Some of you may be familiar with a short story entitled “The Lady or the Tiger?” by Frank R. Stockton in which a certain king sent a subject accused crime into the arena where he must choose between two doors. Behind one was a lady who he would have to marry (regardless of his matrimonial state) and behind the other was a tiger that would tear him apart. A young man dared to fall in love with the king’s daughter, and when the king discovered the relationship, sent the young man into the arena before the two doors. With his glance, the young man asked the love of his life which door he should choose, for he knew she was aware where the tiger was, and where the fair maiden. The story ended on the question, which door did the king’s daughter tell her lover to choose?

This story is perhaps the height of ambiguity.

Four years ago, I wrote a blog post for Spec Faith about how a work of fiction may intend to accomplish one thing, but readers may understand that work as something altogether different. Largely I was exploring ambiguity versus clarity in fiction:

The question is this. Does a piece of fiction impact a reader more by ambiguity and the ensuing discussion, or by clarity?

I’ve never heard a discussion about whether or not Aslan was a redemptive character. Did Lewis create a less powerful character as a result of making him clearly good, clearly redemptive?

Just recently I reviewed a wonderful piece of Christian fiction (not speculative), but my one complaint was that the ending was too perfect:

My one “I wish” has to do with the end. I found it to be the neatest and tidiest section of the book, and I’d rather if it were a little ragged around the edges since that’s the way the characters had been throughout the story. I might have been thinking about these characters for days if things weren’t quite so completely zipped up.

These thoughts about clarity and ambiguity are sloshing around in my head, and then I read an article on an unrelated topic (the use in fiction of unwholesome language or swearing) by Mike Duran in which he mentioned reasons he holds his position on the subject. He included realism in art, right theology, a more nuanced approach to art and culture, and a healthy understanding of holiness.

Are these, then, the things fiction should accomplish–realism, right theology (which Mike explained in a comment to be “more of the theological worldview that encompasses our approach to fiction rather than the actual theological tidbits”), a nuanced approach, a Biblical (which should equate with “healthy”) understanding of holiness? Obviously this was not Mike’s claim, even in part, but they spurred me to ask questions.

Considering these particular items, the right theology (even with Mike’s clarification) and the healthy understanding of holiness seem to mitigate against ambiguity, whereas realism and a nuanced approach to culture and art align with ambiguity.

Is it possible to show Biblical holiness and come away with an unclear picture? One novel I recently read ended with a suggestion that the protagonist was on a path that could lead to salvation. Most certainly the character was thinking about spiritual things in a new way. Is that ambiguous, and therefore desirable, or is it missing the opportunity to reflect right theology?

Another novel showed a character, who doubted his faith, come to a new understanding of God because a Jewish rabbi drowned to save others. Certainly there’s some ambiguity in this climactic event that sparked change because mankind’s willingness to die for another is not the source of saving power. Does coming to God require a different level of clarity than any other part of a story?

Was there ambiguity in Aslan’s sacrifice for Edmund? How about when Frodo destroyed the Ring? Was there ambiguity in Aragon’s triumph? Or the cleansing of the Shire?

As you can tell, I’m mostly thinking out loud here. I’d love to hear your views on the subject–are some things too important to be left open for interpretation or by weaving in some ambiguity, does a writer, besides creating a more artistic work, actually ensure that a reader will think about the story and contemplate the issues in more depth?

Most of us are familiar with Narnia author C. S. Lewis and The Lord of the Rings creator J. R. R. Tolkien. We may also enjoy the fiction of newer Christian speculative authors. But what of those we might have missed?

One of the greatest pleasures I have as a reader of the speculative genre is discovering wonderful books I didn’t even know about until somebody waved it under my nose and told me, “Here. Read. Love.” This feature is my brief effort to pass that joy along.

In part 1, we explored how readers often want “more like the Inklings” without knowing what the Inklings themselves wanted to imitate. Yet this installment brings another issue: that in our desire to read the works of whoever seems to be “the next Lewis” or “in the tradition of Tolkien,” we may miss some truly great tales, from classic and newer authors.

C. S. Lewis

With that in mind, here are some great speculative authors and novels you might not know about.

C. S. Lewis

First, why is he here? Well, have you read Till We Have Faces? No? Go thou and sin no more.

George MacDonald

Thanks to Lewis, this name is better known now than it was even 30 years ago, but many people have still heard the name without ever picking up one of his books. This is a tragedy, because MacDonald’s works are some of the best mind-bending and world-stretching stories of the Christian fantasists. At the Back of the North Wind is possibly his best, and the duet The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie are fine works as well. You can also find good collections of his shorter novellas and stories around Amazon.

James Blaylock

An evangelical of sorts (he doesn’t go to church often), Blaylock has a marvelous collection of novels, full of rich writing, allusion/symbolism. Some of them may not match the stereotypical Christian “clean” standard, but they are still worth reading. If you want to ease into the “tougher” ones, Blaylock has two that would be the equivalent of YA fiction: The Land of Dreams and The Last Coin.

Charles Williams

Charles Williams

The lesser-known “third arm” of the Inkling writers, Williams is stranger than either Lewis or Tolkien, but his work is very rich and rewarding for readers. Read his work and then pick up a good reader’s guide; I highly recommend Thomas Howard’s The Novels of Charles Williams for a Christian assessment and evaluation.

Tim Powers

Powers is an Eastern Orthodox believer (I believe), but certainly a Christian. His best-known novel at this point is On Stranger Tides, the novel from which the most recent Pirates of the Caribbean film was inspired. His work is fairly tough by evangelical standards, but immensely rewarding and filled with biblical allusion and symbolism. A good entry point might be Dinner at Deviant’s Palace or the aforementioned On Stranger Tides.

Wade Wellman

His works are explicitly Christian, many of them following the adventures of Silver John through the Appalachian mountains, banishing witchcraft and sorcery wherever he finds it, using a Christian “white magic” of his own. The stories of John are to be found in the collection John the Baladeer. Be sure to check out these other novels of his: The Old Gods Waken, After Dark, The Lost and the Lurking, The Hanging Stones, and The Voice of the Mountain. Do note that they are written in an Appalachian dialect, though this is not nearly as obtrusive as, say, the dialect in Huckleberry Finn.

Randell Garrett

Garrett was a longtime SF writer who converted to Christianity. His best works are in the Lord Darcy series, which follows a fantastical/alternate world Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown-esque character. The stories are collected in Lord Darcy.

Cordwainer Smith

This was the pseudonym for the American spy Paul M. A. Linebarger, writing in the 1950s and ‘60s, who represents one of the earliest Christians writing in the speculative genre. His works are considered a classic in the genre of science fiction, and his stories are strange and profound all at once, though heavily literary. His complete short fiction is available in The Rediscovery of Man, and his only novel is titled Nostrilia.

Gene Wolfe

Wolfe is a devoted Christian whose books are some of the few speculative works respected by the wider literary establishment as being well-written literature. His work is excellent, and The Devil in a Forest is a good place to start.

Lloyd Alexander

I know little about Alexander’s beliefs beyond the fact that he was (so far as I can determine) a Christian. He has several series for YA audiences, and his greatest, crowning achievement is The Chronicles of Prydain, a five-volume fantasy series based upon Welsh and Celtic mythology. The books were published around the same time as Lewis and Tolkien, and participates in the same “vein” of fantasy as both of them. They were my favorite books growing up, and it is really a pity they are not better known.

Susan Cooper

Cooper is not, I believe, a Christian, but her work is among the best modern fantasy around, and is certainly still compatible with a Christian worldview. Her The Dark is Rising set is five books, all published around the same time as Lloyd Alexander, a few years after The Lord of the Rings and Narnia. A good one-volume set is available for less than $10 on Amazon.

Writing more blog entries about how we-don’t-have-enough-good-Christian-sci-fi-and-fantasy-novels doesn’t alone correct this problem. Writing your own Great Chronicles of Zag’róphobiæn novel also doesn’t fix it. Even having that novel published, distributed, and read isn’t the sole solution to faith-fiction inferiority.

Start here by clicking.

Instead, you need to buy Christian SF novels. Then read them. Then write reviews of them.

Firmly yet graciously, frankly yet in love, opinion-based yet backed with facts, review them.

Otherwise, a great story with truth and beauty won’t be enjoyed as it should be. Otherwise, an inferior story may keep making the rounds based on random popularity or Trendiness or solely the fact that the author is a Very Solid Christian (but can’t craft a delight-arousing sentence to save his/her literary life). Who will let others know in either case if not you?

With Speculative Faith’s summer upgrade, we added novel reviews, to accompany the ever-growing list in the Speculative Faith Library. Unlike with our more-limited guest columns, we accept submitted reviews — even if they’ve been published or posted elsewhere.

For instance, longtime editor, fantasy writer, and Speculative Faith editor Rebecca LuElla Miller has been republishing from her vast repertoire of Christian-speculative reviews.

They join a couple of my new reviews, and several from Spec-Faith contributors. Such as:

The Kingdom – A Review

Continuing where The Gift left off, The Kingdom tells the story of Anastasia and Teofil, two exiles from Chiveis living in a post-apocalyptic Europe. For the most part Christianity had vanished because the Bible had been lost, but through Ana and Teo’s efforts, that changed, and in The Gift the entire Bible was recovered. Now, in The Kingdom their mission is to take the Holy Writings first to lands of the Beyond, but ultimately, back to their native country. Read more …

‘A Star Curiously Singing’ Shines in a Dark, Droning World

To finish this first “DarkTrench Saga” novel by Kerry Nietz, I stayed up late. A fictitious robot wasn’t the only high note in this original science-fiction tale. Read more …

Review: The Gift

This second in the dystopian Chiveis Trilogy will be a book those who love fantasy and who want a story with a Christian worldview will enjoy. I suspect there will be more Litfin fans coming on board because of The Gift. Read more …

Review: The Monster in the Hollows

Shannon McDermott: Monster in the Hollows is even more beautiful than Andrew Peterson’s previous On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness and North! Or Be Eaten. Read more …

A Worthy Successor to ‘The Lord of the Rings’

In ‘Daughter of Light,’ Morgan Busse’s mythology is impressive, her characters realistic, and her themes truthful. Buy it and read it. It is truly fantastic. Read more …

Which of these have you read? Which sound fascinating, based on the review?

Now I shall make up some questions that imaginary readers may ask, and answer them.

I don’t know how to write a review; will you help?

We’re glad you asked. Becky has already answered much in this column. (We also hope to turn it into a featured article). She gives examples of what a review is not and what it is:

A review is an opinion, with reasons.

If you have an opinion, and can write enough to comment on a blog, you can write a review.

Personally, I’ve made a structure to help with my reviews. Because I hope to write reviews because great stories by man reflect the Epic Story by God, I’ve found it helps to follow this.

1. Hero and plot. How do these, in truth and beauty, reflect God and His Story?
2. Characters and enemies. How do these reflect, in truth and beauty, real people?
3. Story-world and style. How do the author’s skills in style, world-crafting, and reflections of true and beautiful themes honor the Creator and bring joy to readers?

Other writing tips on the fly:

1. Love truth. “Faith” in our name implies God’s truth. How did the book echo this?
2. Love beauty. True theology leads to beauty. How did the book show this well?
3. Love brevity. Many of my own early reviews are disqualified from republication here because I mainly wrote them to read myself being clever, meaning loquacious.
4. Love details. You might mention a novel’s author, publisher, and intended readers.
5. Love fun. Whether you enjoyed the story or had mixed feelings about it, reading a review should be enjoyable. Throw in metaphors, maybe even affectionate sarcasm.
6. Be personal. A novel may speak to you in ways it never can to others. Share how.

Also, if it helps, submitted reviews get a little editing for style, and to add links. They credit you the author, and your website. And if you use this form, the review appears on the front page and is automatically published to networks. We cross-promote as we Cross-promote.

Should I start my own website with more Christian-speculative reviews?

This is my biased as well as informed view: we already have a glut of those. Reviews are spread too thin, over Amazon, publishers’ sites, and a zillion blogs. I recommend focusing on the online resources already available, even if that may mean a little “conforming.”

Why should I personally write a review?

1. Not just for The Cause, I can tell you that. By The Cause, I mean the crusade against Christian SF novels being under-appreciated, under-published, and under-read.
2. Yes, all those facts are irritating. But we should share the news about great stories for the same reason we would share a great recipe, hymn, or spiritual song: we love it, and our joyful experience glorified God and led us closer to worship.
3. Conversely, if a novel was poor or mixed, and doesn’t seem to honor God in the way its author likely intended, it glorifies Him and helps others if we say so, in grace.

A brief word on the “entertainment” question. I get asked this sometimes, when I offer very spiritual-sounding reasons to love epic stories: Isn’t entertainment okay too? My “frivolous” Star Trek and Lord of the Rings action-figure collections and I say yes, it is! Yet my thought: let us read stories first as acts of worship, then as “entertainment.” True “entertainment” — that is, God-honoring joy — is not a substitute for worship but a result of worship.

How might I get started?

First, read a great (or otherwise) novel that is Christian, speculative, and published. Thus far, Speculative Faith offers three options for wound-be book reviewers:

1. Find the book in the Library and micro-review in a comment. (If the book isn’t there yet, suggest we add it.) Disadvantage: slightly less comment visibility. Advantage: fast.
2. Write a brand-new review and use the Submit a Novel Review form to send it to us. Disadvantage: takes more time. Advantage: better detail and great visibility.
3. Find your review on your own website or blog, place it in the Submit a Novel Review form, and send it. Disadvantage: nearly none. Advantage: quick, detailed, and easy.

With that, I’m off to write my own review, likely of a certain Mars-themed novel that I’ve long loved. What books have you recently reviewed?

Today I feel like a good old-fashioned, and I hope Christ-exalting, rant. This one focuses on popular reasons to love The Chronicles of Narnia and similar stories. Such reasons miss the beauty of a literary forest, in favor of esoteric, specific Bible-quoting spiritual symbols and Allegories that are supposedly carved into the trees — if you look very closely. (Or rather, you teach children to look, because you assume Narnia is only for children’s Moral Benefit.)

Don’t put silly spray paint all over the Wardrobe. Its magic world within, and (in the film) the symbols carven without, should first share their own story.

Here, and in part 2, I’ll base my critique on this article. Its author is Peter Hammond. I only recognize the name and I’m sure he means well. He gets plenty right, such as that Narnia is a “supposal.” But then he sadly goes off violating fantasy-story “hermeneutics” in a way that no evangelical Christian would do — or should do — with a certain other Book we enjoy.

Do I pick on this because these flawed Narnia justifications are irksome, and because I just finished a local-church reading group for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? Absolutely.

Yet my main reason is because this is a question of worship.

I mean this: that if you view a story like LWW in this way, you will worship God less.

A sermon parallel

Does Aslan’s death signify Christ’s? Yes. Does the story contain symbols and allegories? Yes. Do Christians overreact to silly or liberal “metaphorical” approaches to Scripture and thus claim the “literal meaning” precludes any symbols, callbacks, or parallels in the Story? Yes.

But let us take a famous Bible verse, such as John 3:16. I read this verse, in context, aloud in front of a group of people. I have no idea if these are “professional” Christians, new Christians, or Biblically ignorant or Biblically fluent non-Christians. So I read aloud: “For God so loved the world …” and so on. Let us say I fix on the meaning of the word world. I do a study on the differences between the Greek aion (age, I believe) and kosmos (physical creation). I discuss other uses, symbols, parallels, and more. Then I end with, “Let us pray.”

Is this bad? No; we need such deep-delving. Is this untruthful? Again, no. So what’s wrong?

This: I should have first proclaimed the text’s central, beautiful truth. “Listen! God loves His creation. According to His love, He gave His only Son so that all those who believe in Him will not be condemned but live forever. What an amazing Story about an amazing God! Has He saved you? If so, you will want to respond to Him. Exult in Him. Delight in His beauties.”

Now watch what occurs when someone approaches a story such as LWW, surely with good intentions, but with primarily a fill-out-symbolic-checklists-on-behalf-of-others emphasis.

First, what does that approach miss?

1. In place of a spirit of worshipful delight and wonder is an air of stiff approval.
2. In place of having the heart of a child is having the heart of a child’s Instructor.
3. In place of an eye for beauties in the subcreator’s writing, and the Beauty of the Creator Himself, is a wandering glance that seeks Obviously Practical Truths.
4. In place of humility “under” the story is a salvage effort to seek parts for Good Use.

Narnia vs. certain other fantasy stories

Unfortunately, because of the success of the “Harry Potter” series, many have assumed that the “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” is something similar. However, while Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia” have a Christian worldview, the “Harry Potter” books and films are occultic.

One should not gloss over such LWW critics’ alarms over “occultic” elements in that story. Without directly addressing those and defending from Scripture a better understanding of sin’s real source (not the world, but our hearts) and a practice of “taking captive” “pagan” myths, any “but it’s allegory”-based defense of Narnia seems like un-discerning distraction.

As for Harry Potter [HP], in the writer’s defense, he seems to have written this in 2005, two years before the HP series ended with a brilliant echo of Christ’s sacrifice and defeat of evil. Yet in the author’s offense, he repeats myths about the HP series even by that time.

C.S. Lewis made clear in his writings that it is wrong to use magic.

The writer gives no source for this claim. I don’t recall Lewis speaking on the topic of real-world “magic” (or defining what “using” it would look like in reality). Discerning readers must tangle with Lewis’s love of “occult” myths and fairy-stories, to understand his views.

Magic is forbidden in the Bible (Deuteronomy 18:8-13; Leviticus 19:31; Revelation 21:8).

It would help to define briefly why God forbids this “magic.” It is not imaginary magic that only exists in folklore, but willful attempts to reject God’s power and means of revelation in favor of our own attempts to predict the future or control our lives. By this higher standard, using devices such as Ouija boards would be wicked, but so would be “Christian” methods of divination that fear Things, or try to seek God’s secret will in “signs” to know our futures.

This writer does rightly understand Narnia’s use of “magic” to mean God’s laws or miracles.

The worlds that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien described in their novels were real worlds with real consequences and real hope.  Actions have consequences.  When Edmund succumbs to the temptations of the White Witch, he has to pay the consequences, or someone has to pay in his stead. In contrast, the “Harry Potter” books are thoroughly occultic.

This is incorrect. Why do Christians repeat such myths? Actions also have consequences in the Harry Potter world, and the series roundly condemns relativistic views of good and evil.

In their ontology, the world can be manipulated through magic.  Things change shape.  Nothing is really real.  There is no need for a Saviour.

Again we see why simplistic defenses of Narnia are undiscerning. In Narnia, the world can also be “manipulated by magic,” and “things change shape.” As for “nothing is really real,” this repeats a postmodern, my-interpretation-over-the-author’s-intent mode of reading HP.

One merely has to have the right incantations and formulas to manipulate reality for one’s own selfish ends.

In Narnia, as in Harry Potter, these sinful behaviors are shown. And by the end of the Harry Potter series, they are also condemned. In either series, characters sin, learn, and change.

Violating Narnian ‘hermeneutics’

C.S. Lewis explained that: “The whole Narnia story is about Christ.”  “The Magician’s Nephew” is about the Creation and how evil entered Narnia.  “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” is about the Crucifixion and Resurrection.  “Prince Caspian” is about the restoration of true religion after corruption. […]

Yes and no. Behold the religious tendency to crave stamping Moral X or Moral Y or Moral Z atop a story or product. For instance, that is only one theme of The Magician’s Nephew; the story also explores human suffering, fertility and motherhood (author Michael Ward argues the story is themed after motifs based on the medieval mythology of Venus), temptation, “supposals” of other worlds, and other themes. To say “the story is about this only” neglects these other meanings. It is a flawed, fill-out-the-blank approach that also lessens worship.

This article’s writer does, however, get it right that Narnia is a “supposal.” Here he quotes Lewis accurately and favorably. Unfortunately he then ignores Lewis’s “hermeneutical” hint in favor of a “Find Deeper ‘Spiritual’ Meanings First for Our Practical Use” hermeneutic.

When the Witch confronts Aslan, she reminds him of the “deep magic” the Law that “every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have the right to kill.”  The Witch declares that by law, his blood belongs to her.  All of this echoes Romans 6:23 “The wages of sin is death.” And Hebrews 9:22 “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.”

As noted here, the Deep Magic is similar to God’s Law, but not exact. One does not need to parse the Witch’s words or delve into symbols to discern this; one only needs to know that it is God, not Satan — or Death itself, as the Witch better reflects — who punishes sin. Any Christian defense of LWW should recognize the allegory’s limitations. Otherwise we may violate the story’s intent and read “back into” Scripture a foreign belief. (This is especially possible when people misinterpret the meaning of the character Emeth’s near-salvation in The Last Battle to believe Lewis fully endorsed a kind of “anonymous Christian” notion.)

Next week: approaches like this ignore the central intent of a story and the primary need to be first lost in its beauties and wonders, in favor of un-humble attempts to “spiritualize.”

Over the weekend I was able to ask Green Lantern himself what he thought of his movie.

This was my third visit to a comic-book store. Before now I have never purchased comics; what drove me to this decision was the so-far-fantastic crossover series Assimilation², which includes the casts of both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Doctor Who. (Geek-out moment, when The Doctor and Captain Jean-Luc Picard shakes hands.) It happened that this store — about which I have written — was having its grand opening. Green Lantern was there, along with Batgirl, Harley Quinn (no Marvel heroes!), and some Ghostbusters.

While others lambasted details like the CG superhero costume, I enjoyed Green Lantern’s action, fighting-fear themes (though some were arguably overdone), and motifs of miraculous regeneration to serve a cause higher than one’s self.

Knowing most consider Green Lantern an expensive flop, I asked the hero about his view.

“Yeah, it wasn’t that great,” he said (paraphrasing). “I mean, I like it okay; I would watch it again. But it could have been so much better.”

Whereas I thought Green Lantern was a fine, entertaining flick, not the best, but not a “flop.”

In this I seem to be in the minority.

I also enjoy the films Treasure Planet, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and the oft-maligned series Star Trek: Enterprise (despite its absurd attempts to add Alien Sex Appeal).

I don’t absolutely hate Spider-Man 3, and still see little point to a total reboot of that series.

With novels, even though I’ve come to reject, for now, pre-everything-ism end-times views, and still dislike wandering plots and repetitive rescue missions, to this day I still appreciate the Left Behind series. (I only dislike the final book, Kingdom Come, which has no plot.)

I have no problem with Frank Peretti’s angels-versus-demons novels This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness, though I — along with Peretti himself — dislike readers’ abuses.

This will keep happening. A film or novel, and rarely a television program, will release that at first gains mixed reviews. Then a Cultural Consensus seems to appear: Everyone get on board, we should all hate this now. Gradually, everyone does. Except you.

These reasons may explain the difference:

1. You grew up with the story. Perhaps God even used it to help you, despite its flaws. For me, this helps explain my continuing appreciation for the Left Behind series.
2. You don’t know the story source, so didn’t expect more (many did of Green Lantern).
3. For creative or doctrinal reasons, you naturally overlook flaws others can’t stand.

How does this happen to you? What films, series, and novels do you enjoy — or at minimum, think are okay and shouldn’t be reviled — while others despise them?

Conversely, some Supreme Classics that we’re all supposed to love seem plainly awful.

1. You didn’t grow up with a story, so you have no personal attachment.
2. You know the story source, and so expect more.
3. Creatively or doctrinally, errors irritate you that others simply don’t see.

In the non-speculative field, we are all supposed to honor Gone With the Wind as a classic, and I do recognize that — but as Becky recently noted, it’s unorthodox. As a viewer (I have not read the book), I was only able to support the supporting cast: Melanie, Ashley, and all.

For speculative stories, I (gasp!) frankly can’t see the great appeal of Star Wars — even the original trilogy. I know it’s there. Yet I didn’t grow up seeing the films since childhood.

For me, that may also contribute to my recent dislike of A Wrinkle in Time. Several people who say they love it have apparently grown up with the story. It’s “embedded.” Thus, I may argue that, even if adjusted for fantasy-inflation, the ending is shallow and sentimental, but that doesn’t — and shouldn’t — offset readers’ long attachment. In fact, this is like how I feel about the Left Behind series, despite what I know are its doctrinal and story flaws.

This also works for some newer Christian speculative novels. So far I’ve read quite a few of them that, to me, don’t seem all that great. Even if I don’t expect “the next Inkling” (which as A. T. Ross notes can be a silly and misinformed expectation anyway), I’m disappointed.

But maybe the story isn’t intended for me. Maybe it’s meant for another reader, likely a younger  reader. For him or her, it’s not clichéd or dull to read of yet another medieval setting with overt Christian allegories during the tale of another orphan who turns out to be the lost son of royalty about whom there is an ancient prophecy that he will defeat evil and bring peace. To such readers, all that is new and shiny and magical and wonderful.

If that’s true, maybe I shouldn’t complain. I might want different stories for readers like myself. But that’s a genre-based objection, not a particular-story-based objection.

So, which stories do you dislike that others near-unanimously praise?

“Call me Ishmael.”

A name is like the cover of a book. For better or worse, it tints our first impression of a person–would you be drawn into the pursuit of the Great White Whale by a guy named Poindexter? Names can also powerfully shape our self-perception. If I ask who you are, you’ll likely respond with your name, and you won’t be happy if I get it wrong on our next meeting. Our names may carry a deeper meaning in their etymology that influences our behavior–if I know that Fred is derived from a Germanic word that means “peaceful,” it might subconsciously make me less combative. Or not. Names connect us to our family trees, and our parents often reinforce that by selecting a first or middle name in honor of a beloved relative or ancestor, though it may unintentionally cool our affection for Great Uncle Jebeziah or Granny Gertrude later in life.

“Hey! McGurk!”

Pretty or not, names have power. Children assign nicknames to their peers denoting respect, shame, affection, ridicule, or fear. These tags can elevate or destroy social status in an instant. Some of them may follow a person their entire life–heaven help “Stinky.” Though Romeo declared, “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” we might be less inclined to sniff a “flatulentia.”

Many a story revolves around the idea that knowing a person’s true name grants a magical power to control them. Rumpelstiltskin, anyone? Mxyzptlk? Some names have a magic of their own and propel their bearers with the force of destiny: “Aragorn, son of Arathorn, heir of Isildur, King of Gondor.”

Most of us adopt a variety of names during the course of our lives. Some are official titles, others may be aliases, business names, pen names, pet names, nicknames, handles, hashtags, “hey you,” and so on. In some cases, our identities are as malleable as our names, and we adopt different personas to fit the demands of a given situation or our current mood. At times, one name isn’t enough to encompass the extent and complexity of a person, God being the foremost example. A quick skim of the Bible will yield hundreds of names for God, some of His own declaration, some springing from human attempts to comprehend and describe Him. “Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace”–that’s from a single verse in Isaiah. You get the idea.

“…and there isn’t any name that I can’t rhyme.”

An American soul singer and songwriter named Shirley Ellis even wrote a little ditty about names that rose to #3 on the U.S. music charts in 1965, and you’ll probably recognize it. She called it The Name Game:

Shirley!
Shirley, Shirley bo Birley Bonana fanna fo Firley
Fee fy mo Mirley, Shirley!

Come on everybody!
I say now let’s play a game
I betcha I can make a rhyme out of anybody’s name

Please be careful about the names you plug into Shirley’s template. Your friends Chuck and Ruby may never forgive you. Just sayin’.

My wife and I spent months pondering names for each of our three children. Something strong, yet approachable. Significant, but not too weighty. A name that tumbled trippingly off the tongue, inspiring birdsong and heroic anthems. Memorable, but also impossible for playground comedians to convert into a hurtful label. Perhaps most important of all, nothing remotely connected to any of the little hellions my wife had the misfortune to babysit during her teenage years. I think we were mostly successful, though the ingenuity of playground comedians is not to be underestimated.

The Sackville-Bagginses aren’t quite so lovable.

I have a similar struggle choosing names for the characters in my stories, and I’m rarely satisfied with my final selections. Some authors are simply brilliant at this, and we get wonderful, musical, emotionally-resonant names that go a long way toward creating a vivid image in our minds: Bilbo Baggins, Aslan, Aldus Dumbledore, Huckleberry Finn, David Copperfield. On the dark side, we find names like Smaug, Tash, Voldemort, Injun Joe, and Uriah Heep that clash and grind and leave a bad taste in our mouths.

What about you? Do you think character names are important? What are some of your favorites…or a few you wish you’d never heard?

C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien (and to a lesser extent Charles Williams, G. K. Chesterton, and Dorothy Sayers) are rightly celebrated by Christian readers and writers alike, well beyond the 50-year mark of their works’ first publication, for the quality of their fiction.

J. R. R. Tolkien

Their work broke like fire across a literary landscape that had despaired of again producing anything of mythic quality. Before these authors’ arrivals, global events had quickly dimmed the modern world’s expectation of tiptoeing to glory, and the heady philosophic predictions of the Enlightenment — that is, that rational sense had triumphed over ancient and medieval silliness and would wash across the globe, ushering in a secular Kingdom of universal peace and prosperity — were sorely tarnished. World Wars I and II quickly shut down such extravagant claims and threw the narrative of secularism out of balance.

Scholar Peter Leithart has helpfully summarized this shift. He wrote that ancient pagan literature was deeply tragic, medieval literature was deeply comic, and modern literature is deeply disappointed — a disappointment that modern man could no longer believe the deeply comic story of Christendom, and a further disappointment that their own secularized and bowdlerized version of it had so quickly soured.

Cynicism is the characteristic of modern (and postmodern) man. There are no more heroes, no more villains, for we all have our own agendas which all appear justified in our own eyes. After all, even the dragons have their reasons for rampaging and burninating the villages; such is their belief, one which we have no right to challenge.

C. S. Lewis

But into this disappointed, cynical, postmodern world stepped Narnia and Middle-earth, crafted by Lewis, Tolkien, as well the works of others who were officially (or colloquially) termed “The Inklings.” These fantastic worlds and their authors renewed our culture’s dimmed memories of heroes and villains, sinners and saints, good and evil. They reminded us of nobility and honor in a powerfully mythic way, a revitalizing wind that blew softly on the dwindling embers of Western Christendom. Their successes are well deserved.

This brings us, however, to an unfortunate problem.

Rebecca LuElla Miller has reminded us that Christian writers have often been stuck comparing their work to Lewis and Tolkien. “[This is] reminiscent of C.S. Lewis,” one endorsement said. Other blurbs say new stories are “in the tradition of Lewis and Tolkien.”

Why? Lewis and Tolkien tapped into a literary power — a power that gave their works mythic transcendence. Thus, these authors and endorsers want to tap into this same deep-rooted source of mythic power for themselves, or at least long enough for us to transact a purchase. So many a book has been adorned with some blurb or another proclaiming it the long-awaited work to rival the original Inklings that this itself has become a long-sought myth: that a newer work will finally meet the standard. It’s almost an eschatological expectation of Christian readers, anticipated as eagerly as the return of King Arthur.

Right.

Perhaps I’m skeptical, but I doubt an aspiring author could, even with ten years of work, produce something of similar or equal content to Lewis or Tolkien. Unlike even many great authors today, they benefited from living in an age when education was still designed to enrich the soul, not to merely download facts into a brain for the test. They were both literature and linguistic professors at Oxford (Oxford!), who lived and breathed the ancient and medieval myths. The fruit of their education fed the “compost heap” of their imaginations — imaginations that were fed repeatedly on the same stories for 40 or 50 years, decades before either of them produced their great fictional works.

We must ask, do even today’s great Christian speculative authors benefit from this background? Have they begun their story-crafting after this kind of training, this comprehensive education? Have they shared the same imagination cultivation, fed by mastery of languages, Biblical truth, and ancient mythology dating back centuries? If not, why claim one is the “next Inklings”?

Yet I’m not addressing authors here as much as readers. After all, the reason many authors are advertised as “the next Inkling” is because this approach sells. Why? We demand it. How do we demand it? By gobbling up any book that bears the “tradition of the Inklings” label.

It’s a huge circular feedback loop. Readers have so “cultified” the Inklings that authors and publishers assume the only novels Christian speculative genre readers want to read are imitations of Lewis or Tolkien. So they aim at producing something similar to Lewis and Tolkien. Naturally, many such works are merely derivative. Readers often can’t sort between the true “tradition of the Inklings” and its imitation, its pale counterfeit. How come? Because many readers (and authors and publishers) neglect what really gave the Inklings their strength.

How do we resolve this? By deepening our mission. Before we lament Inklings imitations from authors and publishers, we as readers must desire, and then demand, higher-caliber tales. There is no easy answer or “quick fix” that we all long for. A true return to this sort of thinking will take several generations. But we can begin that process of restoration.

1. Identify the Inklings’ true inspiration, beyond themselves.

Let us aim for the true target of Lewis and Tolkien. After all, the Inklings weren’t aiming for themselves. They sought stories like those of King Arthur, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Beowulf, Piers Ploughman, the Song of Roland, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the greats of mythic and medieval literature.

2. Explore the Inklings’ views of Biblical truth, myth, and morality.

Lewis, Tolkien, and the other Inklings were Christian Medievalists, in the best sense of that word. They started not with their own world maps, created languages, and fairy-tale images, but with the belief that Scripture was the “true myth,” upon which all other myths are founded. Thus, to them, fantasy stories were not a foreign import from other cultures, used to help Christianity along. They were organic outgrowths of the True Myth.

Furthermore, these authors’ works were imbued with themes of honor, nobility, love, virtue, faith, because these old stories weren’t just stories to them. For example, Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings was noble because Tolkien had been shaped, down into his soul, to believe that nobility is important to be lived. This is not simply a “moral value,” as we like to say today. It is an older, ancient, God-exalting virtue.

3. Read, study, and be challenged by classic works that inspired the Inklings.

This will begin by our going back and reading these old works. Find them available free online, via library, e-book, or Project Gutenberg. Purchase good readers’ guides to the classics. There are many available. For parents, this may also include re-learning and returning to the sort of education in which Tolkien and Lewis thrived, and giving that to your children. But don’t be surprised when they surpass you easily in their love of “deeper” literature.

Yet for all readers, we must realize and expect that not every book must be like those of the Inklings. We’re not aiming for them. Instead we aim for the same goal as they. If readers do this, we may just find more work that genuinely deserves to be set on our shelves alongside Narnia, Middle-earth, and other fantasy classics.

Kids go to fantasy not for escape but for organization, and a little elevation.

So says Adam Gopnik in his 2011 The New Yorker article, “The Dragon’s Egg.”

With the apparent resurgence of traditional, epic fantasy just around the corner, I suspect some may once again wonder what it is youth in particular see in these mythical tales. From “The Dragon’s Egg”:

Of all the unexpected things in contemporary literature, this is among the oddest: that kids have an inordinate appetite for very long, very tricky, very strange books about places that don’t exist, fights that never happened, all set against the sort of medieval background that Mark Twain thought he had discredited with “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.”

So why does fantasy resonate with young adults? I can identify several reasons, some gleaned from “The Dragon’s Egg,” others from my own study and observation.

First, I suggest today’s teens, expected to do little more than have a good time and do their homework, long for significance. They want to do something that matters, that has eternal purpose. The idea of moving from keg parties to paying taxes leaves out “making a difference.” They long for a life that matters, and they find in fantasy a world that needs someone who will step up and do just that.

Young adults also long for power. So often restricted by their circumstances and inabilities, they nevertheless long for the time when they can drive or vote or drink or . . . whatever the grown up thing is that indicates they now have a say about their own lives. Fantasy opens that door regardless of their actual present circumstances.

Then too, fantasy helps young people organize the world. There is moral right and wrong, and the characters in fantasy must align themselves with one or the other. There’s also history that makes a difference in the here and now, prophesy that tells about the future, and decisions that make or break a destiny.

In addition, fantasy offers “familiar experience in intensified form”:

We all see our lives from the inside to be those of lost kings, orphaned boys. We read such stories because we think we already are it. (excerpt from “The Dragon’s Egg”)

In short, fantasy shows young adults their inner lives. They read about Harry Potter’s unfair treatment at the hand of his foster family, and they identify with his alone-ness. They want him to find a place where he belongs because they want to find a place where they belong.

So too, with the the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer:

The tedious normalcy of the “Twilight” books is what gives them their shiver; this is not so much the life that a teen-age girl would wish to have but the one that she already has, rearranged with heightened symbols. Your life could be like this; seen properly, from inside, it is like this. (excerpt from “The Dragon’s Egg”)

Another reason fantasy appeals to young adult readers is because it includes magic–a non-rational element that explains the inexplicable, that gives reason to hope in the face of the hopeless, that also explains the fearful in terms that are understandable, that suggest the terrifying is conquerable.

In conjunction with magic, fantasy takes readers to another place–one that is both recognizable and other. The world itself, whether Narnia or Hogwarts or Middle Earth, is appealing. It has secrets–whether a secret entrance or hidden secrets or a world of secrets outside the view of the ordinary Hobbit. This resonates with young readers who hope for more from the mundane world in which they live.

Finally, fantasy most often suggests a Savior. There is someone stronger, better, wiser who will walk through the world with the hero, equipping him, counseling him, even sacrificing for him. To have such a Friend is the desire of every young person, assuring him that he does not have to traverse the journey and face the ordeals alone.

Now the question is, why does fantasy appeal so much to adults?

It’s your turn to weigh in. Are there factors that I’ve overlooked which make fantasy attractive to young adults? Are adults drawn to fantasy for the very same reasons as young adults are? Or for something different? What do you think?

Lately I’ve been taking a break from writing. We just released my new book Rift Jump through Splashdown Darkwater (behold yon plug), and it was a mad race, all the way to the finish. My mind is totally spent, so I’m taking a small breather before I dive back into the countless other projects I’ve committed myself to. And, like I usually do when I take a break, I’ve been watching a lot of movies. Just old favorites that I haven’t watched in awhile. It’s a chance to give my brain a rest.

But, as a writer, your brain is never really resting. Even as I’m watching these movies that I’ve seen countless times, I’m still studying them. Trying to figure them out, to figure why I love them so much and how I might inject some of that awesome-sauce into my own writing.

As I’ve pondered these things, I’ve come up against a conundrum. I work as a screenwriter and a novelist, and in both fields you hear the charge: “Be original. Show me something I’ve never seen before.” But I’ve realized that, what people really desire is an original image or window dressing. At the heart of the story, I wonder if we all want the “same old thing.”

There’s a certain expectation that I think we bring into a story when we sit down to read a book or watch a movie. There’s a way we want it to play out—even before we know the story. We want the good guy to win. We want the bad guy to lose. We want the guy to get the girl (or vice versa). We want the guy everybody counted out to be the guy that saves the day. There are archetypes that we look for, common themes that we crave. I wonder, where does this come from? Is it cultural, or does it speak to a deeper human level? A spiritual yearning for justice, for evil to be punished, for good to triumph.

I remember when I first read the last part in Stephen King’s epic Dark Tower series. Spoiler alert if you’ve not read it, but the series chronicles Roland of Gilead as he hunts down the wicked Man in Black. For six books—and most of Roland’s life—he’s been trying to find this man, to kill him. But, in the very last book, Roland and the Man in Black never meet. They never face-off, never get their big battle. The Man in Black is eaten by some random spider creature, and Roland continues on his quest to the Dark Tower. A lot of fans were angered that Roland and the Man in Black never got to duke it out, but I really enjoyed it. It was a surprising twist, and it smacked of realism to me. I mean, seriously, how many times did we get to face down that school bully in some epic battle, only to emerge victorious and have the school cheer us on, right?

I recently turned in a script to a producer to get his thoughts, and he told me how the ending was unresolved, though I thought the ending was perfectly resolved: The bad guy escaped and the good guy died fighting him—but died a hero. The greater story wasn’t punishing the bad guy, but about proving your mettle, no matter the cost. To me, the story was told. But the producer felt it was unresolved. Why?

Perhaps because he was still waiting for the bad guy to be caught. For the good guy to win.

Are we biased? Do we really want stories to surprise us, or do we want A, B, and C?

I’m guilty of that, too. I watch a movie and I fall into a groove and there’s a way I think it should end. The familiar ending. And, when it doesn’t end like that, my first reaction is, “I didn’t like it.” Why? It was wonderfully written, well-acted, beautifully photographed—but it didn’t follow the beats that I wanted. It didn’t give me the same old thing.

Isn’t that strange?

I remember reading many years ago that It’s A Wonderful Life was met by its share of controversy back in the day, because the villain never received his comeuppance. Through deceit he ruins the life of poor George Bailey, and he’s never caught. But I think that anyone who has seen that movie knows that George really won. It wasn’t about catching the bad guy, but about living your life in spite of him.

Of course we wanted Han Solo to return at the last second to help Luke destroy the Death Star in 1977. Of course we wanted Harry to beat Voldemort. Of course we wanted Rocky to win, even when he lost.

Those old stories, as “typical” as they are, speak to a deeper longing in all of us. We want to know that good wins. That there is hope. That love is just around the corner. Life doesn’t always demonstrate that to us, so we find ourselves at Story’s door, wanting to escape to a place where magic is still alive. To fly in the face of that child-like expectation is almost a betrayal of Story.

Do we really want Frodo to make it to the edge of the volcano and NOT throw in the One Ring, but keep it and dominate the world? It would certainly be an ending that makes logical sense. It would also defy storytelling convention. But, for all of our demanding to see an original story, do we want that or do we want the familiar?

Did I betray the Story by writing a script that doesn’t end with a more traditional “resolution”? Why do stories need concrete resolution? Why do we want them? Life rarely resolves, so why must stories?

I’ve been rethinking my ending of the script in question. Not necessarily to give it a “happy ending.” I’m not saying that a story can’t have a bad/sad/tragic ending and work well, but I think that—when it’s done right—we still find something to celebrate. Or maybe we’re more willing to accept a sad ending when we can see it coming, when we can prepare ourselves.

Isn’t that a kind of familiarity, too?

So, as a writer, am I beholden to these tried and true paths? Do I really have any control over the story, or am I following some deeper instinct? How much originality will my audience, or any audience, really embrace? Maybe all I can change is the window dressing. Maybe that’s all anyone wants changed.

Maybe the best stories are the ones we all know by heart.

I leave it to you, as readers and/or storytellers: What were some stories that were NOT what you were expecting, that defied convention, and yet you still love them? Why? How might we break the mold of conventional storytelling, but still strike that instinctual chord in all of us? Can we?

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Greg Mitchell is a screenwriter and novelist living in Northeast Arkansas and is the author of The Strange Man and Enemies of the Cross.  His first produced screenplay, Amazing Love: The Story of Hosea, starring Sean Astin (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy), will release to DVD later this fall. Visit Greg at his web site.