Amazon sends email adverts from time to time, based on a customer’s viewing or buying history. As expected, I get pages with writing books and others with fantasy. The thing is, in the last couple “you might also like” pages that they’ve sent me regarding fantasy, I haven’t recognized a single author or title. Not one.

Use to be, when I would window-shop in a bookstore (if you can actually window-shop when you’re already inside), I would see many books with familiar names: Robert Jordan, J. K. Rowling, Orsen Scott Card, Brandon Sanderson, George R. R. Martin, Stephenie Meyer, Holly Black, Terry Prachett, Suzanne Collins. You know—the authors who hit the best-seller lists or who had their books turned into movies or TV shows.

A lot of these stories were familiar even if I hadn’t read the books myself. Others were talking about them. They were familiar. They had the attention of a lot of readers, a lot of fantasy fans.

Christian fiction has had its own list of authors: Karen Hancock, Donita Paul, Bryan Davis, Jill Williamson, Patrick Carr.

Since the explosion of indie books, I have done more reading of authors who haven’t attracted as much attention: K. M. Weiland, for instance, or D. C. Marino, or Sally Apokedak.

When I received those Amazon emails promoting fantasy they thought I might want to read, I was left scratching my head. Who were those authors? Have they gained popularity and I just didn’t notice? It’s possible. Made me feel out of touch. I mean, this is my genre. I should know who’s writing the good books, who readers are reading.

So I’m wondering: Who would you all consider the good, contemporary fantasy writers? Not those writing superhero books. Or science fiction. Or supernatural. I know that steampunk fantasy became popular in Christian fiction (and in indie publishing) for a time. Was it (is it) also popular in general market books?

I’ve heard traditional or classic fantasy has made a resurgence. Who’s writing those books?

In reality, I just want to pick your collective brains. Do you read fantasy? Who are the authors—general market, Christian, or indie—that you have read recently? What author would you recommend?

Gillian Adams got us started last month in her article “What Wonderful Worlds.” Your turn.

I want to have some working knowledge next time Amazon sends me a fantasy book recommendation. (It’s a little embarrassing for a fantasy writer not to know who is the most popular fantasy writer of the day! But please, don’t rat me out!)

Hi, I’m Travis Perry–yeah, I know there’s a short bio of me with this article, but I think I’d like to introduce myself in a different way. Most of you have most likely seen at least an article or two I’ve written here for Speculative Faith. What you may not realize is how much I like so-called “hard” science fiction. Which has lead me to ask, “Where are the hard science fiction writers who are Christians?” Please allow me to explain the question:

Hard science fiction, in case you didn’t know, is the name for sci fi that treats the laws of physics as if they really matter. Hard science fiction tries to explore things that really could happen in the future, as opposed to space opera, which is really about telling an exciting story with space as a backdrop.

Star Wars is of course classic space opera, widely considered science fiction by most people, but you could just as well call it space fantasy. Not because it would be impossible to make a sword based on highly heated plasma (to pick just one example), but if you managed to to make such a machine and held it anywhere near your face (as Luke Skywalker often did), you’d burn your face off. (Though Darth Vader’s face mask would presumably provide some heat protection, so he’d be okay, I guess 🙂 .) Star Wars light sabers don’t exist because they could work, but because they parallel real swords. There’s something cool about imagining sword fighting returning in a new, sort of space-magic way.

Just because I prefer hard science fiction doesn’t mean I don’t ever like space opera, by the way. I’ve enjoyed Star Wars. Please note that Star Trek is also basically space opera, however, Star Trek at times plays with ideas that relate to real physics. We could maybe call Star Trek “hard science fiction-flavored space opera.” (Ditto for Dr. Who, though Who has somewhat less of the flavor of scientific plausibility than Star Trek.)

Superhero stories are another kind of fantasy. Getting bit by a radioactive (or bio-engineered) spider would kill you, not make you into a superhero. The Incredible Hulk might grow larger in rage, but his own body cannot simply get bigger to become the Hulk, not from a hard science fiction point of view, because the law of conservation of matter would apply so as he got bigger, so his body would become less dense. The Hulk, even if very strong, would have the body consistency of the Stay Puft marshmallow man (from Ghostbusters). (For Hulk to get bigger and weigh more, he’d have to steal mass from another dimension or something. But where does that extra mass go when he turns smaller again?)

Plus wearing Iron Man’s metal suit would not spare him from g-force damage from hard impacts. Or saying a yellow sun gives Superman the power to fly doesn’t even have a hypothetical explanation, but if it did, wouldn’t he have less power at night? Etc. Etc.

I personally prefer fantasy to be forthrightly set in another world or dimension with magical creatures over pseudo science, though I have a little bit of tolerance for pseudo science. One thing I especially like about epic fantasy is the way such stories can contrast the struggle between good and evil in a way that some people may complain is not realistic, since so few villains or heroes in the real world are so wholly good or bad. But by showing the baddest possible bad, an epic fantasy story can comment on what evil actually is, what the nature of true wickedness is–and of course the nature of goodness as well, illuminating moral truth in a way a more realistic story often fails to do. (E.g. no one can turn the power of evil into good, proclaims The Lord of the Rings–the best good can do is put away evil, first by resisting it, then by appealing to the type of destructive event seen at Mount Doom, liberation coming through the hero’s self-sacrifice.)

My favorite space opera and superhero stories also feature strong contrasts between good and evil. In fact, a common criticism of mine concerning superhero stories is they far too often fail to show either convincing villains or sufficiently evil villains.

So having said all that, how is it that I can and do like stories that aren’t hard sci-fi, yet still say I really like it? What’s the reason I like hard science fiction at all?

I used to be one of those dinosaur book readers as a small child and I followed it up by reading about outer space and rockets and history and many things. While fantasy has its appeal, the real universe is cool–things that have really happened in human history and the history of the universe are fascinating. God is painting on a canvas of actual events and through the laws of nature, if we have the eyes to see his working through the real world.

So I read science first and then checked out the “science fiction” section of my middle school library because it had the word “science” in it. Seriously. I immediately ran into stories (from the 50s) that talked about exploration of the moon and other planets. For me at that time, what was interesting about all this was the idea it could really happen–that maybe someday I would get to see another world, that maybe I would walk on Mars myself. These story worlds, these projections onto other planets were inherently more interesting than whatever was going on with the characters–though of course the characters could be interesting, too.

I found myself liking stories driven by ideas that at least seemed very plausible. For example, what if there was a story in which scientists used modern DNA techniques to bring dinosaurs back, so they live today? Of course, I’m laughing as I write that–this idea has already been done in Jurassic Park and its many sequels, a story much more fascinating because of the ideas behind it than because of any of its characters. Though I suppose the characters were at least somewhat engaging, too. Especially Malcolm.

In fact, virtually every Michael Crichton story qualifies as hard science fiction, even the novel he wrote set in the dark ages (Eaters of the Dead) made into the movie The Thirteenth Warrior, in which Crichton in effect sent the closest thing to a scientific observer of the era (the Arab character), into the world of Vikings. And then established a credible scientific explanation for the type of monster known as “Grendel” in Beowulf. 

Ideas that are not fully “hard” have influenced science fiction beyond what you may realize. The novel series Dune has a very medieval feel to it–lots of personal combat, though with knives instead of swords. But why do they fight with knives?–because personal shield technology is so common in the story world that guns are largely useless. The idea of personal shields may not work as far as the technology involved would be concerned, but the story gives a real reason why knife fighting is a thing in a way that makes internal sense to the story. There are many examples of this sort of thing in the history of science fiction.

Image copyright: Colombia Pictures

In films, hard science fiction shows itself in realistic pondering of the effects of genetics testing and engineering on human society in Gattaca. This kind of story that realistically looks at future technology and its effects on society with implications that could easily been religious and which would seem to be a natural zone for Christian authors to engage. But I don’t see much sign that we are.

Hard science fiction is also in many other (but not all) dystopian tales, military science fiction (Starship Troopers is probably the most famous example in film), and in cyberpunk stories or LitRPG tales like Ready Player One (since they are based on actual computer technology or tech-coming-soon). Space opera and superhero tales gather greater box office sales, but stories with more of a “science” quotient in their science fiction represent a major segment of speculative fiction sales in print and in films worldwide.

So hard science fiction or stories that trend that direction are a major, worldwide thing. Yet among those Christian friends writing speculative fiction with Christian themes (or at least not in complete opposition to a Christian world view), how many are writing hard science fiction or even leaning that direction? I know of two, Kerry Nietz, who often writes cyberpunk and in general incorporates hard science fiction ideas in his stories and Steve Rzasa writing things that at times are probably space opera, at times hard sci fi. And Lelia Rose Foreman, who almost always sticks to scientific plausibility, including showing realistic shifts in language and culture. (I suppose I might constitute a fourth such writer, especially in anthologies I’ve published and contributed stories to like Medieval Mars and Victorian Venus or Andrea J. Graham’s WebSurfer antho). And…surely I must be missing somebody, right?

Yeah, I know there has to be others. And I actually do know some short story writers also veering in the direction of hard science fiction. But not many. At the primary conference focused on speculative fiction writers “of faith,” Realm Makers, science fiction of any kind is very much outnumbered by fantasy. And among the science fiction that’s there, most is space opera– the selection of hard science fiction is pretty small, comparatively speaking.

And that brings me back to the question I used to title this post. Where are the Christians writing hard science fiction? Why does my intuitive sense of proportions sense that the percentage of hard sci fi types is much lower among Christians than in the speculative fiction world overall? Am I even correct about that? And if I am correct, what do you think is the cause of this phenomenon?

And who did I forget to mention among Christian authors writing hard science fiction? Let me know in the comments below.

Today seemed like the best day to pass on some great news for Spec Faith. With the success of Lorehaven Magazine, we’ve made the decision to dive into full book publishing as soon as June. We are happy to announce that submission guidelines are in the works, will soon be published, and open.

Our own Shannon McDermott, who writes for Spec Faith every other Wednesday, has come on board to be our primary acquisition editor. Travis Perry, who already has experience in the publishing arena, will handle the formatting, art work, and production. Stephen Burnett, the publisher of Lorehaven, will head up the promotion for the new SpecFaith imprint.

I and others of our staff will handle the various levels of editing. We anticipate that we will put out our first book as soon as January, 2020. We have yet to determine what our parameters will be, but we know we want speculative fiction that is Christian. Not quasi-Christian, and not secular. There are lots of publishers which already provide avenues for such books. We want to publish books that make no apology for telling stories aimed at helping Christians grow in their walk for Christ.

You can get a good feel for the books we’ll be interested in by reading the Spec Faith Statement of Faith.

Some other ideas we are considering: partnering with Realm Makers to form THE go-to publisher for Christian speculative fiction; working with Enclave and perhaps becoming a subsidiary to their publishing house; coming under the umbrella of ACFW (the American Christian Fiction Writers organization).

We’d love to hear some of your ideas. We’re especially interested in any volunteer help and in art work for the new Spec Faith imprint logo.

How do you feel about this kind of a publishing venture? Do you see a need? What do you think the parameters should be?

One more thing . . . April Fools.

Many years ago at a Christian writers conference, I heard an author remark that he wished he could crack “the homeschool market.”

Homeschool students love to read, he said. They’re smart. They’re dedicated. And they often prefer Christian-made books.

Back then—and even more so now, homeschoolers don’t just love books—They love fantasy. And they love Christian-made fantasy.

But somehow he couldn’t figure it out. And I, being a homeschool graduate and conference newbie, didn’t know how to help.

Enter the Realm Makers Bookstore

More than a decade later, we’re “cracking” that market, for God’s glory and to share his people’s fantastic fiction.¹

This year, the Realm Makers Bookstore has already appeared at Great Homeschool Conventions in Fort Worth. (I joined them; here’s my mission report.)

Just last weekend, they hosted the store at the same convention, appearing in Greenville, South Carolina.

This weekend (Thu.–Sat., March 28–30) they’re sharing great Christian-made fantastic fiction with new fans at Teach Them Diligently in Nashville, Tennessee.

Scott Minor: ‘These are the stories today’s generation wants to read’

E. Stephen Burnett (Lorehaven magazine) joins Realm Makers Bookstore co-founder Scott Minor in Fort Worth. (Courtesy Scott Minor)

On the way to Nashville, bookstore operator Scott Minor² told me about their South Carolina success.

“There were about ten to fifteen percent fewer attendees in Greenville, compared to Fort Worth,” he said. “But we sold thirty-three percent more books.”

To date, that means the bookstore set a new sales record at the Greenville conference.

“Everybody who came to the booth was excited to see the books,” Scott told me. “Groups of kids would come by four times looking at books. Then they would come back on the last day and buy the books that they wanted. … Some parents drag their children to a booth to check out something. … It seemed like our booth was where children dragged their parents.”

“Everybody who came to the booth was excited to see the books … Some parents drag their children to a booth to check out something. … It seemed like our booth was where children dragged their parents.”

— Scott Minor

I asked Scott if homeschool students really do uniquely value Christian fiction novels. Absolutely, he said.

“There’s a lot of Christians whose kids are reading these books, who don’t go to homeschool conferences,” Scott said. “The homeschool community is one that talks and communicates a lot amongst themselves when they find something good. They do spread the word pretty religiously. And they go there to buy books. That’s the purpose of going there.”

We both agreed that Christian creatives must share positive joy and win trust with new fans. That goes double when it comes to books with, say, dragons (or even vampires). Some books with these critters rightly trip the discern-alert for a Christian parent (or conference organizer!).

Scott said organizers and parents alike appreciate the bookstore‘s online catalog for homeschool parents. The catalog provides info about each novel the bookstore carries, along with author-supplied notes about the story’s content and themes.

Bookstore staff also reassure organizers that many of these authors were themselves homeschooled, Scott told me.

“They have come through a classical Christian model of schooling, and they are becoming writers,” Scott said. “When they use their imaginations, these are the stories that they come up with. These are the stories today’s generation wants to read.”

At several of these events, Realm Makers Bookstore hosts have met other fantasy authors, such as Andrew Peterson and N. D. Wilson.

Each of these creatives, often with his or her own publisher or organization, shares the goal of exalting Christ through fantastic tales.

“We’re hoping to open up the Christian side and change opinions about fantasy,” Scott said. “It’s easy to say, ‘Well, there’s good fantasy and bad fantasy’! The hard part for Christian parents who don’t read fantasy is knowing one from another. You can’t go reading it all. I try in my conversations to mention quickly for people that we have curated fantasy and sci-fi by Christian authors.”

Gillian Bronte Adams: ‘I loved seeing readers’ faces light up’

From left: novelists Gillian Bronte Adams, Amy Williams, and Catherine Jones Payne at Realm Makers Bookstore’s appearance in Greenville, South Carolina. (Courtesy Realm Makers Bookstore)

Two of those authors joined the bookstore in Greenville: Gillian Bronte Adams (The Songkeeper Chronicles series) and Catherine Jones Payne (the Broken Tides series).

I asked Gillian, “Would you like to write a brief paragraph or two about the South Carolina conference?”

Here’s what she said.

Because of our position in the convention hall, everyone walking down the aisle came face to face with our display full of books with robots, mermaids, fantasy creatures, and spaceships, and I loved seeing readers’ faces light up as they realized what we had to offer and made a beeline over to explore it all. Some of my favorite moments included:

• Opportunities to talk with parents about how “subcreating” and using our imaginations gives us a unique opportunity to grow in our understanding of God’s character as Creator. One mom expressed her thanks for the comment, explain that she had never considered it in that way before but wants to encourage her daughters in their creativity too.
• All the readers who came back to the booth to tell us they had already started reading and were “50 pages in” or had “stayed up way too late reading!”
• The teenage boy who explored the bookstore for a while before migrating toward Catherine Jones Payne’s Broken Tides mermaid series. “I don’t think there are books that are just for girls or just for boys,” he explained, “as long as the story is good!” Having heard many conversations about how most boys prefer reading about only male main characters while many girls seem to enjoy books with both male and female main characters, I was so encouraged by his perspective.
• The groups of young readers who visited the bookstore every day, sometimes multiple times a day. I understand the pull. When I was their age, I would have pitched a tent by the bookstore if I could!

Lauren H. Brandenburg: ‘It was like we opened a whole new world to them’

(Courtesy Lauren H. Brandenburg

Novelist Lauren H. Brandenburg returns this year to aid Realm Makers Bookstore in Nashville this weekend. She’s joined by writers Kristen Stieffel, Ralene Burke, Patrick Carr, and C. J. Redwine.

Lauren told me that last year’s similar event in Nashville was fantastic.

The homeschool catalogue. Parents loved that there was a place they could go to get detailed descriptions of a book’s content. As a homeschooler and author, comfortably telling parents that the books we provide were not only safe but written by Christian authors was so fun. It was like we opened a whole new world to them. Homeschoolers are readers and quite a few love the speculative genre. Personally, I just loved hanging with Patrick Carr and Rachelle Dekker. It was their first homeschool conference, so watching them being loved on by the readers was really cool. The conference is a special place and unlike any other book signings that I do. Scott and Becky have really stumbled onto something. Authors are fighting and scouring for ways to get books into the hands of the right readers. The Realm Makers bookstore is doing it for them. It’s a win, win.

Onward

I’ll hope to share more bookstore updates in the future, perhaps as soon as next week.

Meanwhile, I’ll represent Lorehaven magazine and aid Realm Makers Bookstore again, next month in Cincinnati!

For the future of Christian fantasy,

Stephen

This post is the first of a two parter that will assemble some basic information on moving troops and supplies to provide details for your story worlds, looking mostly at fantasy-type settings, but also touching on science fiction. (“Beastly Power” is meant to refer to animal or human power in a way I hope sounds interesting.) This kind of thing is invaluable for delving into a number of specific details if that’s what you’re inclined to do. For example, you need info like this if you know two of your cities are so many miles or leagues (or whatever measurement) apart and want to calculate how long it would take Invading Army X to get to City-in-Danger Y. Or in reverse, if you know that two cities are, say, five days of ordinary cavalry movement apart, you can calculate the distance between cities in objective units (and that distance would be about 5 x 40 miles per day or 200 miles / 320 kilometers based on ordinary “beastly” horse cavalry movement, which you will see below).

Note this article only attributes a few sources. Some things come directly from my memory based on a number of years of marching and riding and more importantly from reading about marching and riding. Others bits of info have been checked with various Internet sites, but citing them all would be tedious. Feel free to confirm these figures on your own if you wish, but this article affirms they’re generally accurate (and asks you to trust that’s true).

Let’s start at the most basic form of beastly transportation there is. Troops moving themselves by foot.

How far do well-trained (human) soldiers march per day? Assuming good marching conditions–that is, on well-maintained roads, for an army with a baggage train of food and provisions so they don’t losing time foraging for themselves–an army at maximum marched about 40 miles / 67 km per day.

Troops in top condition can march about 4 miles per hour (about 6.5 km/hr), but over extended distances, a speed of 3 MPH (4.8 km/hr) is more realistic. So a march of 40 or even 50 miles in a day would mean marching 13 or more hours in a single day, taking only minimal time to eat and rest. This kind of maximum march is called a “forced march” and it’s possible to get troops in very best physical condition (troops that routinely march every single day) to do several forced marches in a row–but the army will be normally be exhausted after than and not be worth much for fighting. (Though making them manage to fight well anyway might be something you want to do for story purposes.) Troops who don’t march every single day but are in otherwise good condition probably will need significant rest after just one forced march. (Yes, that means troops in average or poor shape won’t be able to perform even one march that long.)

Of course, we’re talking human beings when we tap into historical examples. Lord of the Rings revealed Uruk-hai (Isengard orcs) able to jog for days on end with virtually no rest, effectively moving at least about 120 miles (200 km) per day (6 MPH for 20 hours) for a number of days in a row. In fact, they may have gone even as fast as 200 miles per day (320 km), but even for a orc, that would be quite a feat. However fast the orcs moved, it was a pace elves were shown to be able to keep effortlessly, and a particular dwarf could keep with great effort–while Aragorn could do the same pace essentially because he’s a legendary hero (though in fairness, there are extreme athletes in the real world who can in fact run 120 miles per day–but it’s a rare person who can). But in general, demi-humans are portrayed as exceeding humans in “beastly power” to move themselves.

Just bear in mind that running for days on end evokes a capacity that very, very few human beings have–it exceeds the limits of ordinary beastly power. You’re generally talking demi-humans, magical beings, or superhumans if you show someone who can do that. Or perhaps aliens or cyborgs.

So if 40 miles per day is a forced march, what’s a regular march? If troops have to forage for their own food as they go, as many armies did in the Middle Ages, 6 to 16 miles per day is realistic (10 to 26 km). “Foraging” does include hunting and gathering food, but often in practice meant “acquiring” food from local peasants, only actually paying for it when being extra nice.

If troops are well-supplied with food, they can march 3 miles per hour for about 8 hours or approximately 25 miles (40 km) per day, giving them time to break camp in the morning, set up camp in the evening, time to eat, maintain weapons, etc. This is a pace troops accustomed to marching can keep up as long as the army has the supplies it needs.

The distance troops can realistically march per day is lower in places where there’s bad terrain. Bogs, swamps, terrain turned to mud because of heavy rain, and dense undergrowth are the some of the worst terrain types for marching troops. Though crossing mountains and wide rivers also will require extra time, as will thick snow for the few armies able to march in winter. In some cases, historic armies in difficult terrain may have moved only 3 miles or 5 kilometers per day.

To be supplied with food, a medieval or ancient-style army that isn’t foraging will have a baggage train carrying supplies (“train” here doesn’t refer to a locomotive, but to a group of wagons, horses, and/or porters). If the wagons are pulled by oxen (who have great strength to pull wagons) then the speed of the army is limited to the pulling speed of oxen. Which is about 2 miles per hour or 16 miles (26 km) per day (in other words, slow).

Since oxen are so slow, you might wonder how much troops can carry on their own bodies if they decide to break away from their baggage train to make better time. On their own persons, troops can carry at most around 60 percent of their own body weight for an extended period–Romans carried about 80 pounds of gear (36 kg) when the average weight of a soldier was about 140 pounds (64 kg)–and they marched around 25 miles a day in all that gear, day after day. In the US Civil War, soldiers carrying about 35 to 40% of body weight was more standard (around 50 pounds or 23 kg for a 140 pound soldier). Note though that unless the army you’re created has access to bodies of fresh water along the way, they will need a minimum (depending on how hot it is) of about a gallon and a half of drinking water per day (about 6 liters) weighing about 12 pounds or 6 kilograms per day. (So the army usually can only be a few days away from the baggage train.)

Credit: Roman Warfare weebly.com

If the baggage train uses horses to pull wagons or camels to carry loads (I don’t think you can get a camel to pull a wagon by the way–they refuse), then the baggage train can keep pace with human beings marching, even a forced march, without a problem.

Which brings up the question, how far can horse cavalry or camel cavalry move in a day? Much faster than men on foot, right?

Faster, yes, but not as much faster as you might think. The horses or camels or other animals moving by beastly power alone need to rest, drink, and eat for themselves, after all. And a horse cannot gallop endlessly, unless it’s a magical horse, in spite of what some movies seem to show. An ordinary horse in good condition can gallop about a mile or a mile and a half (about 1.6 to 2.5 km) before needing a rest and starts to get seriously exhausted at 2 or 2.5 miles (3.2 to 4 km)–I mean exhausted to the point it can’t go any more and may have health issues and will definitely need extended rest. Some horses can make 3 miles, but for non-magical horses, that’s pretty much it.

And how fast do horses gallop? It depends on the horse, with large, heavy horses generally slower. According to one site, 25 to 30 mph (40 to 48 km/hr) is normal, but the world record for a horse galloping over a short sprint distance was 55 mph or 88 kilometers per hour.

A horse does best at long distances by alternating between trotting and walking. (Cavalry soldiers pushing their horses very hard would alternate between galloping and trotting–nobody ever galloped horses over very long distances.) Doing that, a horse’s ordinary daily rate of travel by beastly power alone is about 40 miles per day (65 km/day). A camel, likewise, makes about 40 miles per day during routine military marches that are equivalent to infantry moving 25 miles per day.

This cavalry movement is equivalent to marching infantry in that it requires adequate roads and access to water and food (though camels can forgo the water and food longer than horses or humans can). Through mountainous terrain a horse might make only 10 miles (16 km) per day  and will do as poorly through a bog or marsh as a human being–or even worse than a human, since there are places people can cross that horses can’t, though such places are relatively few.

Just as humans can be pushed to the limits of beastly power when performing forced marches, horses can be forced to push to their limits in emergency situations. The ordinary maximum distance a horse can go under such circumstances is around 100 miles (160 km) per day. During Indian Wars in the United States, a particular cavalryman fled the site of a battle (seeking reinforcements, he said) all the way to now-Historic Fort Laramie, Wyoming, travelling 236 miles (380 km) over four days over terrain without roads during a winter with relatively heavy snow. His horse dropped dead when he arrived at the fort (I’ve seen the monument to the horse who died there). But note that was “only” 59 miles (95 km) per day. And pushing that hard killed the horse.

So let’s look at beastly power on an animal’s back:

Looking at what a horse can realistically survive, how much weight can a horse carry? We noted that well-conditioned humans can at times carry up to 60% of their body weight for extended periods–so how much can horses carry? A lower percentage, actually. Optimum for horses is 20% according to one online article, though up to 30% is possible (I can tell you from experience smaller horses in general can actually handle a higher percentage than larger horses, though not a higher total weight). And how much do horses weigh? Between 840 pounds (380 kg) for an small-sized riding horse and 3,360 pounds (1,524 kg) for the world-record largest draft horse (from Wikipedia). Or in other words a horse’s minimum weight load under which it can move normally is about 150 pounds/68 kg for the smallest horse a person would probably ride (rounding down) up to the maximum of about 700 pounds/320 kg (rounding up a bit) for a heavy horse breed meant to carry a knight in armor. (Quick tangent: draft horses in Europe were re-purposed to pull wagons after the era of knights in armor ended–they were first bred to carry armored warriors.)

Donkeys by the way, get closer to carrying 30% of their body weight or a bit more…and a donkey weighs on average about 350 pounds or 160 kg. Which means they can be laden with about 110 pounds or 50 kg. A donkey can drag about twice its body weight across relatively smooth, level ground, for a short distance (horses can pull about 1.5 times their body weight). Donkeys are more sure footed that horses but mules used to be preferred over donkeys as pack animals because they carried loads a bit better than horses, could keep up with horses, had good endurance, and could tolerate coarser food than horses can. Mules can weigh up to 1,000 pounds (454 kg) but usually were not loaded above 20% of their body weight (mules pack 200 lbs/90 kg or less).

Among animals widely used as pack animals, it’s no surprise that elephants have the most beastly power–er, total carrying capacity. An elephant can carry about 25% of its body weight according to one estimate. Since Asian elephants weigh between 5,400 and 11,000 pounds (2700 and 5000 kg), that means an elephant can carry 1,350 and 2,750 pounds (615 to 1,250 kg) on its back (tangent: it can carry about 1,200 pounds or 500 kg in its mouth and trunk, in case you wanted to know).

But the grand champion of pack animals in proportion to body weight are camels, which on average weigh (for single hump dromedaries) between 880 and 1,325 pounds (400 to 600 kg), according to a live science article, and can carry loads up to 375 to 600 pounds (170 to 270 kg), which is between 40 and 45 percent of their body weight.

Note that this issue of how much weight a being can carry proved to be a serious limiter of warfare and exploration for Mesoamerican Empires like the Mayans and Aztecs. Because these powers did not use pack animals at all, nor did they have wheels (the wheel ironically had been invented by the Mayans, but was used as a child’s toy rather than for wagons or carts), their limit of beastly power was how much food could a porter carry on his back. Since the corn (or maize) grown in Mesoamerica doesn’t dry out as well as wheat, barley, or rice of the Old World, that also meant the standard food crop carried by troops also weighed more. Since the porters ate from the carried food as well, this prevented the Mayans or Aztecs from, say, conquering all of North America or pushing their empires into South America. The issue of transportation proved to be too difficult for them, limiting the region they were effectively able to control. If they’d invented the pull cart or wheelbarrow, the history of the Americas might have turned out very differently.

Speaking of the limitations of civilizations without wheels, what advantages does the use of a wagon bring?

The advantage a wagon or cart brings is based on the proportion of the radius of the axle to the radius of the wheel. The bigger the wheel is versus the axle, the more advantage the wheel brings (but the wheel also becomes more likely to break the bigger it gets relative to the axle). The attached site explains the wheel/axle ratio advantage in precise mathematical terms.

But for the wagon wheel size that became standard on most wagons and carts, on level ground, the draft weight of a wagon, that is, the amount of force required to pull a “standard” wagon, assuming wheels and axles and road are in good condition, is about 1/10th the weight of the wagon plus its cargo. Note the weight of cargo is usually about 50% of the total wagon weight, even though wagon designs vary a great deal. Draft animals (almost always horses or mules historically but occasionally donkeys or reindeer) generally can pull 1/10th of their body weight for eight hours a day. So to calculate how much cargo a wagon pulled by beastly power can move over long distances, use 1/2 of the weight of the animal pulling the cart (or 50%). So a 1,000 pound (455 kg) mule can pull 500 pounds (227 kg) of cargo–which is about 2.5 times what it can pack.

Credit: Black Diamond Resort

Note the work of pulling a wagon uphill is considerably harder. A weight a team of two horses can pull on level ground will easily require four beasts going uphill. (Note at one point in history hooking eight or more draft animals to a single wagon was not unheard of.) For dystopian worlds in which people are cannibalizing automobile parts to build their wagons, tires filled with air do better than old hard wagon wheels not because they give a better mechanical advantage, but because they are less likely to slip on difficult slopes and provide some cushioning to make the ride less rough than it otherwise would be.

Let’s talk about fantasy beastly power:

In a fantasy work, the number of possible riding mounts are enormous. But I have a recommended model for you to use when considering how far they can move. Use a horse as your model. All you need to decide for yourself is how much your creature weighs and its maximum speed (and I’ll show you what to do with that).

So if you pick a giant flying lizard (we won’t call it a dragon for a specific reason to be revealed in a minute) and say it can fly at fly at the same speed as a site of animal speeds lists the speed of a California Condor (because we can imagine this beast mainly soars, like a condor) or 56 mph (90 kph). Then we’ll look at the proportion of that speed, comparing it to a horse’s top speed relative to how fast a horse normally moves per day in a cavalry unit.

So an ordinary horse can do about 30 mph at top speed, but can move 40 miles in a day on a repeated basis on average. Assuming the same proportions (40/30 = 1.333), you’d just multiply your creature’s top speed by 1.3333 (or 4/3 if you like fractions) to estimate how much it could travel per day without too much stress. To make this easy on ourselves, we will round the speed or our giant flying lizard to 60 mph so we’d estimate (60 x 1.333 = about 80) it can move 80 miles per day on a routine basis. Note of course that cold-blooded creatures can’t sustain effort as long as mammals can if the climate is too cold and are less energetic in general. But your lizard is not necessarily cold-blooded and that calculation gives you and idea, a yardstick to work from if you really want one.

Likewise if a horse can do about 2.5 times in a forced movement what it would ordinarily do (but at great cost) you can take your 80 miles per day for your flying lizard and multiply it by 2.5 to say if in a “forced march” situation, your beastly flying lizard could do about 200 miles per day (320 km/day). 

How much weight could your giant flying lizard carry? Here I recommend departing from the horse model a bit. Or better said, the horse model should be restricted to land animals. Flying beasts should limit their carrying capacity to 10% or less of the creature’s total body weight–and if you wish to be realistic at all about a creature’s ability to fly, the lighter it is in proportion to the surface of its wings the better it will fly. In fantasy we can get away with ignoring the rule about body weight in proportion to wing span–and in science fiction, we can imagine denser atmospheres and lighter gravity to allow lizards fly, as David Adam Collings did with his story Lynessa’s Curse in the Medieval Mars anthology I published in 2015.

How much your flying lizard weighs would be best based on the weight of a real creature you research, whether an extinct pterodactyl or a modern living bird (plus sized) or even a lizard like a Komodo Dragon. But if we imagine it to weigh a ton (2000 pounds/900 kg), it could carry for an extended period roughly 200 pounds or 90 kilograms. An ordinary person and a small saddle.

Sea creatures, by the way, should be able to carry more than the 20%-40% load that land-based beasts of burden can carry. Helped by water buoyancy, they should be able to port up to 100% of their own weight over extended periods. But the other formulas that compare maximum sprinting speed to cruising speed for a “daily march” to a “forced march” will be more or less the same.

There are limits to what beastly power can do, even though there are real variations among known animals and also would no doubt be variations among fantasy animals. For example, a centaur almost surely could carry more weight than a horse because a centaur could go through the mental training that soldiers go through to push themselves beyond what are ordinary animal limits (which is why the Romans could carry 60% of their body weight routinely.)

Magical creatures:

Note that the example I used above of a giant flying lizard I did not call a “dragon.” I didn’t because dragons are really magical creatures. Once you open the door to magical creatures, the guidelines this post describes don’t really apply anymore. But still I recommend you have some guidelines, some landmarks for yourself of what can and cannot be accomplished.

All real creatures have design limitations put into them by their Maker and even fantasy creatures should properly have limitations put into them by the creature who makes them, who in turn was made by the Maker of all (that’s you!).

As Job 12:7-9 says: “But now ask the beasts, and they will teach you; And the birds of the air, and they will tell you; Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you; And the fish of the sea will explain to you. Who among all these does not know, That the hand of the Lord has done this?” All creatures, real and imaginary, ultimately submit to the Creator, if not now, at the end of time. Whether people realize that or not.

If you’d like to see more on this topic or felt I left something important out of the discussion, please mention it below. Thank you.

Today’s article will be brief, because I’ve just helped wrap the release for Lorehaven Magazine’s spring 2019 issue.

It’s free to subscribe. And subscribers can read the issue here. You can read it in web articles, or download the PDF.

In this issue:

• We explore story layers with Tosca Lee and her latest thriller, The Line Between;
• Our reviewers find fourteen other good and great Christian-made fantastical novels;
• Paeter Frandsen offers practical tips for Christian geeks to glorify God in our entertainment choices;
• Marian Jacobs asks what in the world of villainy Christian parents can do if their children only want to pretend they’re bad guys.

You can get a complete preview here at SpecFaith. Or, read a few excerpts from reviews here at my own website.

And of course, the spring 2018 issue is open for anyone (not just free subscribers) to read.

Further up and further in!

Stephen

Fifteen years ago, one of the big knocks on Christian fiction was that the books were too preachy. This complaint seemed to reach writers who then proceeded to ditch any themes, at least ones purposefully crafted. After all, one sure way to not preach is to not say anything at all. In fact, stories should just entertain, never mind this moralizing, philosophizing, and sermonizing.

Themes began to disappear.

Until a number of writers noticed that general market books and movies and even TV shows had themes. Some of them even preached.

The truth is, using the vehicle of theme, writers say something. Whether that something is trivial and mundane or significant and profound depends on how unafraid they are. Yes, unafraid. Many writers are afraid they will limit the scope of their book if they place their story firmly in a particular economic or political or religious milieu. They’re afraid if they take sides in a controversial question, they’ll make enemies and lose readers. Some are afraid they will be labeled “preachy” if they include meaningful themes in their stories.

According to a number of writing instructors, novels that name specifics—details brings a place or a person alive, and that includes specific themes—engage readers in a way that generic stories don’t. Consequently, writers that steer away from presenting a particular view point, whether religious or political, are actually neutering their story. From agent and writing instructor Donald Maass:

What distinguishes our era? What are its look, buzzwords, issues, and conflicts? Fashion magazines, op-ed pages, sports reporting, rappers, corporate websites, and teen slang are all barometers of our times . . . I don’t mean to suggest dropping in brand names or news events. Those are shallow gimmicks. I do mean that an important component of any novel’s grip on readers’ imaginations is how that novel brings alive its times. (Writing 21st Century Fiction, p. 168—emphasis mine)