The Lord of the Rings trilogy set high standards for epic fantasy authors, but did you know that author J.R.R. Tolkien was passed over for a Nobel Prize? Documents released after fifty years reveal that a member of the jury felt Tolkien’s writing “has not in any way measured up to storytelling of the highest quality.” Time has proven that summary incorrect. The books gained a cult following and fostered other books analyzing the facets of storytelling and the iconic characters within the series. A hugely successful movie trilogy followed. Where there’s a will . . .

“This is pleasantly done—but for me there isn’t quite enough story value,” Mercury Press editor Robert Mills explained while turning down A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. This book became a children’s classic, and its author has gone down in literary history.

Author J.K. Rowling received twelve rejections for the first Harry Potter book. Barry Cunningham of Bloomsbury Publishing finally acquired the first book but famously advised Rowling not to quit her day job because she couldn’t make a living as a writer. Since Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone appeared in 1997, Harry Potter titles have sold in excess of 400 million copies and counting. Rowling is one of the wealthiest people in the world. Where there’s a will . . .

I’m in good company when it comes to rejections. I weathered that storm while searching for a publisher for the Tales of Faeraven series. It was hard to ignore the warning bandied about in literary circles: “Christian fantasy is a hard sell.” Knowing when to heed the collective wisdom and when to ignore it is a matter for prayer. I won’t say that I didn’t question my course or wish for an easier path, but I couldn’t ignore the unction to find a publisher for Tales of Faeraven.

I kept trying. Because, where there’s a will . . .

I received an offer, along with a check in my spirit. Ignoring my hesitancy, which I chalked up to imagination, I signed the contract. Sure, it was with a small press, but a new author had to break in somewhere. It didn’t turn out well. Deciding to take her publishing house a different direction, my publisher backed out of the contract for DawnSinger, the first Tales of Faeraven book. Within weeks of its release date.

I was devastated. I’d announced the book on all my social media accounts. What would people think about my book and me as an author? Giving up writing altogether was tempting, but I’d done that once and knew that ignoring the stories that come to you is miserable. Perhaps I’d been foolhardy, thinking that my Christian fantasy series would buck the odds at a time when many worthy speculative books never saw the light of publication. And yet . . .

I’d read a secular young adult fantasy novel that I’d found faced out at my library. The cover proudly proclaimed that this book was endorsed by a prestigious literary journal. Reading the book alarmed me. The story glorified violence and murder. It featured sex between teenagers who ultimately decided to live together without the prospect of marriage. God was absent in the storyworld, and the characters swore on the stars. I could barely take in that such a story should be recommended to teenagers.

If Christian authors allow their voices to be silenced, fantasy readers will feed upon an appalling worldview.

The contrast between this lauded book and my own was glaring. Tales of Faeraven is about honor and sacrifice, love and duty, and the triumph of good over evil. The battle was bigger than my disappointment. Giving up wasn’t an option. I allowed myself a day to grieve, and then returned to the fray. Within three months, I’d found another publisher. The first two books in the series, DawnSinger and Wayfarer, are now published, and Sojourner, book three, releases next week. DawnKing, the final installment, arrives in January. Discouragement, rejection, and my own lapses in faith couldn’t stop Tales of Faeraven from reaching publication. The journey taught me a lesson I’ll never forget: Where there’s God’s will, He makes a way.

Learn more about each of the books in the Faeraven series at Amazon:
DawnSinger
Wayfarer
Sojourner
DawnKing

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Author Bio

Janalyn Voigt is a multi-genre novelist who has books available in the western historical romance and epic fantasy genres. Her unique blend of adventure, romance, suspense, and whimsy creates worlds of beauty and danger for readers. An inspirational, motivational, and practical speaker, Janalyn has presented at the Northwest Christian Writers’ Renewal Conference and Inland Northwest Christian Writers Conference. She has also spoken for local writing groups, book events, and libraries. Janalyn is represented by Wordserve Literary and holds memberships in American Christian Fiction Writers and Northwest Christian Writers Association.

Connect with Janalyn Voigt online at any one of the following places:

• Mailing list
• Website
• Amazon Author Page
• Goodreads Author Page
• LibraryThing
• Bookbub Author Page
• Pinterest
• Facebook Reader Group
• Facebook Author Page
• Twitter

You can find a previous article Janalyn wrote on fantasy for Spec Faith here.

My recent posts on a series I created called “Magic in Fantasy” here on Speculative Faith seem to to have uncovered a more basic issue for Christian writers (and fans) of speculative fiction (to my mind anyway). What should be our attitude in regard to the culture around us? Should we be Moralists, trying to make the culture better? Separatists, trying to establish our own subculture? Or Universalists, who accept everything we see around us without reservation, since God is going to bring everything around to his glory in the end?

Note I don’t make any real distinction in my view of this question between commonly-seen-as-highbrow culture of so-called fine arts, symphonic music, literary novels, opera, ballet, theater, etc, and supposedly more lowbrow popular culture of comic books, genre novels, various flavors of music, movies, etc. For me, the main difference between highbrow and lowbrow has nothing to do with moral issues but rather a presumption of sophistication–or maybe being pretentious–or a presumption of simple-mindedness–or maybe refusing to dislike something simply because most people like it. These issues that divide “high culture” and “low culture” have nothing to do with whether a particular act of art expresses a moral or Christian worldview. So in my view, popular culture really is just like any other form of artistic expression in terms of how Christians should react to it.

Two of the three categories I listed above are linked to historical attitudes Christians have had in regard to how to engage culture–being Moralist or Separatist. “Universalist,” though, has referred to a doctrinal position rather than a cultural one–the doctrine that everyone will find eternal salvation in heaven, no matter what they do or believe on earth. The cultural position of accepting all has been called “Libertine,” but I chose not to use it here because I think it would make my point less clear than “Universalist” will.

Let’s review the three positions:

Moralist

In a way, “Puritan” would be a better term to express what I mean than “Moralist” but I think the term “Puritan” has so many negative implications that it’s better to go with the term “Moralist” for this post instead. But to take a brief look at Moralist/Puritan history:

The Church of England got its start infamously with King Henry VIII seeking a divorce and not being able to get one from the Pope. The Anglican Church retained a number of Catholic elements, but soon enthusiastic Protestants were among the Anglicans, who felt the Church hadn’t reformed enough. The Puritans, who are perhaps the most important group of Moralists in English history, wanted to engage the dominant church of their nation, take it over, and purify it by adopting elements that defined the Congregational denomination. Puritans also largely believed that Christians ought to be running the whole culture and backed Parliament during the English Civil War (1642-1649) against the nobility-supported Royalists a.k.a. Cavaliers. The Puritans won that war and Oliver Cromwell, Puritan general, as a result ruled the United Kingdom as a dictatorship for a five years.

During that time and afterwards  the Massachusetts Bay Colony was Puritan/Moralist-run. They meant the colony to be a model for how mother England should live. By law, swearing was prohibited, as were playing cards, dancing, music and a number of other cultural matters that the Puritan brand of Moralism didn’t approve of. Their specific list of do-nots isn’t important for this post, what matters is they made their convictions the law of the land and thought no one should be allowed to think otherwise–including be a member of any church other than the Congregational Church.

Moralists as I’m defining them here didn’t just live legalistic personal lives, they didn’t just impose their beliefs on other Christians, they essentially believed in a theocracy in which Christians would run the government.

Note again the Puritanical or Moralistic tendency as I’m referring to it does not refer to any specific set of approved practices–but instead to the desire to take over and enforce certain cultural standards for everyone, whether they agree or not.

Separatist

In United States history the first separatists were the Pilgrims who settled at Plymouth, but a much more typical example would be the Amish or Mennonites, or any of the other religious minorities of Europe that simply wanted to live in peace in the Americas (including Shakers, Quakers, Jews, and many others). Separatist communities allow members who want to leave them to leave, even though internal to their community they do have rules and group standards. Separatists don’t object to other communities having different sets of standards than they have and have no interest in running the lives of anyone, except those who voluntarily stay in the community.

Historically each group of Separatists have had a number of doctrines they stood for that made them unique, including for example Shakers believing they needed to engage in dancing as a group in order to fully know God. But when I’m talking “Separatist” here, I don’t mean any specific set of beliefs, but rather the desire to create all-Christian enclaves within the larger culture, the desire to have a sub-culture that stands apart from the majority without trying to control or dictate what the majority will do.

Note, I’m aware of the fact that “separatist” is at times a term used for violent revolutionaries advocating the use of force to guarantee their own country-within-a country, as is the case for Basque separatists in Spain. What they do is not what I mean, but I don’t know of a term I can substitute for “separatist.”

Universalist

The word “Universalist” means multiple things, but within the context of Christianity it means believing that the forgiveness from sin that Christians link to the death of Christ will happen for everyone. Though some Universalists have believed in a literal hell, they believed that hell will be temporary and in the end, literally everyone will enjoy eternal salvation. Over time, the positions of Universalists have shifted–first they believed no one goes to hell permanently, then no one goes in the first place, then have wondered if there even really is such a thing as eternity, including other doctrinal shifts.

Protestants of the 1600s in England influenced Universalism but George de Benneville, who settled in separatist Pennsylvania in the 1700s was the first to bring the idea to the English colonies. Notions of Christian Universalism would be embraced by the Unitarian church, which itself entered North America in the late 1700s.

In regard to looking at culture, I’m applying the term “Universalist” in what I believe is an original way, but refers to the idea that all creation ultimately comes from God. All is good in its own context, in parallel with the Universalist idea that every individual human being will go to heaven. The Universalist idea would be that all art is ultimately good, because it ultimately reflects the power of the Creator of all.

I like this term better than “Libertine” because even though that is a position some Christians have adopted in regard to the world of sin, that is, we can partake as much as we want in sin and God will forgive us anyway, “Libertine” also implies being as deviant as possible in a given context. And that’s not what I’m really referring to–I’m referring to an attitude that contrasts with the other two positions I laid out. It’s unlike the idea of taking over the culture of the world and making it pure and also unlike establishing a separate sub-culture–it instead embraces the culture around us and attempts to incorporate it into our lives as much as possible.

Primary Colors

What I’m suggesting is that these are the three primary colors of interaction with and engagement of culture and every other Christian attitude towards culture can be described as combination of these three positions. For example, some people who are basically Universalists become Separatists when discussing pornography (I won’t participate in that, but other people can) and flip all the way to moralistic Puritans when talking about horrific things like child pornography (no one should be allowed to do that, I don’t care what they think).

Someone who reads this will probably say, “But I don’t agree with any of those positions–I just want to engage the culture of this world for Christ!” But if you engage the world while maintaining that Christ is important when the world doesn’t believe that, you are engaging in Separatism on a personal level by maintaining that standard. If you want to speak the language the world uses by using tropes and genres common to the non-Christian world, you are incorporating at least a touch of Universalism in that you adopt part of what the world is doing, considering it holy for your purposes. If you ever seek to influence the world to be different by what you write, then you are engaging in a drop of Moralism. But if you on the other hand you don’t believe you can change the world except by calling others to join your community that remains separate from the world culturally, you’re showing a Separatist streak.

Note that these three tendencies show themselves in a lot of Christian history, though the attitudes are not necessarily exclusive to Christians. Writing Gay Science Fiction (which is a thing) for those who want to read it without forbidding everyone else to have their own thing reflects a Separatist thought process. Modern Social Justice Warriors are clearly Moralists who not only believe something strongly, they are determined to change the culture over to their way of thinking no matter what anyone else thinks about it. And Cultural Universalists who are non-Christians looking at Christianity and accepting it as part of all that makes humanity good are not all that common, but they do exist.

Christians who support lawmakers who are against abortion can be thought of as Moralists in at least that one way, because as I mean it here, I mean a desire to change the culture to what you believe is right is “Moralist.” But the same person may be a Universalist when it comes to most entertainment, but still believe in maintaining a separate space to read and enjoy Christian fiction.

I did some thought experiments to determine if there’s an attitude concerning the culture of the world that can’t be described by combinations of the three positions I’ve identified. I couldn’t come up with anything. If you can think of something I missed, please mention it in the comments below the post.

What should our position be?

So, having laid out three positions and suggested these are like three primary colors that each Christian (and non-Christian, too) has in some combination in regard to cultural engagement, the reader might ask if I have some sort of recommendation based on these positions. What we should do? What’s right?

I think I need to follow up this post with one that looks at what the Bible says about this in some detail, but in short I’m primarily a Separatist at heart. While we do seek to influence the world, we primarily should be about the business of sharing the Gospel when it comes to influencing, which means getting people out of what they formerly believed and into something separate from that–changing their deepest beliefs without having to change their outward trappings. While we can and should be in the physical company of those who don’t believe, I’d say we should do so in a way that indicates we clearly are separate from them in the way we think and act. Because if nothing else, showing love for people isn’t actually what most people do. Nor is avoiding sin as described in the Bible something most people live.

Does living differently than others require separate art and literature? No, it doesn’t…but it seems to me that the very act of being different from the world that doesn’t know Christ will cause us to naturally focus on things the world doesn’t focus on. Being different in the heart will make us different from the world around us in our art. And since we are different, we should look at the culture of the world with a critical eye. We should not wholeheartedly accept any form of entertainment, but neither should we decide in advance that all is worthless. We should be examining each bit to see if it measures up to what we believe.

So we should be mostly Separatist, I would say. But we can’t go that direction 100%. That’s what I would say Christians should do–Bible verses to back up my position will coming in another post, God enabling.

The Future of the Three Positions

One of the fascinating observations about the three positions I laid out is the Puritans of New England completely lost the set of convictions concerning right and wrong that they had at one time. Though New Englanders are still Moralists, still interested in dictating to others what they think is right–but what they believe is right has totally flipped, so they are now vigorous apologists for non-Christian ideas.

Whereas Universalists over historical time have come to believe less and less and less. First they jettisoned the idea of eternal punishment, then the idea that the death of Christ was actually necessary, then the idea that anything in the Bible can be believed, then the idea that God is a literal person or even heaven is a reality. Bit by bit, wholly embracing the philosophically of the world led to the world steamrolling the Universalists culturally and re-forming them into their own image. I fear the same thing happens to people who wholeheartedly embrace the entertainment and culture that surrounds us–eventually, they tend to get reformed into the image of the world rather than the image of Christ.

Only Separatism has shown itself to be stable over a long period of time, where Christians have maintained their convictions over a long time without getting manhandled by the culture of the world. Though the great weakness of Christian Separatism is to be so separate that they never reach out to the world at all. Clearly pure Separatism doesn’t obey the command to share the Gospel with the world and train disciples of Christ. Yet I’d say a certain level of separation is appropriate, a place of our own that we invite the world to come join. I think that applies to the arts and literature that Christians produce as much as it does to other aspects of our lives.

So I’ve told you what I think–what do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

This article contains major spoilers for Ad Astra.

First things first: I did not like this film. The visuals were pretty cool and the premise was intriguing, but the title is misleading (no one leaves the solar system), the pace was meandering, and there were random moments of violence and action that were tangential at best (filmmakers: “Man, this is starting to drag along. Hey, I know! Let’s throw in a moon rover high-speed chase and shootout. And later we’ll have Brad fight carnivorous floating baboons. And how about a zero-g fistfight that suddenly goes to ten-g’s. Splat!”). Most disappointing of all was the big reveal at the end, which turned out to be nothing more than an equipment malfunction.

I’m a sucker for these sorts of ultra-serious, highly ponderous, lone-dude-out-in-space movies. Yes, I consider 2001: A Space Odyssey to be an unequaled masterpiece, and I also consider Interstellar to be perfumed hogwash. I can forgive hokey science for the sake of drama and visuals (e.g., Sunshine, Europa Report) and I’ll power my way through a boring film if there is a grand reveal at the end (Solaris, 2010: The Year We Make Contact). So I had high hopes for Ad Astra, even going out by myself to see the very first showing at my local theater.

If you haven’t seen it yet (and don’t plan to) and you’re confused by the multitude of trailers with varying tones, here is the gist: Brad Pitt’s dad (Tommy Lee Jones) abandons him and his mom and goes off to space to search for alien signals. Fast forward a few decades: dad is presumed dead, Brad Pitt follows in his space-faring footsteps. Strange things happen on Earth with Neptune as the source, which is where Jones was supposed to have ended up. Pitt, estranged from his wife on Earth, gets sent on a mission to find him and/or stop the disruptive signals. Complications ensue, people die, but eventually Pitt makes his way to the edge of the solar system. He finds Jones alive and still continuing his search, which has been fruitless thus far. He tries to bring Jones back, but Jones tells him to “let me go”, cuts the literal and symbolic cord binding them together, and floats off into the void. A heartbroken Pitt makes his way back to Earth and patches things up with his wife. Moral of the story: we are not alone in the universe, but we don’t have to look to the stars to find who else is out there.

You can see the reason for my frustration: I was expecting a universe-changing discovery or sinister plot or at least some interdimensional weirdness, and I got Brad Pitt going all the way to Neptune to work out his daddy issues. I couldn’t help but feel that I’ve seen this movie before in a dozen different outfits. For all its silliness and sappiness, at least Interstellar actually got cosmic. Ad Astra should have been named Ad Nauseum.

It doesn’t take a psychology degree to see the yearning people feel for their fathers, especially when those fathers abandon them. We know that there is only one Person who will never leave us nor forsake us, but there are plenty of moments when we do feel alone in the universe. We can’t see God or give Him a hug like we can with our earthly fathers. Yet we see time and again how people that we should be able to depend on let us down or drop out of our lives altogether, and we may even discover that their love for us wasn’t even real in the first place. As a result, we fill our lives with temporary substitutes, and we should know better that they won’t satisfy, but we chase after them anyway.

The Bible tells us repeatedly that God is all we need (Phil. 4:19, Matt. 6:33, Psalm 91, Rom. 8:17, et al). This may seem like one of those promises that is easy to read but hard to believe in, but like all of God’s promises, it is absolutely true. Reconciling broken relationships or letting go of past hurts is not the source of our healing; they are the results of our right relationships with God, which must come first. As Brad Pitt found out, finding the father who had abandoned him and who was presumed dead did not bring him peace. The unbelieving world tries to fill the emptiness left by one broken relationship by substituting it with another, but we as believers in Christ know that communing with our Creator is the only relationship that we can truly depend on.

Christian fantasy authors just scored three ACFW Carol Awards, at the Sept. 28 American Christian Fiction Writers’ awards banquet:

2019 ACFW Carol Award for best young adult novel

Nadine Brandes won for alternate-history fantasy Fawkes:

Keepers think the Igniters caused the plague. Igniters think the Keepers did it. But all Thomas knows is that the Stone Plague infecting his eye is spreading. And if he doesn’t do something soon, he’ll be a lifeless statue. So when his Keeper father, Guy Fawkes, invites him to join the Gunpowder Plot—claiming it will put an end to the plague—Thomas is in.

From our featured review in Lorehaven magazine:

Despite the presence of potentially whimsical color magic, in this world the Thames still burbles with sewage, maidservants toss waste from windows, and even sincere men can believe and die for false religion.

This is solid, creative, and “useful” fantasy. It reflects the reality where hypocrites, abusers, and power-mongers can darken every point of the belief spectrum.

2019 ACFW Carol Award for best speculative novel

Morgan Busse won for Mark of the Raven:

Lady Selene is the heir to the Great House of Ravenwood and the secret family gift of dreamwalking. As a dreamwalker, she can enter a person’s dreams and manipulate their greatest fears or desires. . . . As she discovers her family’s dark secret, Selene is torn between upholding her family’s legacy–a legacy that supports her people–or seeking the true reason behind her family’s gift.

From our featured review in Lorehaven magazine:

Raven is light on action but heavy on familiar-yet-complex character drama, mounting tension, and lush details. . . . Selene wants to protect her sisters, and also her own heart from the pain of wounding others, but at the cost of her own humanity. And all the while, their world is haunted by the whispers of some lost and ancient past, when every member of every House used their supernatural gifts for good.

Edit, later today: I reached out to Morgan Busse for her thoughts afterward.

“I never expected to win, so to have Mark of the Raven win the Carol Award feels surreal,” Morgan said. “It also makes me grateful that [Enclave Publishing owner and president Steve Laube] encouraged me to submit to Bethany House and for Bethany House to take a chance on my story. I’m thankful for all the people who helped bring Mark of the Raven to the world!”

2019 ACFW Carol Award for best debut novel

Lindsay Franklin won for The Story Peddler:

Tanwen doesn’t just tell stories–she weaves them into crystallized sculptures that sell for more than a few bits. But the only way to escape the control of her cruel mentor and claw her way from poverty is to set her sights on something grander: becoming Royal Storyteller to the king.

From our review in Lorehaven magazine:

This story spins a perfect array of delightful characters living with complex magical abilities in a truly unique world. Its adventure, political mayhem, and just a touch of romance reach into the hearts of creatives whom God has gifted to use their talents to serve others.

I reached out to Lindsay for her thoughts afterward:

“I’m still really overwhelmed about this,” she said. “I believe this is the first time a speculative book has won the debut category. So I’m doubly emotional because I feel like this win belongs, not just to me, but to my community.”

Meanwhile at the ACFW conference . . .

None other than our friends at Realm Makers Bookstore ran the (recently rebooted) bookstore at the 2019 ACFW conference (hosted this year in San Antonio, Texas).

Usually the bookstore hosts mainly Christian-made novels in sci-fi, fantasy, and other fantastical genres.

But the bookstore looked a little different for this particular event, bookstore co-founder Scott Minor told me.

For example, the bookstore featured a corner of books by Realm Award–winning authors, as well as all three of the above titles. Most of the store, however, featured books by ACFW member authors, who tend to be in contemporary and historical genres, especially romance.

“The main reason we were there was to serve the authors at ACFW the same way we serve the authors at Realm Makers,” Scott said.

The bookstore also hosted book-signing events by popular authors. That included one author not known for romance himself: a certain Frank Peretti, who was this year’s ACFW keynote speaker.

On a personal note: I also understand that, at long last, I now have Frank Peretti’s autograph. Twice. Once, on my paperback vintage copy of This Present Darkness, and second, on my first-print Family Christian Bookstores copy of Peretti’s arguably best novel, The Visitation (1999).

Achievement unlocked.

Dystopian novels went through a period of huge success in the first fifteen years or so of this century. Besides the many in the general market, Jill Williamson published The Safe Lands series with Blink, a division of Harper Collins. The first, Captives (read a review here), came out in 2013, followed by Outcasts, and then Rebels (read an excerpt here).

Certainly there were other Christians putting out dystopian novels (Nadine Brandis—the Time to Die series—comes to mind, and for middle grade readers, Evan Angler—the Swipe series.) But I mention Jill Williamson because she revealed the cover of her new book last week, and it is a prequel to the Safe Lands series.

I’ll give you the info I have from the Jill Williamson newsletter (used with permission):

THIRST is a prequel to The Safe Lands trilogy. It tells the story of Papa Eli, back when he was a teenager and he and his friends survived the Great Pandemic that sparked the future dystopian world in which Levi, Mason, Omar, and Shaylinn were taken captive. Here is the back cover description:

A waterborne disease has contaminated the world’s fresh water, decimating the human race. Seventeen-year-old Eli McShane and his friends flee the chaos and violence in Phoenix and journey north toward the rumored location of a safe water source. They add several to their number, including the mysterious Hannah, who is being hunted by a dangerous man. Desperation brings out the worst in many of the travelers, infecting even those closest to Eli. When division comes, will he be able to hold his group together or will each fall victim to their own thirst for survival?

I guess you could say this is a pre-dystopian novel—a great idea. It would be similar to Suzanne Collins writing a book that explained how the government that established and controlled the hunger games, came to power. Or how the people in the world of Divergent came to live in an isolated, walled-off city.

I love the “how did that happen” stories, which I think are seldom presented in the case of dystopian worlds. Those novels usually start with an overbearing totalitarian government in charge, controlling the populace and creating havoc with their policies. Consequently, I think Jill Williamson has a brilliant idea—go back and look at what happened that created the Safe Lands and the authoritarian world that was the basis for that series.

First, I suggest you get the Safe Lands trilogy, though you don’t have to read these books before you read the prequel. But it happens that you can get all three on Kindle for $9.99, which is an incredible bargain price. Of course, the three paper back copies cost under $30, so if you prefer print, you can’t do much better.

BUT, Jill Williamson is promoting the new book, the prequel, THIRST, which launches November 21. I hardly have to point out that this date will allow you to purchase a copy for a Christmas gift for anyone you know who has a love for fantasy. Plus, Jill is making available some swag. You can think of this as her own book box, available on a limited basis. Here’s what she said in her newsletter:

I have pre-order goodies available for the first 50 shoppers who sign up. Pre-order goodies are a THIRST water bottle, a limited edition bookmark, and cut chapters from Hannah’s point of view. (See the picture.)

Here are the places you can pre-order. Keep in mind, these are special prices that will go up after the book releases on November 21.

Hardcover:

● Hard cover from Jill’s Author Bookstore
● Hard cover from Barnes & Noble.com

Ebook:
● Amazon Kindle
● iBooks
● Nook
● Kobo

To sign up for a chance to be one of the first 50 who receive the swag, follow these instructions:

After you pre-order the book, follow this link and fill out the form. You’ll need to upload an image of your receipt.

Click here to get your pre-order swag.

The Christy Award, named after the novel Christy by Catherine Marshall, is twenty years old this year. The official web site explains the purpose of these awards:

The Christy Award® is designed to nurture and encourage creativity and quality in the writing and publishing of fiction written from a Christian worldview and showcase the diversity of genres.

I’m a believer in awards, for the most part, though none is perfect. Still, I think novelists can aspire to win an award, and readers can learn what books the particular body of judges considered the best in the specified category for any given year.

The number of categories has changed over the years; now there are nine, including one called Visionary, which is their choice meaning speculative. There’s also a Young Adult category, and often there are books in this group that are also speculative. That’s the case this year, too.

So, if anyone is looking for books they might like to read, consider the finalists for this year’s Christy Awards in the Visionary and Young Adult categories.

Christ Award Finalists—Visionary

Mark of the Raven
by Morgan L. Busse
(Bethany House/ Baker Publishing Group)

Shivering World
by Kathy Tyers
(Enclave Publishing)

The Story Peddler
by Lindsay A. Franklin
(Enclave Publishing)

The Wounded Shadow
by Patrick W. Carr
(Bethany House/ Baker Publishing Group)

Christy Award Finalists—Young Adult

The Crescent Stone
by Matt Mikalatos
(Wander, a YA imprint of Tyndale House)

Fawkes
by Nadine Brandes
(Thomas Nelson)

The Warrior Maiden
by Melanie Dickerson
(Thomas Nelson)

At least two of these books in this last category are speculative at some level, where as Matt Mikalatos’s novel is unashamedly a fantasy.

Some of these names you many recognize. A number have written articles for Spec Faith and / or have had their books featured as excerpts in a Fiction Friday post. (See for example, this one.)

If you’re interested in the finalist books in the other categories, see the complete list at the Christy Awards web site.

By the way, this collection of books might also serve as a guide to Christmas present buying for the speculative reader on your gift list. Whether for yourself or for someone else, Christy Award finalists are certainly good places to start when considering what to read, what to buy

For those who have never read Christy before, I just learned that it is, for the first time, available as an ebook, as part of a 50th year celebration. Not for the award. For the book, which first came out 50 years ago.

By unintended circumstance (or perhaps providence), the recent series I launched concerning “Magic in Fantasy” gives me the opportunity to talk about the latest book I’ve published, because it–Dawn Before the Dark–demonstrates how important in fact I find artistic freedom and how I as a publisher balanced artistic freedom with a goal of honoring God in fiction. Because Dawn Before the Dark attributes magic to multiple gods, or seems to–to two female goddesses and a single male god, something I’m normally leery of.

Wendy Blanton pitched the idea of her novel to me at the Realm Makers conference in 2018. The core idea of her story world is based on a division by gender, so that men have the capacity to perform magical spells but are by nature of being male are afraid of dragons. Whereas women are capable of riding dragons, but are unable to perform the vast majority of magical spells.

This novel is in the genre of epic fantasy, a genre I’ve generally enjoyed, even though at heart I prefer science fiction. But there’s a great deal of epic fantasy, whether by Christian authors or not, that seems to rehash the struggle between good and evil in much the same way Tolkein did. So on the one side a typical story will have some sort of dark lord, very often literally inhuman, with an army composed of creatures of darkness, versus an army of good creatures and heroic figures. (Note dragons are often-but-not-always put in the category of being good creatures in this sort of fantasy.) I’m not interested in publishing a story that has no original ideas or distinctive voice, so a significant chunk of epic fantasy I wouldn’t want to publish, even if the struggle between good and evil draws my attention.

Dawn Before the Dark winds up highlighting gender relations as a key element in the story. Male and female are at odds with one another due to an ancient curse–in fact, due to two ancient curses. I’ll say more about these curses down below, but I would say the real world we live in every day features a set of curses that profoundly affect gender relations–the curses God placed on Adam and Eve at the end of Genesis chapter 3 as a result of human sin. In particular note God speaking to Eve in Genesis 3:16 (NKJV): “I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you.” A rather straightforward reading of this text indicates male dominance in many aspects of our world, to include all forms of patriarchy, is a result of this curse.

Some commentators have from ancient times suggested that God’s original purpose for women was always that they be subordinate to men–yet the Bible actually says this is the result of a curse. In other words, it was not God’s original plan. Though of course many, including Calvinists, will not be pleased that I’m suggesting God changed his plans in any way due to human actions–yet that’s what the text seems to say, read in a straightforward manner. And since this condition of male dominance is the result of a curse, we can be sure that curse will be undone in heaven, because we will see only blessings there. In our eternal future in God’s presence, true gender equality will certainly exist.

By presenting curses that in some ways are analogous to the curses in Genesis 3 in Dawn Before the Dark, the story is able to show how many people become entrenched in the world of the curse by culture, so that even when presented with an opportunity to see the curse undone, some people don’t want to see that happen. Because crossing well-established gender lines goes outside their personal comfort zone.

The story is not preachy about this idea–the concept is simply woven into the entire structure of the story world. Dawn Before the Dark doesn’t specifically command the reader how to react to this situation, yet it’s evident there are real advantages to having a single person embrace capacities that have traditionally belonged to women versus those that have belonged to men. That is, the ability to combine the use of magic with the capability of riding a dragon in a single person.

This gender cross-over centers on a seventeen year-old male named Briant, who happens to love dragons from the first moment he sees one. Vask, an ancient dragon who became separated from the community of dragons and dragon riders upon the death of his last rider (dragons take the death of their riders very hard), returns from isolation in the wilderness to discover Briant–and insists that Briant should become his rider. (Vask by the way is a very interesting character in this story–my personal favorite among all the characters Wendy wrote.)

When I became aware of Briant’s role in combining the capacities of both male and female, I was concerned as a publisher that the story might imply that he is transgender or androgynous somehow. But the in-story explanation for Briant is based on an ancient prophecy of someone who would be “wholly dragonborn” (or “the Dragonborn”).  The issue of male protagonist’s masculinity is left a tiny bit open because his ability to practice magic is less than other men–something that causes him embarrassment, which is a common enough male experience (feeling embarrassed that you may not be as masculine as other men is a common male feeling). Yet the story states that men born before the curse were inherently different from men born after the curse and Briant simply seems to be a man without any curse on him.

Note this story also features a strong female protagonist–Tanwen, the female dragon rider who is thrust into a position of leadership by the aging “Council Liaison” and who to a large degree is responsible for what happens to Briant. Tanwen winds up being a leader both in combat and non-combat situations. She is also the mother of a teenage daughter, Aithne, who is in training to become a dragon rider herself (or a “Wybren” in in-story terminology), who becomes Briant’s dragon riding instructor and potential love interest.

As an editor, I think my most important contribution to this novel was to get Wendy to think out her story world and how things work in it. My questions about how things operate in her universe affected the magic system to a degree and contributed to the villains of the story being more interesting than they otherwise would be (the villains in this first book center around a necromancer who raises an army of the undead–which is pretty cool). But the book started out with core ideas that were strong, that were interesting, that in particular apply to the real-world question of whether or not it’s a bad thing for women to take jobs in the military that include combat duty (clearly the story implies that’s a good thing as long as women are capable of doing so).

Drawn to the interesting ideas that under-gird this story, its strong characters, and writing that started out good and became even better, it might seem to some people that shouldn’t have had any concerns about publishing this story at all. I did though, based on the mythology behind how the curse between men and women came about in story terms. Please allow me to quote from Dawn Before the Dark:

Arwyne leaned forward a little. ‘Children, hear the story of your past. In the beginning, our world was barren and lifeless. Cruthadair, Mother Creator, cast her eye about the stars. She saw our world and formed it into a life-giving planet, filled with food and comfort and love. In those days, everyone used magic to perform simple chores and healing.

‘For generations, people lived in peace. The first ones taught their children about Cruthadair’s love. Each generation talked less about Cruthadair and more about her children: Brigid, goddess of hearth and home; Maccha, her bloodthirsty sister, who eats the flesh of her slain enemies and dominates her lovers through cunning and guile; and their brother, Laoch, god of warriors, heroes, and champions.

The story begins with a single Creator, one that is analogous to the Lord God of Genesis, even though Cruthadair is female. Yet Wendy’s story as it originally stood claimed that this original deity produced three other deities who are gods in their own right. The curse the story centers on a recklessly ambitious king who rapes a woman, who calls on the goddess Maccha to curse all men–a curse that the god Laoch responds to by cursing all women, to which Brigid responds by restoring the power of healing to women. So the curse relates to a conflict among the gods, something I don’t find compatible with a Christian worldview.

But I discussed my concerns with Wendy and we’ve agreed on a future arc for this story world as it continues into a trilogy. As already mentioned, in this first book the curse will be presented as part of a conflict among the three gods, gods who over time replaced the original Creator. Yet characters will in effect re-discover the Creator as the books go along, and the three gods will be shown to fail to measure up to full deity in various ways (e.g. Brigid is really an archangel and not actually a goddess and would refuse to be worshiped in person). Magic, which seems to come from other sources, will ultimately be shown to have come from Cruthadair, whose rise in prominence will correspond with the gender-based curses of the past becoming less and less important to the story world.

So while this book series Wendy has created from the beginning qualifies as clean fiction, free from the sort of graphic content that often concerns parents, its mythology and world view begin from a perspective that I’d have to say isn’t actually Christian. Yet over time, the plan is that the story over the arc of the trilogy will increasingly point towards the importance of the single Creator, strip the apparent authority of the other deities, and will point out that the power that makes the beautiful universe function ultimately derives from the Creator of all. And during this first book itself, one of the characters will seek out Cruthadair in prayer at a moment of crisis, even though no one else in the culture does so…and the story lets that moment come and go, without any blatantly obvious response (the prayer is answered, but the character doesn’t stop to reflect that it was). Because this first book doesn’t drop a pile of Christian meaning into the story “just because.” Dawn Before the Dark first and foremost is a story, an interesting one.

Perhaps even someone into (a) modern Neo-Pagan religion(s) would pick up Dawn Before the Dark and read it. And like the story well enough to keep reading through the trilogy, in spite of the story changing its core mythology over time towards worship of one God. I pray that it works that way, anyway.

So I hope this discussion of Dawn Before the Dark draws your attention and perhaps you might even check the book out on the Bear Publications website, which includes links to purchase it if you are so inclined (if you’d like to join the Facebook reader’s group for this book, “Coffee with Dragons,” I’ve also linked that). But I also hope this story will show that seeking to honor God in how we describe magic in a fantasy context does not necessarily yield simple answers. Avoidance of certain issues and steering a story in the direction of God may be very subtle at times–yet I still think Christian authors and publishers of fantasy are obliged to find realistic ways to honor God, means that are natural to and compatible with good storytelling.

What are your thoughts about what I’ve mentioned about Dawn Before the Dark? Or the topic of magic in fantasy as it relates to stories that subtly undermine a Pagan worldview? What examples would you give of fantasy stories that subtly pointed in the direction of the power of God, even though it might not seem that they did so at first glance? Please add your thoughts to the comments below.

This world is full of fake-Heavens.

Or, more positively, it’s full of imaginary versions of Heaven that give us partial glimpses of the future Heaven’s joys.

But either way, I feel these fake-Heavens sometime serve us better as reminders of what Heaven is not.¹

For example, for one of the most infamous fake-Heavens in the world, see The (increasingly Borg-like) Walt Disney Company. The other day a friend sent me this advertisement for the Walt Disney World theme parks’ upcoming event. They’ve called it, rather cultural-appropriatingly, “Joy Through the World.”

This at once makes me feel two emotions.

First, I do feel a little whimsical and genuinely happy.

That’s because I still fondly remember a Disney character–themed Christmas sing-along cassette (or was it a VHS?) tape that included the song “Joy to the World” with nary a lyric censored. I also have plenty of positive Walt Disney World memories, similar to the ones Mark Carver shared in his recent article “Just Imagine…“.

It’s okay to affirm those good things—not to mention the real creativity and engineering mastery on display at well-run theme parks.

We must deconstruct fake-Heavens.

Second, however, I also feel a sense of annoyance.

As a fake-Heaven, Walt Disney World is just not the best. Unless your version of Heaven costs thousands of dollars for a few days’ of vacation, not including lodging or dining. And includes wanton consumerism, sweltering days, potential for literal and figurative headaches, and of course the infamous waiting-in-lines, even for theme-park pro commandos (such as I have been).

Nah. My best fake-Heaven is a bit more homebound. It has lots of family, great food, and beautifully hostile and cold weather outside that will keep you inside. Christmas is probably going on. And no one ever suffers long work hours, or car breakdowns, or Drama.

Well, just describing the fake-Heaven aloud is sufficient to deconstruct the thing. And deconstruct we must, lest we end up in idolatry or false idealism. Walt Disney World costs hundreds of dollars, minimum, for one person. And those otherwise wonderful family Christmases must still come with some disclaimers (which, pleasantly, forgiveness and flawed human memory can clear up by next year).

Our conclusion: Any “perfect world” here, in this groaning era (Romans 8:22), cannot satisfy the human longing for a perfect place—a Place that is at once perfectly cozy, yet exciting; a place that is somehow perfectly Home, yet also an adventurous Out There.

But don’t deconstruct the real Heaven too!

At the same time, I wonder if we take this “deconstruct the idol” impulse too far.

I mean that this rightful impulse—to tear apart the idol and show it for a fraud—goes all wrong when we try to apply the same policy to the genuine article.

Here’s one example: Some people (including our anti-heroic “exvangelical” apostates) are wholly biblical when they deconstruct abuses in the Church. When critics of Christianity point out how bad leaders co-opt the system to teach false doctrine, or spiritually/emotionally abuse other people, this is a good deconstruction. However, they then get hooked on this habit of deconstruction. They start pulling apart not just Scripture-twisting, but Scripture itself, and they can’t stop at yanking off the terrible ’70s wallpaper off the church walls without also deciding to yank down the whole pulpit, instruments, pews, and sanctuary walls because it’s all idolatry, right? and so it’s all got to go yesterday.

Now, coming back to Heaven: sometimes, when we (rightly) deconstruct fake-Heavens, we might accidentally also start tearing down the real Heaven.

How so?

These three examples sound a little cliche to me, but they’re still common among well-meaning Christians.

1. “Heaven will be beyond what we can imagine.”

To be sure, there’s some truth to that. Our God is so miraculous and epic and incredible. So it really does seem silly to suggest that Heaven will look exactly like the Earth we see around us, only with the bad parts cleared out.

At the same time, Scripture insists so often that we imagine Heaven in earthly terms, including images of like fields of crops, vineyards, kings, cities, and even products of human culture (see Isaiah 60, 65–66; and Revelation 21).

So, while many (well-meaning) Christians are off issuing disclaimers about these images, Scripture doubles down and even labels this eternal state, in both Old and New Testaments, the New Heavens and New Earth. How much more “earthly” can you get? What else would Scripture need to do to persuade us that the New Heavens and New Earth includes, in some way, an actual and physical Earth-made-new?²

2. “We might not remember our lives in Heaven.”

Mark Carver on Wednesday phrased this idea plainly:

All pain and sorrow will be forgotten and God will be the joy of our existence. We don’t know if this means we won’t know one another in eternity, but there will be no memory of past hurts or sins. Every moment will be pure joy in the presence of God.

I’ve thought about this long-running Christian idea for a while, and I’m not sure what it means to deconstruct.

Do people idolize their lives here? Sure. Could memories (bad or good) in this era distract us from worshiping God? Most assuredly.

Yet this is not how the Bible treats human memory—or any good gift that God has given us.

In our Old-Earthly lives, Jesus is changing his people into his image, even using suffering and trauma. Will these memories be wiped?

The Old Testament saints and New Testament apostles have their parts in God’s story immortalized in God’s eternal written word. Will their memories be wiped? Will the apostles Paul and Peter have to re-learn about his own sufferings and beatings by reading their own letters?

Jesus himself will, it seems, carry the scars from His crucifixion. Will our memories of the gospel reason why he suffered also be wiped?

I think Christians mean to honor the biblical texts that say “the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind” (Isaiah 65:17) when they suggest these memory-wipe concepts. But our interpretations of these verses, which pull in ideas of “we won’t remember our suffering,” stray too far from the Bible’s constant emphasis on God’s use of suffering as redemptive and eternally significant.

So, again, this seems an unnecessary deconstruction not just of a fake-Heaven, but of the real Heaven.

Anyhow, I think we have better answers for these texts—which seem instead to say that God will remove every immediate suffering or consequence.³ Revelation 21:4 says Christ will “wipe away every tear from [our] eyes.” It does not say that he wipes our memories so that we would not have even been shedding tears in the first place.

3. “Heaven is described as a bright city and that’s all.”

Finally there’s the issue of our guiding image for Heaven. Revelation 21 presents this image as a glorious golden city that “[comes] down out of heaven from God” (Revelation 21:2). Mark Carver in his article suggests this city represents Heaven in totality, and suggests:

This seems to be in contrast with how God’s creation was originally set up, with man and woman living in a garden to cultivate. It seems like a poor use of the world’s space to corral everyone into a city, especially with no more sea.

Whereas the city—real or metaphorical—is pretty clearly a subset of New Heavens and New Earth. A few questions flush this out:

• If the city comes down from heaven from God, where does it “touch down”?
• If the city represents Heaven in totality, how can “kings of the earth . . . bring their glory into it” (Revelation 21:24)?
• Why even reference a “New Earth” if there is no longer any physical planet earth?
• Why would Old Testament prophets constantly reference eternal versions of real-world locations in Israel?
• Finally, why would Paul in the New Testament promise “the creation itself” will be set free from its enslavement (Romans 8)?

I think this also explains the apparent biblical contrast that Mark notes between garden and city. Biblically, gardens don’t go away. They’re still out there: within the city, and outside the city. Because that heavenly city (again, real or metaphorical) isn’t all of Heaven in totality. It’s either one symbol, or one literal place, within a greater and literal physical paradise: the New Heavens and New Earth.

Deconstruct fake-Heavens, but construct the real Heaven biblically.

By “New Earth” this we mean a real Earth, this-actual-Earth-made-new.

It will have other cities, gardens, mountains, other natural wonders, rivers and oceans, seasons, and ongoing human culture and technology and science and God-glorifying art—oh, and a vast unexplored yet equally redeemed universe of stars and planets beyond.

Christians may certainly discuss the details. (Such as my inclusion of oceans and mountains in the above list, which I can defend.)

But I think we ought to agree that it’s healthy and even commanded to construct our Heaven-images biblically.

I also think we ought to do away with this pseudo-spiritual nonsense of “it’s bad to imagine Heaven” (when Scripture encourages us to), or “Heaven will be so unlike Earth” (when Scripture constantly describes eternity in Earth-like language). These are not healthful or biblical deconstructions of idols. In fact, they’re deconstructions of truth that do real harm to our biblical worldview and imaginations today.

So let’s deconstruct fake-Heavens and all idols, to be sure. But let’s also deconstruct bad deconstructions. Then let’s get to work constructing real portrayals of Heaven—that is, the New Heavens and New Earth—not from our own wishful thinking, but from Scripture itself.

For centuries, illiteracy was the standard. Most people did not read or write. History and culture were passed to the next generation by oral tradition. People listened as a priest or leader dictated the law or related the history or read Scripture. Last week in “Taking Stories To The Culture” I noted that the early purpose of stories was to accomplish goals beyond entertainment.

In this day, society values entertainment, perhaps above anything else. We live for the weekend, counting the days until Friday or get-away day before a holiday. We devour stories, in any mode: movies, TV programs, ads that tell stories, books, videos, computer games. If we can make a story out of it, seems as if we will.

I recall in my school days, a portion of each history unit contained a story about the people we were studying—because, supposedly, we would care more about the history if we identified with the little boy gathering sticks or living in the mud hut, or whatever the fictionalized idea was about the home life of the various people. In truth, that was a precursor to where we are today with our love of—maybe even, preoccupation with—stories.

Our society went so far as to make illiteracy a thing of the past. A first step here in the US was to make public school mandatory for children up to a certain age—with that age slowly moving upward. And downward. Kindergarten was once optional. Now it’s mandatory in most states.

Now that we have achieved a high percentage of literacy—with countries around the world achieving a degree of similar success—how could we conceive of an illiterate society once again?

Think of the trends. First, signs at airports, where international travelers were provided with pictures to guide them, rather than words in a foreign language, became increasingly popular and wide spread. Now restaurants follow suit, putting pictures on bathroom doors and the trash cans and such. Here in SoCal we long ago left pedestrian signs that said “Walk” in favor of a picture of a two-legged humanoid in full stride. We’ve most recently added an automated voice that counts out the seconds left before the walking man becomes a red hand, palm out in the stop position.

But there’s more. Blogs are losing ground to videologs. Sites like YouTube and Vimeo have given birth to sites like VideoLog, a video log sharing site. Then there are audio books, whose popularity seems to be on the increase.

All these new technologies and methods of passing along information seem to be expanding the ways in which we humans can consume what we want the most: stories.

And yet, one thing seems to be the common thread: none of these new forms requires literacy. So, is the trend toward illiteracy and away from the ability to read and write? Will only “the scholars” retain those skills?

Already, with the way many people send text messages, the need to know how to spell is passe. As it happens, I rarely type a text message because I can speak into the little microphone, and up comes my message. Auto spell and spell check have also made the need to actually spell correctly less and less important. Add in the fact that the computer has nearly done away with the need to learn handwriting, and an app like Grammarly does all the heavy lifting with grammar, a writer hardly needs to learn to write.

I certainly could be wrong about this, but in my observation—no official study or research—trends don’t generally reverse themselves. They do change, but they rarely (I can only think of a couple examples) revert to what they had been.

Consequently, if our society is in fact moving toward illiteracy, it certainly won’t look like the illiteracy of old. For one thing, it will be more or less voluntary. In other words, the means to learn reading and writing will be there, but people will choose not to bother. For another, video changes the literary landscape, which may or may not be a good thing.

I suggest that the more we rely on video, the less we will rely on our imagination.

There are other residual consequences that a loss of literacy would cause. For one, a person would only be able to research that which is preserved in audio or video form. No going back to read old newspaper accounts or studying documents such as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Only the “scholars” would retain that ability, and the rest of us would be dependent upon their transmission of what they choose to transmit.

In other words, in an illiterate society, controlling information will be easier and easier. We’ve seen in the past how certain authoritarian governments have banned books or burned them, as a way to prevent contrary viewpoints from infiltrating society. But if illiteracy spreads, if people become dependent upon video, a tyrannical government only need control one thing: the internet.

Anything deemed “hate speech” or “fake news” is already under the close scrutiny of the censors. And of course, “hate speech” or “fake news” is, in part, dependent upon a person’s world view. I know a long list of atheists that would categorize evidence to support a worldwide flood as “fake news.” And others would be quick to call any statement about the human sin nature, “hate speech.”

All that to say, reading could be going out of style, but if it does, an illiterate society will suffer the consequences for it.

What do you think? In twenty-five years will people be reading as much as they are today? Will schools still emphasize reading the way they do now?

As a side issue, are there any dystopian stories that you know of in which the society has become illiterate? I’ve trying to remember if anyone in Hunger Games ever read. It seems as if there was no awareness that the society was now illiterate. Rather, there just didn’t seem to be a need to read or write (apart from the few). But I could be wrong about that. Curious what your thoughts are.