A NOVEL IDEA

Write what you know they say. In non-fiction, such as blog posts, you can change that phrase to read, Write what you learn. Problem is, I am in a pinch today. I took too long on my blog post at my own site and have put myself on a schedule in order to get back to work on my trilogy.

Mike Duran at Novel Journey gave his selection of Ten Best Book Covers. Interesting to note that George Bryan Polivka‘s The Legend of the Firefish made the list. Wayne Thomas Batson‘s Isle of the Sword was a runner up, as was R. K. Mortenson‘s Landon Snow and the Actor’s Riddle.

Yep, it’s that time. And what better way to start summer off than with a virtual tour featuring the online science fiction and fantasy publication, MindFlights. One of the especially cool things about tours for webzines is that you never know what to expect when you visit other bloggers. Will they do a site overview? Review a story? Highlight an editor? Or … clue you in about the MindFlights poetry contest?

I spent eight stimulating years in Lebanon (as well as some pretty nasty days and some downright terrifying minutes). So as a veteran, I viewed the brief takeover of half of Beirut by Hizbollah just over a week ago with some involvement. (Trust me, this is about speculative fiction). The situation in Lebanon is extremely fraught: an explosive mixture of pride, bluster, greed and hatred, stirred up by a wide range of internal and external troublemakers. The entire country stands on the edge of the abyss and it wouldn’t take much for it to topple over the edge. The trouble is, it may well grab at our ankles as it does.

Anyway, shortly after Hizbollah flexed its muscles I was lying awake in bed early in the morning (I seem to suffer from caffeine intolerance these days) when the outline for a novel came to me in a rush. It would be set in the very imminent future and start in Lebanon. I would assemble the usual suspects: a proud warlord or two, a few conscience-free arms dealers, several political adventurers with an insatiable desire to meddle and all the usual assortment of insecurities, proud egos and bitter grievances. I would add to this unremarkable mixture as catalyst, a Christian with an end times fascination, a sense of personal destiny and the happy confidence that, if things started to go really nasty, God would press the eject button and the church would be raptured immediately. Aided by stupidity and abetted by apathy the result would be a perfectly credible and unstoppable escalation of events which would draw in Syria, Israel and Iran and ultimately the USA and Russia. The final outcome would be a series of nuclear exchanges which would obliterate cities and reshape history. (You will have gathered this is not Prince Caspian.) There would be no rapture, no end of days: the signs had been misread. As a counterbalance to the deaths of millions I would include a hero and heroine who would somehow survive. The end would include a vision of hope: the kingdom of God continues!

Now I should say that I don’t think I will write this tale. (Although interestingly enough I have hinted at something similar as the back-story to my Lamb among the Stars trilogy.) It is too dark, I doubt it would be publishable and I would make a lot of enemies.
 
But let me throw the gauntlet down. We may not like this sort of plot, but isn’t this ‘speculative fiction?’ Wouldn’t writing such a book be perfectly legitimate? Isn’t our medium perfectly suited for warning messages? Shouldn’t someone be writing this sort of thing? Or do want to be comforted too much? I am reminded of the situation that Jeremiah found himself in. The political scene was darkening, judgment was looming, yet the people preferred to ignore all the clear signs and put their trust in the vain confidence that disaster would be averted. Jeremiah was scathing about the false prophets of his day: “‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.” (Jeremiah 6:14). Without saying that disaster is inevitable, we need to be careful that we do not offer empty hope.

“We come to it at last” — the U.S.release date of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, the second sure-to-be-fantastically-successful fantasy film in the Narnia series, adapted from the famous C.S. Lewis stories.

One could easily guess that only a few of you know by now that the film releases at midnight tonight — and by “a few of you” I don’t mean “you Speculative Faith readers,” but “you people on the whole internet.” That’s because Disney and Walden Media (the latter is the film’s real producer) has been advertising this film like crazy for the past several months.

Directed again by Andrew Adamson (along with the first two Shreks), and also starring the same cast and crew of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian is the second of the Narnia books and takes the four Pevensie children back into Narnia. There, it turns out a thousand years have passed in that world’s time, while only one year has
gone by in their homeland of England. Now all of Narnia’s fantastic creatures have been driven into hiding by an invading force of men called the Telmarines, and the four children must find their purpose, and the title character, in the now-“darker” Narnia.

The film’s tone will indeed be darker, I’ve heard and read, and even more so than in LWW, book purists won’t be too pleased with the film. Yes, some of the rumors are true — I’m seeing the film tonight, but know this is the case — the Pevensies somehow meet Caspian much sooner than in the book. There’s a heckuva lot more Mega-Action Battles than in the book. Girls fight, unlike in the book — girl centaurs, and girls Susan and Lucy.

Perhaps worst of all, girl Susan smooches guy Caspian at the end. Excuse my just-slightly-juvenile reaction: bb-b-bbbleccccch.

But, I submit these differences are tolerable — and the film’s redeeming qualities and fantastic plotting, characters, action and budget will certainly overcome any adaptation shortcomings. (The book, I feel, did need some storyline enhancement, especially for a film version, and Lewis’s stepson and film producer Doug Gresham agreed.)

Let geeks everywhere rejoice — and particularly Christ-following geeks who love seeing wondrous, epic-vision, Biblical-worldview fantasy fiction receive the accolades and treatment it deserves! It’s indeed another great moment for Christ-honoring fantasy!

Soon, at likely midnight tonight, I’ll be undertaking the release of my spoiler-purity vow at the Holy Order of the Spoiler-Free Monastery, and will be beholding this Beatific Vision myself. How will any of you be viewing the new film? And what are your thoughts on the continuing recognition and success of Lewis and the Narnia series in book and film, and what this might mean for Christ-honoring creativity and the — God willing — growth of actual epic stories that honor Him?

Guest blogger Adam Graham is the creator of a new quarterly magazine of serialized fiction, Laser & Sword Magazine. Here’s is a reprint (used by permission) of his initial introduction (with a few editorial format changes) of the periodical.
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Last week’s column (my first in a long time on Speculative Faith) focused on not-so-hidden intellectual invasions inherent in Doctor Who, courtesy of the British sci-fi programme’s head writer/producer, Russell T. Davies.

His goals were made more explicit in a British newspaper’s article early last month, as the series’ fourth season was underway: Davies gushes, for example, over a guest appearance by angry Atheist Richard Dawkins in a forthcoming episode, and claims directly that he hopes young boys will imitate one series character’s example and declare their own homosexuality.

However, I’m actually not going to undertake another one of those anti-culture Christian rants, like the kind you read about in email forwards. To be sure, Christendom often needs those sorts of rants (even in email forwards), to oppose truly harmful movies, television programs or other art forms, politicians, organizations or whatever. This column, continued from last week, just isn’t going to be one of them.

Instead, the Doctor practices such heroism and wages true battle against evil influences, resembling Christ like other famous fictitious Christlike-figures, that it’s well worth seeing.

This meat may have indeed been sacrificed to idols by its makers (a la 1 Corinthians 10: 23-33), in the hope of furthering anti-Christian agendas. But Biblical truths are there in these epic stories anyway — like the time-traveling TARDIS ship itself, surrounded by a perception filter, it seems the writers may just not be able to see such “spiritually discerned” elements.

Echoes of the true Time Lord

For those unfamiliar, the Doctor is a 900-year-old “Time Lord,” the last of a benevolent species of time-traveling aliens from the planet Gallifrey. In the new series, he is the (almost) last of his kind, following a great war between the Time Lords and the evil Daleks. Roaming time and space in his fantastic time-ship, the TARDIS, the Doctor repeatedly finds himself saving the Earth and universe, often with the aid of one or more human companions.

Previous Spec-Faith columns, including this one and this by guest blogger Jim Black, have pointed out how the Doctor might well be called a “Messiah” in some circumstances. Any character, of course, can be shown as saving the world just as the true God-Man Hero, Christ Jesus, is truly saving it. Yet the Doctor often does so in a manner that tributes — imitates, though not in a blasphemous way — the real Lord of Time, Who not only travels within the vortex of eternity, but created Time itself and dwells infinitely beyond its limitations.

Perhaps the most poignant portrayal I recently saw was in the third-season episode The Family of Blood, part 2 of a 2-part adventure. The Doctor and his human colleague, Martha Jones, have hidden away in 1913 England to avoid the titular Family, a group of aliens who want to kill him. Because this species can detect his presence by smell, the Doctor has temporarily transformed himself into a human, storing all his Time Lord characteristics and memories in a special fob watch that can only be opened at the proper time.

A boy at the school at which the Doctor (in his human incarnation as a professor) teaches, takes the watch and discovers its secret. While the aliens finally do invade and wreak their carnage, the boy keeps the watch to himself, until finally he gives it to the Doctor.

He did not want to give up the watch at first, he explains, because he found that at first, the Doctor was a terror to behold. “He’s like fire and ice and rage,” Tim explains in quiet awe, tinged with lingering fear. “He’s like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun. . . . He’s ancient and forever. He burns at the center of time and can see the turn of the universe. . . . And — and he’s wonderful.”

If that wasn’t enough for a terrible-and-yet-beautiful Messianic meme, the manner in which the Doctor finally returns to his true form and dispatches the evil alien Family is even more so.

After the Family’s spaceship is destroyed and the Doctor stands tall and angry over the hunters who are now the hunted, the son of the Family — “Son of Mine” — unexpectedly enters the story for a voiced-over summary of what happened next.

He never raised his voice. That was the worst thing — the fury of the Time Lord. And then we discovered why: why this Doctor, who had fought with gods and demons, why he had run away from us and hidden. He was being kind.

He wrapped my father in unbreakable chains forged in the heart of a dwarf star. He tricked my mother into the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy to be imprisoned there, forever. He still visits my sister, once a year, every year. I wonder if one day he might forgive her, but there she is. Can you see? He trapped her inside a mirror. Every mirror. If ever you look at your reflection and see something move behind you just for a second, that’s her. That’s always her.

As for me, I was suspended in time and the Doctor put me to work standing over the fields of England, as their protector.

We wanted to live forever. So the Doctor made sure we did.

And that — reflecting and portraying the truth of God’s wrath and eternal punishment of evildoers — is something more intentionally “Christian” fiction would do well to emulate.

Messages like these are happening even while Davies and others are trying to push a gay-rights agenda or de facto evolutionary propaganda. It’s not just religious symbolism — a hymn sung in the episode Gridlock, or a cross-shaped space station or angelic figures — that makes the program convey Biblical truth. It’s incidental portrayals of God Himself, in the most surprising ways — and in fantastic, awesome ways that Christians can appreciate.

So bring on your gay-rights not-so-subtext Russell T. Davies, and fall down along with others and “worship” professional God-hater Richard Dawkins if you wish to. I don’t mind at all; with the true Time Lord’s help, I can see Him there, and avoid the junk.

However, hmm, perhaps Dawkins could be cast as a villain, or at least a victim who’s among the first to go during another alien invasion. I wouldn’t mind, in the slightest, seeing a Dalek “ex-terrrrr-min-ate!” his character. Yes. In slow motion. Because the fury of the real Time Lord is indeed unmatched against rebels who defy Him — yet He can be kind, and even the rebels can reflect His truths in epic storytelling, whether they want to or not.

Christian speculative fiction is catching on, and as it does, it seems more and more people are adding their voices to the promotion/marketing/instruction mix. Good! There’s lots to talk about, lots to learn. But it seems to me it would be helpful to catalogue all these sites.