the worldbuilding is not as consistent as it should be.

To avoid going on and on (because even nonfiction can do so, which makes it boring as well), I’m going to save a closer look at characters, plot, and theme for next time.

Meanwhile, share your thoughts about evaluating books. Is one of these elements, characters or plot, for instance, more important to you than the others? Is it OK to vote for a book that might be weaker in one element but is strongest in the element you believe to be most important?

Often I like movies people detest. Disney’s Treasure Planet (2002), which gloried in “steampunk” before it was cool? Love it. Superman Returns (2006)? Still love it (though I also anticipate Man of Steel). Spider-Man 3? Had its goofy moments, but I like it all right.

Our captain isn’t sure what to think of this fictional account of his early life.

This time I can’t be as positive about Star Trek Into Darkness.

No, I’m not surprised that plenty of people like the film as a fine and fun action flick. I liked it that way also. As with Star Trek (2009), the cast and effects are brilliant, the story simple yet interesting enough and, most of the time, unpredictable.

1. Into Derivatives¹

But evidently this time, the writers themselves thought so poorly of their work that yes, they felt they must go where multiple previous Star Trek films had gone before.²

Notice I said multiple. I don’t suggest that Into Darkness merely rips off Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Instead its writers must have decided that previous Wrath of Khan callbacks in Star Trek (2009) were not enough — or that similar callbacks even in Star Trek: First Contact (1996) or Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) didn’t get the job done.

But there is a difference. Those films had callbacks, echoes, references. Captain Picard in First Contact goes on his Captain Ahab-like vengeance against the Borg who assimilated him. And in both Nemesis and in Star Trek, actually, our heroes face the wrath of a vengeful Romulan captain with an impossibly giant and high-tech starship. Sounds familiar? Those do work in their separate movies, I suggest. But it may be that folks who seem to praise Into Darkness for its villain haven’t seen those earlier films and don’t know of the callbacks.

Into Darkness is different. How come? Because its writers wrote memo points akin to these. Really, these are the actual unedited memos, edited to insert only my imaginary questions.

(Left to right) Khan Noonien Singh, the underappreciated Shinzon, and Nero.

Q. Why have yet another vengeful-captain Star Trek movie?

A. Those three vengeful-captain stories, already similar to Wrath of Khan, were not enough.

Q. Meaning … ?

A. Let’s revert to the source of all those callbacks/echoes/tributes, fanfiction-style.

Q. Why would we do that? Aren’t there other themes and “darknesses” to explore?

A. (Ignoring question.) While we’re at it, let’s remake word-for-word, theme-for-theme, a certain famous Sacrificial Death scene from WoK — only “subverted,” sort of.

Q. “Subverted” how?

A. By switching the roles of two heroic characters.

Q. How is this “subversion”? It sounds more like a stunt.

A. Well, it comes across as new and creative, but anyway, that scene and the separation by Plexiglass what people remember from Star Trek. That and “warp speed” and “beam me up, Scotty.” It’s a tough media landscape; we must focus on what people remember, or say they remember, from a time when the landscape wasn’t nearly so cluttered.³

Q. Any other “subversions” you have in mind?

A. We shall have someone yell a villain’s name real loud. And not who you’d expect.

Q. You’re joshing. How is that creative? Can’t we explore more on other themes from earlier in the film, such as when Spock mind-melds with a dying man and can later empathize with those emotions? That builds on previous Trek, without ripping it off.

A. Come on. People remember that yell. It’s famous. We want to tap into that nostalgia.

Q. First, this is blatant “fan-service” on the level of bad fan-fiction. Secondly, you do realize that the yell is particularly famous as an internet meme, right? Put that into a dramatic scene — even a derivative one — and it will cause cognitive dissonance.

A. But it’s memorable. We need some way to get people to look up from their cell-phones in the theater and actually pay attention to the movie they paid nearly $10 to see.

Q. Why do people do that anyway? They paid $10 plus concessions. They waited in line. And they have to be pried away from their preciousss with four stern warnings onscreen plus offers to put your phone in Theater Mode and get coupons later.

A. Yes. It’s sick.

Q. Maybe the next Star Trek film could explore that theme. It’s something Trek has not touched on before, not in our connection-addicted society. Seeing as how you’re so determined to recast Memorable Villains, you could even bring in the Borg early.

A. (Mind blown.)

2. Into ‘Distractism’

That’s my critique of the derivative story — which admittedly, comes only in the film’s last half after a better, more-promising start. But to me, it sent the ship plunging out of orbit.

What about the wonder? I missed that. More of it was present in the first film, though even there I missed that sense of wondrous — and even childish — humanism that Star Trek’s creators explored in the series. All that’s gone. All style, no substance — save for the micro-sermon at the film’s end that attempts to slap on a generic we-must-reject-revenge moral.

Yes, you heard right. A Christian would prefer more humanistic morals in a Star Trek story.

Whatever for?

Because humanism has some kind of substance. It’s the wrong substance, to be sure, but it includes some weight because it at least maintains traces of the imago Dei view of humans (only ignoring the Dei part) and has a heft of imagination and wonder outside ourselves.

Did Into Darkness promote anti-wonder? Not really. But without any particular views under the thing, it veers off-course into a “belief system” I’ll immediately term distractism.

Again, it’s a fun flick, but there’s just not much there when you really think about it.

That doesn’t even get started on the plot holes: “cold fusion bombs,” transporter errors, etc.

3. Into Dulled ‘Darkness’⁴

For a friend who enjoyed the film and insisted it didn’t come near a Wrath of Khan re-re-re-retread, I wrote these reactions. They’ll close out this little critique.⁵

[Friend: Oh, come on, previous films also didn’t share humanistic/philosophical wonder.]

Even if you are not a humanist, it’s a grand and wondrous moment.

Ah, yet even in First Contact there is that underlying wonder, that someday in the future all of Earth’s problems will be over, first contact made, and the Federation founded.

Of course, all that benefited from the established TV series.

As I think about it more, my main objections to Into Darkness were the Khan re-treading. The references were there, but no real meaning or different direction was behind them.

The appeal was of shallow fan service and not much more.

This is a particular retread without half the scope and forethought of the original. In the original, Khan was the result of attempts to better humanity in the wrong way. His strength, coupled with Kirk’s perceived weakening, made for a fantastic clash between them both with real-world personal and philosophical analogues. Khan also meant something to Kirk because of their history, going back to the TOS episode “Space Seed.”

By contrast, Into Darkness Khan was a great villain, especially as portrayed by Benedict “Smaug” Cumberbath. He was a stock villain, but a fantastic stock villain, on his own.

Ergo: this “darkness” was a dull, generic “darkness.”

He didn’t even need to be connected to the original storyline. That was what I mean by overt fan-service, also to the fanfiction level. It ends up borderline insulting.

Things went even more over-the-top when Spock actually yelled the famous yell. That was ridiculous and should have been nixed the moment some fool dared to have the idea. It has no meaning. It drags the thing dangerously close to self-parody.

And it’s even more absurd when the filmmakers already (and more subtly) tributed that by having Nero in the first rebooted film yell “SPAAAAHHHHHCCCK!”

We’ve been there, done that with Vengeful Captains.

They’d likely say this was a creative subversion of the original. “Subversion” nothing. That was just “hey, let’s put this famous painting against a mirror, see how it looks.”

It also didn’t help that the twist was telegraphed from a mile away.

That and the plot holes … eesh, they just weaken the world-building. A perfect visual of this is the exhaust now suddenly left by starships as they warp away. It’s real shiny and all, great visual, but what exactly is that exhaust made by? (Also: is it a pollutant?)

Here’s how you could have real subversion and tributes and action and darkness all at the same time: Stick with the Kirk-violates-Prime-Directive storyline. Indulge in villainy, people trying to militarize Starfleet, great effects, ‘SPLOSIONS AND OVERDRIVE, and all of those things, while delving deeper into TOS’s themes of exploring other planets and dealing with the aliens (balancing enlightened-diplomacy and cowboy-ism) when you get there.

That would have given the film more weight, tributing the substance, not only style, of what made Star Trek great.

1908 was a year for pioneering.

The first long-distance radio message was sent that January. Robert Baden-Powell founded the worldwide Boy Scout movement. The aeronautics world saw its first passenger flight–a crude biplane carrying one passenger.  (Related note: Later that year, Thomas Selfridge made history by becoming the first passenger to die in a plane crash. Orville Wright, the pilot, survived.)

Intrepid explorers trekked to lands where no man had gone before, aspiring to be the first to reach the poles. Success at the top of the world was claimed by Frederick Cook, but starvation forced Ernest Shackleton’s enterprise to turn back just 112 miles from the South Pole.

Back home in civilized lands, the vacuum cleaner was invented that year, and the Hoover Company promptly acquired manufacturing rights. The first fully animated film was created about the same time Henry Ford’s first Model-T trundled off the production line. All this, and more, in 1908.

While these exciting events unfurled, a young pioneer woman gave birth to her first child in the Arizona Territory. The family migrated to western Texas shortly afterward, and in 1915, they traveled in a horse-drawn covered wagon to New Mexico.

The family eventually grew to include two boys and two girls. The eldest, Jack, learned early on how to work. His father wanted to be a farmer, but it proved too arduous in that climate, and he eventually took up ranching instead. It was an isolated life, and young Jack had few friends beyond his brother and sisters. He lived, as he said, “to a great extent in my imagination.”

The Arizona soil might not be fertile for farming, but it fed that boy’s imagination in a powerful way. He left the ranch, first serving in the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II as a weather forecaster, then majoring in English at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales. He joined the faculty of that university in 1960 and remained affiliated with the school for the rest of his life—which was quite long. Jack Williamson died at the age of 98 after having long since secured a place for himself among the great science fiction pioneers.

At first glance, his accomplishments seem surprising considering such rustic beginnings. But think about the era in which he grew up. Scientific discoveries led to new and practical advancements almost daily, improving lives and increasing human capabilities at an astonishing rate. It was a brave new world, a time of hope and change, the sky was the limit—insert your favorite cliché here. It was an astonishing world when the unthinkable could be accomplished, and often was.

John Stewart Williamson, that little tot bouncing along in the covered wagon, became a product of his times. More than that, his product reflected the times. It was an era when people believed everything was possible; if you can dream it, someone will build it.

With Williamson’s publication of the story “The Metal Man” in Amazing Stories magazine, he was off and running; he published three more stories in the next year, and never looked back.

Ever. His novel The Ultimate Earth won both the Hugo and Nebula awards in 2001, when he was in his early nineties. Tor Books published his last novel, The Stonehenge Gate, in 2005, only a year before his death.

Artists portray the world as they see it. Because creation is so intensely personal, the result reflects the artist as much as it does the realities of his world. Today’s SF writers live in a time where, in many ways, yesterday’s fictional scenarios are everyday stuff. Yet the underlying basics remain the same: good v. evil, human nature v. the divine, greed v. sacrifice.

Looking at the speculative fiction produced in the early decades of the 21^st century, I wonder what future readers will infer about us and our world.

I’m so happy Spec Faith is back up and running! For whatever reason, we were hacked last week and repeated fixes only brought the site back up temporarily. Special thanks to Stephen for his tireless work to keep the site running smoothly. We only seem to notice when glitches disrupt the normal activity.

For those in the US, blessings on this Memorial Day.

For all of us, an update on the Clive Staples Award–specifically three announcements:

1. The nominations are now officially closed. We had a great response. Thanks to each of you who added a book you think worthy of the award.

2. Because we received such a large number of nominations (thirty-three), we’ve decided to have readers select the winner in two phases. First we will narrow the field down to five finalists, then choose the CSA winner from those in a second survey.

3. Spec Faith and CSA have teamed with the new speculative writers’ conference, Realm Makers, not only to provide a venue for the announcement of the winner, but also to award a small cash prize to that author.

And now some comments/elaboration on each of these.

First, you’ll find the entire list of nominations posted below. I want to stress the fact that we want the CSA to reflect the best writing as opposed to the most popular author. The two are not always the same.

Consequently, in order to vote in the readers’ choice award, we need voters to read at least two of the nominated books. That seems like a ridiculously low number to me, but we want people to participate so we’re keeping the requirement something readers can easily manage.

Second, the number of nominees jumped fifty-seven percent over the last year the CSA was awarded. I think this increase is due to two factors. One, the book business has opened up and there are far more small presses now. And two, Christians are beginning to embrace speculative fiction more and more.

Regarding the publishers, I couldn’t help but notice the mix between traditional houses and small, independent companies, many existing for five years or less. I like that readers are finding both, and our hope is that the Clive Staples Award, the Spec Faith Library and Reviews, and the daily discussion about speculative literature on the blog will expand the awareness of their books to more and more readers.

Third, the CSA aims to encourage and honor great writing. One way to do that is through a monetary prize, not just high-fives and hand shakes, though we’d like to seem many of those as well.

The Realm Makers Conference is a bold move to provide Christian speculative writers a place to gather and learn. It also allows us the opportunity of celebrating the great stories in the genre. We’re excited that the conference founder and organizers share our vision and want to contribute in a meaningful way to the Clive Staples Award.

By the way, if you’re interested in attending the August 2-3 conference in St. Louis, you’ll have some great teaching from industry professionals like Jeff Gerke, Kathy Tyers, and Bryan Davis. Seventy percent of the spaces are filled, but you have a few more days (until June 1) to reserve a spot at the early bird price of $185.

And now the final list–your 2013 Clive Staples Award nominees (in alphabetical order by author’s last name):

Words in the Wind by Yvonne Anderson (Risen Books)

Daughter of Light by Morgan L. Busse (Marcher Lord Press)

Devil’s Hit List: Book Three of the UNDERGROUND by Frank Creed (Splashdown Books)

Liberator (Dragons of Starlight series) by Bryan Davis (Zondervan)

A Throne of Bones by Vox Day (Hinterlands / Marcher Lord Press)

Mortal (The Books of Mortals) by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee (FaithWords)

Angel Eyes by Shannon Dittemore (Thomas Nelson)

The Telling by Mike Duran (Realms Fiction)

Risk by Brock Eastman (P&R Publishing/Focus on the Family)

Live and Let Fly by Karina Fabian (Muse It Up Publishing)

I Am Ocilla by Diane Graham (Splashdown)

Seeking Unseen by Kat Heckenbach (Splashdown Books)

Remnant in the Stars by Cindy Koepp (Under The Moon)

The Unraveling of Wentwater (The Gates of Heaven Series) by C.S. Lakin (Living Ink Books)

Prophet by R. J. Larson (Bethany House)

Judge by R. J. Larson (Bethany House)

Spirit Fighter by Jerel Law (Thomas Nelson)

Fire Prophet by Jerel Law (Thomas Nelson)

The Spirit Well by Stephen Lawhead (Thomas Nelson)

The Wrong Enemy by Jane Lebak (MuseItUp Publishing)

Alienation (A C.H.A.O.S. novel) by Jon S. Lewis (Thomas Nelson)

Curse Bearer by Rebecca P Minor (Written World Communications)

Rift Jump by Greg Mitchell (Splashdown Darkwater)

Bid the Gods Arise by Robert Mullin (Crimson Moon Press)

Prophetess (Winter Book 2) Keven Newsome (Splashdown Darkwater)

Failstate by John W. Otte (Marcher Lord Press)

Soul’s Gate by James Rubart (Thomas Nelson)

Starflower by Anne Elizabeth Stengl (Bethany House)

Moonblood by Anne Elisabeth Stengl (Bethany House)

Star Of Justice by Robynn Tolbert (Splashdown Books)

Daystar by Kathy Tyers (Marcher Lord Press)

The New Recruit by Jill Williamson (Marcher Lord Press)

Replication: The Jason Experiment by Jill Williamson (Zonderkidz)