God has encouraged human creativity from the beginning:

Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. (Genesis 2:19)

Adam must have been delighted as he was introduced to each of our Lord’s creatures. Picture Adam petting every animal and smiling with God as he named the feathered, furred, and scaled critters put in his charge. Imagine the fist bump after Adam said platypus.

I’m glad there is no Biblical census of the animals. Exploring God’s creation, discovering new species, and the honor and joy of naming them continues to bless mankind to this day. According to the California Academy of Sciences, 220 new animal species were discovered in 2018. Bring joy to your day and look up the “Japan pig” seahorse. Imagine what this year’s list will include. The existence of unknown species yet to be revealed breeds excited anticipation.

Enter fantasy author.

Some mythical creatures are more familiar to me than many earthly animals. I’ve never met a platypus. I likely know what most Americans do about these venomous egg-laying mammals. I’ve also never come across a mermaid or unicorn. Yet, as a young girl I convinced my dear friend, and myself, that we were going to transform into mermaids on our sixteenth birthdays and ride unicorns into the sea. Our sixteenth year was celebrated bipedally, but my assuredness has had a lasting effect and we continue to up the age for this metamorphosis. She and I joke about middle-aged mermaids, but still share that thrill of childhood delight in imagining the possibility.

I was told my writing clearly shows I am in touch with my inner child. I don’t know if this was intended as a compliment, but I believe this attribute to be a foundation of fictional world and character building. If fantastical places and creatures are not real to the author, how can they resonate with readers?

Observing God’s wild creatures is a favorite pastime of mine and has fed my writing well. Placing an earthly animal in a fantastical environment brings out the mysterious side of familiar beasties. I often include them in my fantasy writing unadorned. Sometimes I add a touch of fiction. Other times, I have a wild time inventing new life.

The following statement has yet to be disputed: Tranquility is the first fantasy novel to include a mythical creature based on the common loon.

Take a moment to regain your balance, catch your breath, and think hard if you’ve ever come across another loony fantasy creature.

I want to read that book.

My family’s love of mountain lakes, kayaking, hiking, and bird watching has led us to spend many vacations on the ponds of the Great North Woods. This is where I fell in love with common loons. I am captivated by their haunting calls, involved parenting, beauty, and private nature tinged with curiosity which has often put me in close proximity to these mystifying birds. Exploring mountain lake regions with a preexisting affinity for mythical creatures has caused a fiction-inspiring collision of northwoods residents such as loons, owls, and woodpeckers with fairies, mermaids, and unicorns.

Well before I began cross-breeding the real and mythical, fantasy fiction filled my childhood bookshelves. I grew up delving into worlds apart from mine, inhabited by creatures alive, as far as I knew, only in my imagination. Reading these same books as an adult, I enjoy them as much, and am now aware of the authors’ grappling with real world issues.

I began writing Tranquility after the idea for the protagonist appeared in my dream. Some dreams stick with me, and this character kept developing until I stopped making excuses and started writing about her and her world. It wasn’t long before troublesome topics here on Earth found their way into the lands inhabited by the unique characters I was having such fun creating.

Not surprising, right? A story without conflict is unnatural and boring. Adding trouble isn’t revolutionary, its necessary.

When I first put pen to paper (I truly did) to write Tranquility my intention was to create a story for my children. The romantic notion of my kids having a fantasy book written by their mother and sharing it with their children some day was inspiring. Once I added portions of real world drama to the tale, I handed the first draft to my husband and he encouraged me to pursue publication beyond our family.

I believe God enjoyed His time spent with Adam naming the animals. He also knew Adam would screw up big time and He would need to save us from sin through a mighty, painful sacrifice.

I haven’t met a fantasy author with true omniscience, but many of us try our hand at creating unique, beautiful places and creatures. We then throw sin into the mix to see how different worlds handle reality’s mix of fascinating creation with downright evil.

Adam didn’t experience childhood like we did, but I envision him naming the animals with childlike glee. God had put him to work, proclaimed His rules, and then presented every animal to Adam, giving him the freedom to choose whatever name he liked for each. What joy and freedom he must have experienced. Then he ate the fruit.

I think fantasy authors use their gift of writing to explore that natural and ancient relationship between the beauty of Creation and the failure of its caretakers. Creating original splendors in a new fantasy world is exciting. Evil’s entrance is unavoidable. And the rest is an exploration of how this new world will deal with its problems.

Like a child building a block tower, knocking it down feels so necessary, even when the destruction elicits tears. Then the rebuilding begins. I think this fantasy author’s writing process goes back to our origin; our delight in naming some of Creation, our weaknesses ruining that perfection, and our persevering hope working to make it better.

I attended the Christian Products Expo in Murpheesboro, Tennessee between the 25th and 27th of August, 2019, that is, Sunday through Tuesday this week. This meeting is now probably the biggest trade show exclusively for Christian bookstores in the world. I gathered some impressions which I’ll share here about the market this expo serves, what’s going on there, and what that means for speculative fiction books.

Me showing off my CPE badge (NOT IN MIRROR IMAGE IN REAL LIFE–at least, I certainly hope not! 🙂 )

First, let me mention that “CBA” (Christian Booksellers Association) used to be the shorthand to refer to Christian Bookstores in general and the term “ABA” (American Booksellers Association) was shorthand for the general, non-Christian market. Though in reality, a number of ABA stores like Barnes & Noble sell a pile of Christian books, as do “big box” stores like Walmart. But those stores exclusively dedicated to Christian content, the CBA, has changed. The CBA folded–it no longer exists–but independent Christian bookstores still do exist, so who represents them now? The Christian bookstore market is probably best represented by the Munce Group, who are the people who put on the annual Christian Products Expo that I attended.  (Note that agent and Christian market insider Steve Laube mentions the situation with the CBA states who sells Christian books now in a blog post of his I’m linking here.)

Note that I attended the CPE because I have a book I published that I imagined would be in demand by Christian bookstores–Beatitudes and Woes, which has speculative fiction stories linked to Bible passages (I thought the Bible passages would make this a natural for Christian retailers). Note also I had never attended a trade show like this before, that furthermore I was not all that familiar with what was going on with Christian bookstores, and even moreso I am not from the Bible Belt and wasn’t as knowledgeable about the United States sub-culture of Evangelical Christianity that supports these stores as I am now. So some of my observations and thoughts may be in the category of “old news” for many readers of this article. If so, sorry about that, but I’m going to share my thoughts anyway, because it may be other people are like me and didn’t know all that much. (Note my observations are my own and may not always be correct–I’m don’t wish to be a “unreliable narrator” and will mention when I’m only reporting impressions as opposed to facts, but of course my observations are inherently limited by my own perspective.)

Note also that I never have been a member of an association of Christian authors like the ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers) other than Realm Makers and in fact interacted with the CPE as an author to a degree but more importantly as a small publisher. So the gatekeepers like ACFW have never been hugely important to me. I’ve been a creative indie who does what I want and then tries to sell it rather than caring about what market might exist for what I do. Though I’m shifting from that position to a degree…so this is my first real look at Christian retail buyers of books, though some of my observations may parallel what people have already said based on association with the ACFW and other organizations.

The retail market for Christian books is not dying, as Steve Laube mentions in another of his blog posts. And as was mentioned in a “Market Update” session at the CPE, the sale of e-books is leveling off across the entire book market. The novelty of buying e-books is wearing off for people and the fact that most people in the USA and tech-developed world are plugged into electronic devices all day means that most people have come to see reading for pleasure (as opposed to reading for work) as something linked to a physical book. Books have come to be associated with being unplugged from the world of devices–and holding a book is a tactile pleasure that people enjoy when they really want to spend time in a particular story. Yes, you can get your physical book from the world of online retailers like Amazon and many people do so, but for some book buyers, going into the store to look at and touch the physical book you want to own is very important. And that probably will never go away.

Authors giving away books to Christian retailers on Sunday night–a massive crowd looking for new books.

But are Christian bookstores dying?

That’s a separate question from whether retailers of Christian books are disappearing, because it could be that ABA retailers like Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million, and Walmart take over selling Christian books from stores who label themselves “Christian book stores.” My answer to this question is that Christian book stores are probably in decline, but won’t disappear altogether–though that’s based on some impressions (as opposed to solid facts) that I’ll specifically mention. Impression one was there were a lot of gray heads at any assembly of retailers at the Christian Products Expo. Sure, probably a lot of these retailers have plans for family members to take over the store when they pass on, but I doubt all of them do. So, if my impression is correct (IF), then the simple passage of time will reduce the number of Christian bookstores, at least to a degree, as store owners literally die off.

My second impression backing up the idea that Christian bookstores are in decline is the fact the Munce Group paid retailers to come to the Christian Products Expo. It was right in the program for the show that those putting on the exhibits were paying for booth space and that the Munce Group would reimburse retailers for travel and lodging expenses for coming to the CPE if they could show on a form that they had met with a certain number of vendors and discussed buying their products. Yes, we are talking about an impression of mine here, but it seems to be that if Christian bookstores were doing marvellously well, it wouldn’t be necessary to pay them to attend an expo of Christian products (though perhaps this is a common industry practice for all I know). Plus I heard a number of book store owners mention that they are struggling financially, as did a few of the people who spoke to these store owners in various sessions. So the struggle part is a bit more than an impression, even though I don’t have solid numbers.

Though it should also be said that I also heard a number of store owners mention that business is getting a bit better than it had been in the past. However, when I asked the store owners I happened to talk to (because I sat next to them during a meal) about how their business was doing, more than once I heard that the sale of gifts is a more important part of what their store does than sell books.  And in fact a member of the panel from the market update session mentioned this as well–that Christian bookstores have shifted to selling gifts more than books or at least a lot more gifts relative to books than they had in the past.

That shift means (drawing a conclusion from impressions here) that what used to be Christian book stores have in effect become Christian book stores. What I mean is these stores started out selling books that covered Christian topics and as a result will always carry some books but when e-books started knocking down book sales, they found a new identity. That is, they are the place you go to find something that is very clearly identifiably CHRISTIAN, whether that’s a book or a wall cross or jewelry with a fish on it or a t-shirt or coffee mug with a Bible verse on it.  Their identity is not in covering all the possible books a Christian might want to read.

Most books for sale at the Christian Products Expo were non-fiction. Most of the non-fiction had to do with practical subjects like how to raise a family and how to face divorce, though of course Bible sales and commentaries and books on things like the theology of the arts were important. And when the books for sale there were fiction, they were historical, romance, Biblical (historical in Bible times or with Biblical figures), or contemporary fiction. Precious little fantasy or science fiction or other speculative fiction was around, though there was a tiny bit.  Though even romance wasn’t very strongly represented.

This makes it plain to me that if you want to write a book that will be bought by a Christian bookstore, you have to ensure there is no question that the book is super duper, clearly, unmistakably Christian. That’s what the store owners are looking for and that’s the section of the Christian market they cater to. I think the main problem with Christian speculative fiction for these retailers is that those of us writing such fiction often are nonchalant about identifiable Christian content, as I myself have been with some book projects I’ve been involved with.

Note I ‘m not talking about producing allegorical Christian stories like less-subtle-than-Narnia versions of Narnia. There may be a place for such tales, but I’m referring to content that addresses theological and practical living topics or the Bible itself directly.

I think the desire for these retailers to have clear Christian content has been frustrating for writers of Christian stories, because such a focus is not really about producing the best possible stories. But I think the inclusion of Bible verses as the direct inspiration for tales, as was done for the Beatitudes and Woes anthology, is a step in the direction of content that would be interesting for these store owners. I certainly received a good deal of positive verbal feedback about Beatitudes and Woes, though so far, the positive impressions the books seemed to have made haven’t translated into book sales.

In other words, reaching this market isn’t about making the story worse via terrible allegories or woodenly Christian characters (as has been done far too often), but rather by linking any story to the key things I already mentioned: theological topics and practical living and the Bible itself. And since there’s a rising trend to talk about theology of the arts (which was specifically mentioned during the “market update” session), then I’d say there is a place at the Christian Products Expo for non-fiction that relates to Speculative Fiction. Though it must be clearly labeled as having a Christian perspective or coming from a Christian point of view to serve this purpose.

I wish I could say that this strong preference for “Christian” meant these bookstores were filtering out heretical views of Christianity, but looking around at some titles, they aren’t. At least not enough so it isn’t around at all, though in fact they do probably as an overall whole care more about whether something is doctrinally correct than Barnes & Noble or Walmart will. (Which I think is a reason to want to support Christian bookstores when possible.)

Some other observations: 

1. The rise of women at the CPE is a genuine phenomenon. Many more women authors than men were at the expo and many more books for women than men. Though there’s plenty of space for male authors, too.
   

   Elizabeth Newsom, her book in hand, taking a picture with me.

2. A few of my fellow Realm Makers alumni were around. Amy Williams was actually on site for an AWSA conference, not CPE–note that AWSA has a specific mission of promoting female authors and speakers, but I saw Amy anyway. Tina Yeager was also there at the CPE and is with AWSA, though was promoting a non-speculative book. Among the Realmies I knew, only Elizabeth Newsom was there to promote a fantasy book.
3. The expo was pretty huge. I didn’t get numbers of how many vendors attended, but they filled a large conference room. Certainly vendors of Christian books are not giving up on trying to sell items to independent Christian bookstores. So in that way, the market seems pretty robust. (Vendors with European accents were common enough–I had an interesting conversation with a Reformed book vendor from Scotland.)
4. The conference center was nice, the food was great, and they even had entertainment Sunday and Monday nights (music, someone to share a message, and Christian comedians). Each day also had devotional/worship time. Pretty impressive. Obviously the Munce Group was making sure the bookstores are in the mood to buy products.
   

   Sunday praise and worship at the CPE

5. More and more books on theology and Christian living are by non-experts, by celebrities and whatnot (according to the market update). That may be a negative thing overall, but I’m thinking there may be an opportunity there for me to write or publish books that would interest me, which Christian bookstores would also be interested in.
6. The Christian Indie Publishers Association (CIPA), who represented the two books I brought with me to the CPE (I paid them to do so) didn’t prove to be very speculative fiction-friendly. If you want details, contact me individually and I’ll share them. But while CIPA did get me into the Christian Products Expo, I would recommend a bit of caution if any other small Christian publisher who does speculative fiction is thinking about joining them.
   

   The CIPA table at the CPE, with two Bear Publications books in their book rack.

7. Some training for authors on social media and email list building was included in the expo and was first-rate.
8. I met some great authors (including Jay Payleitner, a bestselling author who was very impressed with Beatitudes and Woes) and important book sellers and distributors. I have no idea specifically what will come of all those contacts, but I’m glad I made them.

Anyway, this wraps up my report on what I saw, did, and what I think. I’d be happy to respond to any questions or comments you may have in the comment section below.

At the beginning of the summer, I was looking for a book of fairy tales to read, ideally one that included stories on which no Disney film has been based. I found Gertrude Landa’s Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends, and I was enchanted.

This collection is charmingly fanciful, and at times playfully absurd. It is, moreover, unique in the different flavors of fairy tale it offers. The book is admirably broad-minded in its inspiration, drawing from Scripture and history and legend. I am going to briefly sum up the four classes of fairy tale in this book, prefaced by two observations. One of these is positive, and the other less so.

One, the book is unusually effective in merging religion with stories. I have tried to cipher out why the book succeeds as it does, and I think the fairy-tale form has a great deal to do with it. As fairy tales, these stories shrug off the burdens of detail and solemnity. They respect religion, yet treat it with lightness and frankness. This is certainly not the only way to treat religion, and probably not the best way, but it is an enjoyable way. Now, the second and negative observation: There is moral dissonance in the casual acceptance of slavery sometimes glimpsed in this book. It’s jarring, and in the most flagrant instance downright chilling.

And onto the four classes:

Secular. Although most of the fairy tales in this collection are religious to some degree, a minority makes nothing of religion, one way or another. Among these are some of the more lackluster offerings, such as “The Red Slipper” and “Abi Fressah’s Feast”. But this minority also includes the superior “The Princess in the Tower”, which is at once the most democratic and most effectively humorous tale in the collection.

Biblical. I use here a narrow definition to cover only those stories directly based on biblical narrative. Of course, directly based can still be loosely based, as many a Hollywood film has demonstrated. These are not Sunday-school stories. They only involve Sunday-school characters, drawing them out from the Bible and into a world of fancy. Thus Pharaoh suffers somewhat whimsically in “The Higgledy-Piggledy Palace” and David rides a unicorn in “From Shepherd-Boy to King”. Minor figures in Scripture are granted starring roles, though not to any glory. In “The Paradise in the Sea”, Hiram grows convinced of his own immortality – and deity.

Religious. Truthfully, most of the book could come under this heading. I use it in order to group the fairy tales that invoke religion without pirating the Bible. A representative example of this is the prophesying rabbi of “King for Three Days”. “The Rabbi’s Bogey-Man” is a more compelling instance, and the most imaginative is found in the synagogue in the heart of Ergetz, the land of demons, djinns, and fairies – for, it is explained, they also have all manner of religions. This tale, “The Fairy Princess of Ergetz”, is the best in the category and possibly the best in the book. In all these stories, there is no self-consciousness about religion, no sense of argument or defense. It simply is, like the sky.

Historical. A handful of the fairy tales play out in quasi-historical settings. “The Palace in the Clouds” occurs somewhat vaguely in Assyria; “The Pope’s Game of Chess” occurs much more definitely in Germany. But not too definitely. These are still fairy tales, and history is a source of invention rather than strict facts. “King Alexander’s Adventures” is the most striking example of the historical fairy tale, not least because in it, history so dizzingly meets religion and myth.

This week Disney dropped a sort-of-trailer for Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker.¹

At least from what I’ve seen, former-fans have never been glummer.

Among the usual and new complaints:

• The Emperor looks like a cartoon.
• The Emperor shouldn’t be back at all.
• Rey has crazy-lightsaber for no reason.
• Rey is a Mary Sue a Mary Sue a Mary Sue.
• Retcon The Last Jedi! and do this yesterday!
• Director J. J. Abrams will just nostalgia-rehash this movie too and it’s gonna suck suck suck so bad.
• If Han Solo ended up a loser, and so did Luke Skywalker, and the Emperor didn’t really die, then the entire classic trilogy is subverted.

Oddly enough, this won’t be one of those “you’re all crazy and the Star Wars are fine, kids” articles. I’m actually sympathetic to these arguments. Especially that last one. Because if in the sequels the good guys don’t actually stay good, and the bad guys don’t stay dead, then yes, the original story really does seem pointless. Sure, you’ve subverted a modern myth that some people may worship. That may help them avoid idolizing fantastical stories in the future. But in so doing, doesn’t this also seem to mock our desire for good heroes and victories (and even mock their true fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ)?

Anyway, we don’t know all this yet because the movie hasn’t come out. I think it’s proper to be skeptical. But let’s keep Christlike perspective. That I write to myself. I do this because, honestly, I liked The Force Awakens just fine, and felt at best indifferent to The Last Jedi. But you haters are starting to get to me. I don’t like being so pushed about, like a lightsaber caught between two Force-pulls.

So I go back to two SpecFaith articles. The first, from John Otte last year, pleads:

Star Wars Fans, Don’t Act Like New Testament Legalists

In some ways, it’s not surprising that we see such vehemence arise in Star Wars fandom. When George Lucas first crafted the stories set in that universe, he tapped into the power of the monomyth, relying on the work of Joseph Campbell. By doing so, he didn’t just create a story, he created a new mythology, something that could and has tapped into the part of the human psyche that responds to myths and legends. That’s a smart idea. It means that his stories, characters, and themes have resonated deeply with people for decades. That’s why the franchise has such strong staying power.

But there’s a flipside to that as well: that yearning for deeper meaning and mythology is right next door to the part of the human mind that responds to myth and religion with fanaticism. And oftentimes, that fanaticism expresses itself by turning people into gatekeepers. They believe that they have to protect their precious mythology and beliefs from those who don’t appreciate or understand it the way they do. These newcomers are so different from them and don’t fit their ideas of what a true believer looks like, sounds like, acts like, believes like. Threatened with outsiders and newcomers, the temptation is to circle the holy wagons and dictate who can and can’t come in. (Read the rest . . .)

And the second article, from me just this spring, asks more generally:

Why Are Fans Turning Against Their Favorite Franchises?

I don’t like saying “it’s just a movie” or “it’s just a show.” Such a slogan disregards the power of stories for good, evil, or both. The slogan also ignores the real feelings of their fans, and the hard work that humans, God’s image-bearers, put into stories.

But what about people who first embrace story franchises, then despise them to the point of making reams of videos or essays about how terrible they are now?

At that point I would say, “Move on. It’s just a movie/show/whatever.”

Only in a prosperous, first-world society would anti-fans have enough spare time to “review bomb” a movie they haven’t even seen. Or to spend hours arguing with fans or the just-plain-indifferent viewers about whether certain directors secretly “hate” heroes like Superman or Luke Skywalker.

No matter your political or religious perspective (but I repeat myself), the world has greater, more terrible issues. Like abortion. Or whatever degree of racism you think still exists. Or injustice, poverty, and the $22 trillion U.S. national debt.

Even in a secular worldview, anti-fans need to get some perspective. Fast. . . .

No one in a starving nation goes to Yelp to review-bomb the food relief truck.

The fact that many fans feel the luxury of criticizing—with personal ire—any recent franchise installment is simply a side effect of this cultural luxury. Whereas a fan from the 1990s and earlier, who is starving for a new Star Wars movie or superhero adaptation, will more than likely take whatever he can get and appreciate it.

Some of that is a natural side effect. I wouldn’t call that sinful. Why not advocate for the best, or constructively criticize when creators simply reheat the old recipe?

This legitimate criticism, however, can quickly turn into a kind of gluttony. As C. S. Lewis once explained, it’s a kind of gluttony that doesn’t look like gluttony. (Read the rest . . .)

Anyway, here’s the Disney video for you folks to chat about amongst yourselves. I literally have not seen it yet—just as I still haven’t seen that old Gillette shaving-cream advertisement that got the internet so riled. Part of me just doesn’t want to care anymore.

Last week Stephen Burnett ran an excellent article about Christians pirating ebooks. I wonder if there isn’t another problem we as believers have. Do we enjoy complaining about the lack of Christian speculative fiction, or are we doing what little we can when we see a problem?

I’m thinking first and foremost about Christians who read and enjoy speculative literature. Spec Faith was founded, lo these 15 or so years ago, as a response to editors and agents saying over and over that there was no market for Christian science fiction and fantasy. Of course there’s no market if there’s no one putting out books for people to buy, a group of us asserted. So we determined to help create a thirst for Christian speculative literature.

Fast forward, and we have a very different book environment now. Self-publishing is easier than at any time before, an impressive array of small presses, led by Enclave Publishing, have cropped up to fill a void, some specializing on “clean” speculative stories, and others looking for ones specifically written from a Christian worldview. Add in the fact that some of the traditional Christian publishing houses have decided that there is more market for Christian speculative stories than they thought. On top of this, a number of writers have taken the challenge of writing stories from their Christian worldview and seeking publication from general market houses.

We see all those options represented here at Spec Faith. When we run Fiction Friday excerpts, for example, readers can be introduced to a book published by Tor Teen such as we ran Friday—Stormrise by Jillian Boehme. Or we might put forward a Christian supernatural suspense (with humor) published by a small press (Enclave Publishing) such as we did in Paul Reginer’s Paranormia or a traditional fantasy such as Emily Golus’s Escape to Vindor (Taberah Press). We’ve also featured a self-pubbed award-winner such as Sally Apokedak’s The Button Girl (technically, a Weekday Fiction Fix post) and books such as Jill Williamson’s Safe Lands series published by a traditional Christian house (Bethany).

I could give numerous examples of each type of book, brought into being despite the idea that there is no market for speculative fiction among Christian readers.

But to be honest, I wonder if book sales numbers support the idea that yes, Christians do want to read speculative fiction. I know there are more and more books available. I don’t know how well they sell. How many people are eager to learn about new books, especially ones that receive good reviews from a reputable and unbiased source such as Lorehaven Magazine.

Are we willing to support the works we said we wanted? Or are we content with point out how difficult it was to get publishers to see Christians who love speculative stories?

I personally don’t have a lot of money, so I can’t buy all the books I’d like. I don’t have time to read a lot of the books I already have, so there’s that problem, too. But what about award-winning books? Wouldn’t it be important to find out about the books that receive recognition from various well-established sources?

I remember approaching a Christian bookstore worker once, asking why they didn’t have a Christy Award winning book. I mean, ought they not carry the best books, first and foremost?

We readers should ask the same question. Do we buy books just because of author name recognition I personally believe that’s why some authors continue to sell well—readers haven’t heard of the other authors and don’t want to risk putting money down for an unknown. But award winners should not be unknowns. I mean, some set of judges chose that particular book over other books as the best of that year. The best of those books entered, yes, but still, a top book, no matter how you look at it.

But I wonder if we might get stuck defending Christians writing and reading fantasy. We discuss from time to time here at Spec Faith what pastors have got wrong when they stand against speculative writing. We talk about the value of Christian fantasy or the need for Christians to write for the general market or how self-publishing allows Christians to be both Christians and lovers of speculative stories, without apology.

Are we buying those books? Are we following through and putting our money and our time to the thing we claim is important, that has been under-represented?

Not every book, certainly. But some people are passionate about Christians writing for the general market. So have they bought books by Merrie Destafano, R. J. Anderson, N. D. Wright? Have they pre-ordered Stormrise that is debuting next month? I could go on and on with titles and authors.

I don’t know how those books are selling, to be honest. Maybe Christians are getting behind them and making them best sellers and I just haven’t heard about it. I’d like to think that’s the case, and not that we love to complain but aren’t doing some little part, like buying a book now and them, reading and leaving reviews, and telling others about the books of speculative fiction written by Christians that we’ve been reading.

Stormrise

by Jillian Boehme

INTRODUCTION—STORMRISE

A combat warrior will risk everything to awaken the dragons and save her kingdom. Stormrise is an young adult (YA) fantasy published by Tor Teen, to be released September 24, available for pre-order now (Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and other fine outlets).

If Rain weren’t a girl, she would be respected as a Neshu combat master. Instead, her gender dooms her to a colorless future. When an army of nomads invades her kingdom, and a draft forces every household to send one man to fight, Rain takes her chance to seize the life she wants.

Knowing she’ll be killed if she’s discovered, Rain purchases powder made from dragon magic that enables her to disguise herself as a boy. Then she hurries to the war camps, where she excels in her training—and wrestles with the voice that has taken shape inside her head. The voice of a dragon she never truly believed existed.

As war looms and Rain is enlisted into an elite, secret unit tasked with rescuing the High King, she begins to realize this dragon tincture may hold the key to her kingdom’s victory. For the dragons that once guarded her land have slumbered for centuries . . . and someone must awaken them to fight once more.

STORMRISE — EXCERPT

From Chapter 3

“Rain.”

Papa’s voice filtered through the layers of my thoughts as I scribbled words I knew I’d only have to discard later. I looked up from my bed to see him framed in my doorway, his features soft in the lamplight.

“Yes?” I stuck my pen behind my ear.

He raised an eyebrow at my stained fingers. “Am I interrupting your poetry?”

“It’s not going well, anyway,” I said. “Do you need something?”

“Since we’ll be leaving the day after tomorrow, I thought this might be a good time to give this to you.” He walked to my bedside and handed me a thin wooden box.

It was heavy in my hands, and something inside it shifted. “What’s this?”

“Half of your dowry.”

I stared at him for a moment before opening the box. More tak than I had ever seen at once lay piled inside.

“Papa.”

“Fifty tak isn’t enough to secure you a husband, but when I come home, I will provide the rest.”

The weight on my heart came from words unspoken. If he didn’t come home, I would at least have half a dowry to build upon. After a few years of laboring in the fields, I could, perhaps, make up the difference.

“Why give this to me now?” I asked. “Why not leave it in Mama’s care?”

His smile was sad. “Somehow, I think you will do just fine, Rain L’nahn. Even if you marry at thirty, I don’t fear for you.”

Something half laugh, half sob came out of my throat. “Thank you, Papa.”

He kissed the top of my head. “We will weather this storm, my daughter.”

But I had no intention of weathering the storm. I would face it head-on—and take it down. Like the Neshu fighter Papa had trained me to be.

I hugged the coin chest for a long time after he’d left. And for even longer, I sat in the dark, unable to sleep.

“Rain.” Storm’s whisper was husky at my door.

I pulled my blanket over the money box. “Come in.”

“I had a bad dream.”

“Tell me about it.”

He sat on the bed and rubbed his eyes. “I can’t remember. But there were soldiers. And monsters.”

“Did you kill the monsters?”

“I don’t remember.”

I took his hand. “Are you afraid to go to war?”

“No. I’m a brave soldier.”

“Being brave doesn’t mean you’re never afraid.”

He sighed, long and deep. “Can I sleep in here?”

“No, Storm. Papa and Mama want you to sleep in your own bed.” I kissed his hand. “I love you.”

He stayed a while longer, sitting quietly, probably hoping I’d change my mind. Finally I gave him a gentle nudge, and he rose and shuffled out, already half a sleep.

It should have been me, waking in the dark with the dreams of a child. When Storm and I were sick, the healer had only enough medicine for one of us and said he’d come back the next day with more. Of course my parents had told him to give the medicine to their son, but he had given it to me instead. Overnight, I improved, and Storm grew worse. And never fully recovered.

I couldn’t let him go to war. The likelihood that he and Papa would return was lower than I could bear to admit. But the only alternative would be for someone else to step up in his place.

A nephew or cousin, second male in their own families. A second son, sound in mind and body.

We had none of those options. There were only Papa and Storm and Mama and Willow.

And me.

I should have been a son.
I could be a son.

At first, the idea terrified me. True, I was quick on my feet and not curvy— and I looked so much like Storm. With a military hairstyle and armor, maybe I could create the illusion. But how long would it take for me to be discovered? Would the first words out of my mouth betray my true sex?

And what would I do during my monthly bleed?

Discovery would mean death. If I were caught, my punishment would be swift and sure.

But.

What if there were some way to strengthen my disguise?

Madam S’dora’s shelves were filled with mixtures and powders and potions beyond my imaginings. And she had sold Willow a tea that would make her bleeding stop for her wedding night. Surely she had something similar that I could use to stop my bleed in definitely?

My heart battered my chest, forcing my breaths to come fast and shallow. If my disguise were good enough, no one would know. The possibility of meeting someone who would recognize me was small; I spent most of my time at home and had no friends from town. And because we’d kept Storm quietly hidden away since he was six or seven, there was little chance anyone would recognize him by sight, either.

If I left at night, while everyone else slept, I could make my escape without worry.

A hundred things could go wrong, but in my heart it was settled.

I would go in the morning to Madam S’dora’s. If she had what I needed, then nothing would stop me.

I would become the son my father needed.

My hands curled around the money box, guilt prickling the edges of my heart. This was dowry money, entrusted to me in good faith. Even if I only spent a quarter of it at Madam S’dora’s, that was a lot.

But if I went in Storm’s place, then Papa could stay home, too. He wouldn’t have to worry about never returning. And if I died, I wouldn’t need a dowry, anyway.

“I’m doing this for you and Storm, Papa,” I whispered. Then I slid the box beneath my pillow and willed myself to sleep.

STORMRISE AUTHOR BIO—JILLIAN BOEHME

JILLIAN BOEHME is known to the online writing community as Authoress, hostess of Miss Snark’s First Victim, a blog for aspiring authors. In real life, she holds a degree in Music Education, sings with the Nashville Symphony Chorus, and homeschools her remaining youngster-at-home. She’s still crazy in love with her husband of more than thirty years and is happy to be surrounded by family and friends amid the rolling knolls of Middle Tennessee. Stormrise is her debut novel.

You may find her online in these places: her author web site (where you may enter a Stormrise preorder contest), Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Goodreads, and Miss Snarks’s First Victim.

This post is part of a lead-up to fully getting back in the swing of the Speculative Fiction Writer’s Guide to War. Its information will probably be used in the final version of the book I intend to produce for the Guide to War, but isn’t one of the numbered articles. It starts with talking about shields and then makes a number of observations about what spaceship combat will probably be like. Note that this post, yet again, has been adapted and considerably expanded from an old article on my personal blog. It’s also very much hard science fiction and is based on ideas that come from my own personal thoughts about the future of technology. FYI–hope you find it interesting.

Shields

Shields, forcefields, and screens of various kinds adorn much of science fiction, especially stories that feature interstellar travel. There’s a technical reason why this is so that comes up even before we start talking about space combat. As per the linked New Scientist Article, while there are on average only 2 hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter in the vacuum of space (Earth’s atmosphere at sea level is 15 billion billion times as dense), a starship going near-light speed would slam into so many of these hydrogen atoms so quickly, with such a huge energy differential between the starship and the hydrogen, releasing so much gamma and other radiation as a by-product, that it would be like standing directly in front of the business end of the Large Hadron Collider when powered up full. At such a high percentage of the speed of light (say, 90%), a human being would receive a lethal dose of radiation in far less that a second from the side effects of bits of matter out in the not-quite vacuum of space hitting the craft. Shields are supposed to fix that.

Shields or force fields or force shields or screens or whatever else they’ve been called in fiction for the most part imagine some future design using a force unknown to today’s physics that conveniently blocks all that pesky radiation–and which can also defend against enemy weapons. Generally such shields are portrayed (say in Star Trek or Star Wars) as requiring energy to maintain, as blocking pretty much anything as long as they are up, as weakening when you fire into them until they reach the point of collapse, at which point shields are down and you’re vulnerable to attack. Visually they’re usually shown as a glowing or reflective layer that goes around a spaceship. Perhaps it will not surprise you as you read this to hear there’s nothing known that can do all the things these types of fictional shields are supposed to do. After all, this is fiction, right?

Defensive shields shown for Star Trek Voyager. Image rights: Viacom

Yeah, but having enough energy to move at a high percentage of the speed of light is not fiction. Antimatter is real and could work in starships (though it’s dangerously unstable). Fusion power is again, real, though we haven’t mastered using it consistently, but it could easily power a starship. Warp drive designs are real, too, though they require something called “negative energy density” to work, which has never been shown to actually exist. Still, we (“we” as in the collective body of human knowledge) know what it would take to produce a warp drive field and can easily imagine getting something with the required “negative energy density” and putting it to use. And space weapons can work, from lasers to guided missiles or torpedoes or even the rather lousy blasters used in Star Wars could work as packets of plasma shot from a weapon. Pretty much everything else in a convincing science fiction story works–but shields don’t (transporters don’t work, either, but we’ll address that another time).

So if we want some realism in our space-based stories, if we want to be able to talk about outer space with at least a veneer of technical plausibility, we really need to do something to fix shields. And since we do in fact wind up lacking realistic shield technology, we need to discuss how that would affect space travel and space combat.

The best realistic candidate for something at least a little like shields would start with putting a powerful magnetic field around a spacecraft as step one. Step one by itself will protect the craft to a degree. Any charged particle (i.e. ions and free electrons) in space will get trapped by a strong magnetic field alone. Though such a field would do nothing to stop lasers or high-energy gamma rays for even an ordinary bullet made out of a non-magnetic substance.

If you deliberately released a large quantity of very hot ions into the electromagnetic field I mentioned as step one, you’d have something called plasma shields. Plasma is matter so hot it has lost its electrons–i.e. matter that due to high heat has a positive charge, i.e. matter that an electromagnetic field can keep away from your spaceship and around it to protect it. That’s kind of like shields in Star Trek, right? Eh, yes and no.

It’s like shields in that you have to keep pouring energy into the system to keep it up and it would go around the ship. It’s also like shields in that it would provide at least some protection while operational. But pouring more energy into plasma shields wouldn’t really hurt them, though, unless you shot the electromagnetic field generators. If the electromagnetic field did go down, the plasma released could easily damage your own ship! Which is not an effect seen in science fiction that I know of. Though having a lot of very hot plasma right near your ship would create a heating problem within the ship anyway. That coupled with the fact it’s pretty hard to get a magnetic field to conveniently hug the surface of your hull (magnetic fields tend to come in spherical or ellipsoid shapes), you might want that plasma shield to be as far away from your spaceship’s exterior as you can realistically put it.

A Federation starship surrounded by a realistic-looking magnetic field. Image copyright: CNN

Plasma would have to be very hot and relatively dense to have a major effect on even small bits of regular matter shot your direction. And even having an effect may not be beneficial to your defense–is it really better if an enemy shot lead bullets at you and your plasma shield melted them into liquid lead flying your way? Because the plasma is not going to actually block the movement of ordinary matter, though it can heat it. If it heats it enough to make it into plasma, the electrical field will control its motion. But heating a fast-moving substance so quickly in a limited space is actually hard.

Also, to block energy beams, plasma shields would have to have ions tuned to block specific frequencies, because blocking all frequencies is simply something plasma doesn’t do on its own (I’m referring to different chemical elements blocking different segments of the electromagnetic spectrum). Gamma rays probably would pass right though plasma without damaging it, no matter how much work you put into fine-tuning the chemical composition of the shields. So would certain frequencies of laser and all neutron radiation. Blowing up a nuclear weapon just outside of your plasma shields may not knock down the plasma shields themselves at all, but the radiation of the weapon would go right through them and kill the crew in the vessel anyway! Which is definitely not how shields are shown in most science fiction.

Plasma shields come with so many limitations and downsides I anticipate that if given the choice of using plasma shields or not using them, many science fiction starship builders (in hard sci fi stories, of course) would simply opt out of using any shields. Note not using shields doesn’t mean starships could not exist. It might limit their velocity, to say, 10% the speed of light. Using wormholes or “gateways” could make traveling anything near the speed of light unnecessary anyway.

Do other realistic options for shields exist, other than plasma shields? No, not really. I’ve read stories that portray shields as an effect of time dilation, so objects or beam weapons trying to enter the shield get trapped in a land where time stands still. But how do you generate such an effect? What would take it down? (I would think nothing would) How would you move it around? How would a starship function inside of it? None of those questions are answerable, so time dilation shields and all other designs I’ve ever heard of other than plasma shields can be dismissed as the equivalent of magic-in-space. (And I realize magic-in-space may work for some of you–but if you want a bit more realism, keep reading.)

Space Combat Without Shields

Human beings, assuming the apocalypse doesn’t come first, sooner or later will likely design vessels that travel between stars. And before that, in between planets. We can imagine these future humans will have no need for weapons, space fortresses, and space vessels designed for combat. But a brief examination of human history strongly suggests that wherever human beings go, warfare and instruments of war go right along with us. Not to even bring up the subject of aliens.

So, since the standard sci-fi fare of screens and fields won’t work, what will? How do you defend a starship against attack? Let me suggest the following five ways:

Starship Defense Techniques

1. Dispersion. As noted above, very powerful weapons including lasers, nuclear bombs, and antimatter torpedoes are all solidly either in existence or established as something that would really work. How do you defend against such weapons without the use of shields? In fact, the best way to survive an atomic or similar blast is not be there when it goes off. Building a vast array of little outposts separated from one another by a healthy distance is the best way to defend against any single form of attack. In Star Wars terms, a million TIE fighters is much better for defense than a single Death Star, assuming you keep each little fighter further away from one another than the radius of an atomic blast. And building and dispersing many, many small fighters may take around the same resources to build as one massive station. Note though that Star Wars blasters and other weapons as they are portrayed are not only weaker than the Hiroshima blast of 1945, they are, with the exception of the Death Star itself, much weaker–likewise with Star Trek weaponry generally–so give your million defending little ships some realistic weapons, including nukes, or else they would wind up becoming nothing more than space junk.

2. Decoys/ECM. Related to point 1, sending out as many as possible robotic decoys that employ electronic signatures like the main ship would provide a way to draw off an enemy’s devastating ability to attack. The chief difference to this approach from number one is that decoys don’t necessarily have any combat power, unlike the dispersion method. Note the use of ECM/Electronic Counter-Measures is similar to this, sending out decoys that only exist electronically as a means meant to fool enemy sensors. Though ECM can also try to disable or disrupt enemy weapons to keep them from working (If the enemy is shooting at something other than you in combat or his weapons won’t fire or can’t aim, that’s a good thing.)

3. Disguise, a.k.a. “cloaking devices” or “invisibility cloaks.” The Star Trek universe treats shields like they are standard technology that virtually everyone has, whereas cloaking devices are advanced technology only a few species have mastered. From a scientific viewpoint, they have it backwards. The Pentagon is already experimenting with an invisibility cloak. The thing works, right now, but only for a fraction of a second at a time. Consider though that the basic idea behind and invisibility cloak is to project what is behind you to being in front of you as if you were not there at all. Essentially it amounts to having cameras behind you and projectors in front of you. This is complicated, especially if you are trying to decoy from all possible angles, but doable. You can be sure when spaceships are able to hurl weapons at one another with mega- and gigaton level equivalents of TNT (nuclear weapons and antimatter bombs), starships with be protected with cloaking devices. Space warfare would likely become largely like submarine warfare of our age. The biggest part of the battle could be simply finding the other vessel through all the decoys and cloaking technology and successfully firing first. Combat probably would amount to the first on-target torpedo strike and that’s it, the battle is over. Perhaps.

4. Mobility. Yes, there is probably an absolute speed a space vessel can practically go, but consider that the position of a craft is known by light coming away from it to a potential attacker. So since with torpedoes/guided missiles, enemy starships could fire at one another from distances that require light minutes if not hours or days to travel, that means that any light providing sensor information about where the vessel is would also be minutes or hours old. If a vessel is moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light (say, 5%) and is far enough away, an attacker can only guess where a starship might be based on last known location and whoud not know where it actually is. It’s challenging to engage a target if you don’t know where it is–and would mean beam weapons would become especially ineffective from that range. Note that closer than a light second away or so, automatically targeted beam weapons (assuming powerful lasers on board starships) would hone in on vessels quite easily and make mobility pointless. But unless spaceships had no guided weapons to launch from further out, it would seem to me they would never have a reason to close the distance that much with enemy vessels.

5. Armor / Plating. there is no such thing as a material that can block the effects of a nuclear bomb up close and there probably will never be. But simply having a mirrored surface on the outside of a craft would help against beam weapons–though to be truly helpful, the surface of the ship would have to be able to reflect high energy photons from x-rays and gamma rays, too (which is really hard) as well as block infrared and microwave radiation on the other side of the visible spectrum. Materials in the hull that block radiation as well as possible and which will resist high-speed particle weapons is also better than nothing.

What would starship armor be made of? Composite materials. Whether a future space force adopted the strategy of a massive body that’s tough to kill or a plethora of smaller craft that are hard to find, you’ve got to build the vessel out of something. Our knowledge of modern sailing ships might lead a science fiction writer to assume spaceships would be made out of metal. But of all known materials, carbon has the strongest bonds. It is therefore the most resistant to direct damage and has a very high meting point. It’s very difficult to damage by heat alone. Certain plastics are surprisingly good at absorbing radiation and a thin film of gold is good at blocking radiation as well. Make a composite of materials like this sandwiched for various effects, including reflecting beam weapons as much as possible, and fill in layers with water in a system designed to vent superheated H2O to protect from heat produced by a nuclear and other blasts. The use of water would go a long way towards protecting the surface of the composite material. A design like this probably can’t keep a future space combattant entirely safe. A nuclear weapon does an incredible amount of damage. But it certainly would help against indirect hits. That’s much better than one hit of any kind and you’re dead…

So the picture of future space combat as I’m describing it shows a variety of techniques could work, but that maintaining distance to a degree, trying to be the first to find the enemy while both sides are cloaked, while also keeping moving in difficult-to-predict directions to enhance protection against beam weapons (assuming a distance of light minutes or more apart) would be major features of future space combat. This is not like either Star Wars or Star Trek, but I would say isn’t boring at all. Stories that portray this kind of combat realism in space could have a lot of white-knuckle terror and near misses as enemies fire off nuclear weapons relatively close by–a bit like depth charges versus submarines in old movies.

So if that’s how combat would work for space ships or starships, how would it work for space stations, the “Outer Space Fortresses” I referenced in the title of this post, places in space without any significant engine power? Let me suggest 3 methods unique to stationary defenders.

Outer Space Fortress/ Space Station Defense Techniques

First let me note that while mobility or dispersion clearly won’t work for defenders whose only motion is orbital velocity, some of the other techniques I mentioned will. Certainly decoys and ECM would seem very much helpful to space stations. Cloaking might also help to a degree, but for something in orbit and little in the way of other mobility, the enemy only has to find you once to know where you will be from there on out. But some techniques exists that a station could use but a starship could not. I’ll mention three below:

1. Natural body protection. Burying a base deep within a iron-nickel asteroid provides pretty good protection. The thickness of the natural metal around the base at the core of the asteroid would protect from a lot of radiation and other kinds of impacts. Yes, an antimatter torpedo does have the blast power to split an asteroid open, but by nature most of the blast power against the surface of a heavenly body would radiate out into the vacuum of space. As per the movie Armageddon (maybe the only thing Armageddon got right as far as science is concerned), drilling into the asteroid to crack it would be more efficient than blasting it from the outside repeatedly (though that would eventually work). Though of course you could still attack whatever weapons are on the surface of the asteroid, rendering it a worthless rock in space. Then afterwards dropping drilling teams on the surface trying to dig a tunnel to blow it up or get down to the defenders–if the asteroid held such a strategic position that you could not tolerate defenders from inside the asteroid rebuilding its weapons someday. These drilling teams could be counter-attacked by teams from below the asteroid surface. Space infantry could become the most important element of such a battle for an asteroid (though if it were up to me, I’d send robots to do the drilling).

2. Mass. Yes, this is part of the advantage “natural body protection” has going for it, but could also apply to an artificially constructed defensive station. While it’s hard to build something on a realistic scale that can resist damage by mass alone, building much bigger than realistic, as in Death Star size, has some advantages. Make a smooth and reflective outer surface, plated so that it would be resistant to drilling and radiation and many other forms of attack, make one that would be very difficult to drill into, covered with so many weapons that destroying them all would only come with considerable risk. The problem of course is the bigger you make it, the harder it is for it to move, meaning the easier it is for an enemy to simply bypass it. That means you’d probably only build such a massive thing in orbit of a home planet. Better build at least 3 to orbit your home world in a triangle formation, lest an enemy swing around to the opposite side of the planet from your space fortress and attack the home world at will. Note though I still think building a million or billion small defenders would be better than building three massive artificial moons to defend a planet, but not everyone would think like me, especially societies adverse to any kind of loss.  Note how Star Wars gets this backwards–the Death Star is an instrument of attack, when using it for defense goes much more along the lines of why anyone would want to build an artificial moon. Yes, I understand there would be political propaganda reasons to build an attacking moon–but an artificial defending moon makes much more sense, because the larger you build a space station, the harder it is to move.

Rosetta mission lander, showing a natural body that could be used in space combat. Image credit: universetoday.com

3. Nanite / Robotlet Cloud / Mines. Yes, a regular starship could use this technique to a degree, but if part of your defense system is to maintain your own mobility, you would not want to put out a bunch of objects you could potentially collide with as you maneuver. But a stationary or relatively stationary defensive position could fill that space with a vast cloud of tiny robots, perhaps at the scale of nanites or perhaps bigger. They could could wait until an enemy ship passed through an area, a vessel the tiny robots would find even if it’s cloaked because they’d come into physical contact with its hull. Then the bots would attach themselves to the hull and attack the vessel, perhaps eating their way through the hull like termites, or perhaps performing more nefarious tasks like releasing biological weapons.

The best way to avoid the nanite or robotlet cloud would be to stay away from the zone they occupy–which could effectively prevent starships from closing in on any inhabited planet and attacking it. (Presumably nanites and robotlets would also disable torpedoes and guided missiles.)

Mines, devices to detect nearby ships and then explode, have the disadvantage of actually needing to somehow detect vessels deliberately trying to cloak themselves. Plus mines would be large enough that the enemy can avoid them by steering between them. But mines have the advantage of being easy to shut off when friendly ships go by.

Conclusion

The picture of ships defending themselves with plasma shields or not using shields at all presents many possibilities for story writers, possibilities that allow plausible technical limitations to affect plots in way that imaging shields must exist because they’re convenient for stories can never do. Readers of this post, what are your thoughts on starship defensives? Am I leaving out some important considerations? What have you read previously on this topic?

I came across this article that I wrote a number of years ago on my blog and thought it had some interesting insights. Most of my books have a “heavy metal” feel to them, a direct result of listening to metal music nonstop since I was a teenager. Although my musical tastes and my writing style has changed over the past couple of years, I figure that a lot of readers and writers on this website are heavy metal fans and if you’re one of them, I hope you can relate.

How exactly does heavy metal influence my writing?

1. Metal is loud, bombastic, and aggressive.

That’s not to say that there aren’t subtleties and nuances to be found in the hurricane of power chords, thunderous guitar riffs, light-speed double bass drumming, and ferocious vocals, but one defining characteristic is its sheer massive power. Metal music is not tame or shy or weak. It’s not vulnerable or overly-sensitive. Metal music is overt, in-your-face, and above all, empowering. It’s not music to make you search your soul for the source of your misery; it’s a jackhammer for you to blast your misery into tiny fragments, and then take said jackhammer and destroy every piece of furniture in your living room.

I strive to incorporate this brash aggression into my writing. Writing a novel is a more delicate process than bellowing a heavy metal anthem, but it doesn’t mean it has to be limp-wristed and timid. My writing is often violent (physically or emotionally) and I intend for it to be a challenge to the reader. Metal isn’t easy listening, and I don’t want my books to be either.

2. Metal is dark and cynical.

Heavy metal won’t give you the warm and fuzzies. It’s not music to set a romantic mood or soothe your soul at the end of a long hard day (although it can be cathartic when you feel like you want to break someone’s head after sitting in traffic for three hours). The lyrics often deal with dark, negative themes, and you won’t find comfort or resolution in the crushing chords of a metal song. There have been moments when I’ve listened to an epic metal opus and I could feel my heart literally wither inside my chest. Metal can be majestic and soaring at times, but even these songs have a hint of menace in them. That’s just the nature or metal music – heaviness is essential, and heavy = dark. The same can be said for the subject matter: anger, disillusionment, challenging authority, struggle, and war. Not exactly the stuff of lullabies and love ballads.

In my own writing, I don’t want the reader to feel comfortable. I incorporate some elements for shock value, but I want the book itself to be a challenging experience. To accomplish this, I include unlikeable characters, disturbing themes, and epic struggles that don’t always turn out all right in the end. My books aren’t necessarily depressive and bleak, but they won’t make you feel like whistling a happy tune as you skip down the street.
3. Metal takes pride in being outside the mainstream.

The metal movement is massive, with tens of millions of fans all over the world. Yet is is largely maligned by popular society. This is part of the draw of heavy metal. People who feel like they are on the fringes of mainstream society are drawn to metal music for the very reason that it too is stereotyped and dismissed by the masses. In recent years, metal music has become more acceptable in mainstream society but this is only in limited amounts. The majority of metal music is underground because most people simply can’t handle it. It will never be “popular” and that’s what it wants. Metal music wants to be respected but it doesn’t want to be a part of normal society. It wears its counterculture badge with pride.

I know the subjects that I write about will also likely never be popular. Of course I would like be a successful author, but I have to be true to my imagination. The stories in my head that are clamoring to be written are not about topics and themes that most people would like to read about, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to water down my writing to appeal to the mainstream. I want to be the best writer I can be, and if my writing is truly good enough, it will be recognized regardless of theme and subject matter. But until then, I must content myself to be on the fringes of the mainstream book world. This is the path that I have chosen, and I have to accept any struggle that comes with it.

Regardless of whether I become a bestseller or remain in the underground, I will keep on rocking. This is the attitude of true metal music and my attitude when I write. You can either take it for what it is or walk away, but don’t expect it to change to suit your delicate sensibilities.

“All my books have been widely pirated,” says a fantasy author friend of mine, R. J. Anderson.¹

Another friend asked how she knew this. Anderson continued:

Every time I google any of my book titles, I get a slew of links to pirate e-book sites. I also see forums where my books are being requested for download and those requests are being answered by other users who send links to them via DM. And that’s just the surface; there are way more sites that fly under the radar. Only a couple months ago I had to ask a Wattpad-type writing site to stop one of its users from uploading the entire text of [my book] to her account at the rate of one chapter a week — as though her acknowledgment in the author’s note that “I didn’t write this, I just liked the story” made it somehow legal or OK. By the time I came across it, she’d uploaded eight chapters.

She also shared a screenshot from author Rachel Caine, who said in this tweet:

My series books are *heavily* pirated. Real talk: Ink & Bone sold 47k copies. It’s been downloaded from *just 1* pirate site 101k times. Book 2 sold half as much but was downloaded more. By book 4 only 7k copies sold, many times that downloaded. It’s unsustainable. https://t.co/8xs8nkCwJ4

— Rachel Caine says READ WOLFHUNTER RIVER! (@rachelcaine) March 31, 2019

Needless to say—no, apparently very needful after all—this is wrong. God’s word says:

You must not steal.²

In response, I keep seeing all these excuses from e-book thieves eager to justify their violation of God’s law.³

Special pleading

But at least that way authors get more readers!

You must not steal.

Oh, but some people simply don’t have access to the e-book in their country.

You must not steal.

If I give the author credit, then that makes it okay.

You must not steal.

You’re being greedy. Everybody should share in culture.

You must not steal.

Think of the exposure—

You must not steal.

But real-life items are different from “internet” content like e-books!

You must not steal.

Reading an author’s work is a greater compliment than ignoring it.

You must not steal.

I have to spend my money on other, more important things.

You must not steal.

If I bought the book secondhand, the writer would get no money anyway.

You must not steal.

I’ve read too many bad books, so this way I can first make sure it’s good.

You must not steal.

I’m not stealing from “small” authors, only the “big names” who can afford it.

You must not steal.

To hell with your standard. I’ll do what I want.

You must not steal.

Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.⁴

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.⁵