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Silver Bounty, Victoria McCombs
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147. Why Can Christians Celebrate Stories about Merlin and King Arthur? | with Robert Treskillard
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146. How Did Animators Adapt The Wingfeather Saga For Streaming TV? | with Keith Lango
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145. How Did Edmund Spenser’s ‘The Faerie Queene’ Shape Christian Fantasy? | with Rebecca K. Reynolds
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144. Which Top Six Fantasy Franchises Gave Fans Grief in 2022?
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Into the Darkness
“Charles Hack’s Into the Darkness summons a close-range science fiction story, focusing on the personal challenges of space warfare among alien cultures with a steady pace and serious tone.”
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Prince Caspian
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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
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If You Could Read Anything You Wanted To Read

I started to wonder what sort of stories the visitors here at Spec Faith consider ideal. I don’t think we’ll have a consensus.
Rebecca LuElla Miller on Oct 3, 2016
7 comments

cover_firstchroniclesofthomascovenantIn his recent guest spot here at Spec Faith, Matt Mikalatos wrote about returning to superhero fandom by writing his own superhero story. That idea got me to thinking about what I like to read. After all, I began The Lore Of Efrathah series because I wanted another portal story similar to Stephen Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever books.

I know some writers get their start by writing fan fiction, and others create stories that are spin-offs of fairytales they’ve loved.

I started to wonder what sort of stories the visitors here at Spec Faith consider ideal. I don’t think we’ll have a consensus. I mean, speculative fiction is such an all-encompassing term. It includes space opera like Star Wars, superhero stories like Wolverine, horror like Dracula, high fantasy like Game of Thrones, steampunk like Jim Butcher’s The Aeronaut’s Windlass, dystopian like Hunger Games, hard science fiction like Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora, fairy tale retellings like Gregory Maguire’s Wicked, supernatural suspense like Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep or G. P. Ching’s Soulkeepers series. I could go on and on because the variations of speculative fiction are so numerous.

Horror alone comes in all sorts of packages—monsters, psychological torture, alien threats, demon possession. The different types aren’t equal and may not attract the same reader.

Each of the subgenres has various ancillary categories. Fantasy, for instance, can be high fantasy or sword and sorcery fantasy or fairy tale fantasy or magical realism or science fantasy.

cover_lordoftheringsI’m an eclectic reader overall. I’m currently in a biographies reading phase, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have my favorites. If I had my choice, I’d read something Tolkien-esque. I don’t think I could ever get tired of reading stories that harken back to the great journey quest.

Horror on the other hand . . . I’m not a fan. I’ve read some psuedo-horror and one or two true horror stories, and I don’t care for either. The psuedo-horror seems to fall flat. I know it’s trying to be frightening, but it just isn’t quite getting there as far as I’m concerned, and I sort of resent the attempt. The true horror takes me places I don’t think I need to go. As a Christian I have strong opinions about who and what I should fear, and what I found in the few horror stories I read generated what I considered to be unhealthy fear. So I’m not a fan.

cover_stormingI wouldn’t say I’m a big fan of steampunk either, but I recently read a book that fell into that category—one by K. M. Weiland, actually labeled as dieselpunk, entitled Storming—and I really liked it. I’ve read fairy tale retellings that I haven’t liked but fairy tales that have me going back for more.

Still, there’s that one favorite, the book, or in my case, the series, that I’ll re-read countless times. The one I’d like to live in.

What about you? Which type of speculative fiction is your favorite? Which book or series do you find yourself re-reading? If you write, in what genre or subgenre does your work fit? And a bonus question: what book did you read last (fiction or non-fiction)?

Rebecca LuElla Miller
Best known for her aspirations as an epic fantasy author, Becky is the sole remaining founding member of Speculative Faith. Besides contributing weekly articles here, she blogs Monday through Friday at A Christian Worldview of Fiction. She works as a freelance writer and editor and posts writing tips as well as information about her editing services at Rewrite, Reword, Rework.
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  1. K.M. Weiland says:
    October 3, 2016 at 4:30 pm

    Hey, thanks so much for the shout out! I’m so glad you enjoyed Storming. 🙂

    Reply
  2. Lauren Beauchamp says:
    October 3, 2016 at 6:44 pm

    I am always a sucker for fairy tale retellings or new fairy tales like Goldstone Wood. Maybe it’s the nostalgia factor that gets me.

    But I try to sample a bit of everything!

    Reply
    • Rebecca LuElla Miller says:
      October 6, 2016 at 2:40 pm

      I think Anne Elisabeth Stengle’s Tales of Goldstone Wood are so inventive! I think she has such a creative imagination, and her language is beautiful. Certainly one of the best in Christian fairytale fantasy as far as I’m concerned.

      Becky

      Reply
  3. Kessie says:
    October 4, 2016 at 7:12 pm

    This has become quite an interesting discussion over on Facebook–it’s too bad that none of that leaked over here!

    For myself, I want combinations of ideas that I haven’t seen before, something that makes it fresh. Dragon detective? Yes please! (A Tale of Two Castles) A good guy hero who uses black magic? Yes please! (Black Magic Outlaw series) A Dragon who steals maidens–except the Dragon is actually a wizard who is going all My Fair Lady on the maidens, who graduate to high society afterward? Yes please! (Uprooted)

    I also want moral heroes. And I love guy heroes. Nothing like a vulnerable guy to make a girl’s heart go pit-a-pat, amirite? 😀

    Reply
    • Rebecca LuElla Miller says:
      October 6, 2016 at 2:44 pm

      Excellent comment, Kessie. I wish I’d known about the FB discussion. I love hearing what others find compelling when it comes to reading. Though I hadn’t thought about this before, it does reveal trends, which always fascinate me. I mean, how does a trend get going? They must start from one engaging fresh idea that is not so out there that it’s inaccessible, but then what?

      So “kick-ass” heroines have been the hot thing in YA fantasy for some time now. But I’m thinking the vulnerable guy hero might replace her. 😉

      Becky

      Reply
  4. Alex Mellen says:
    October 10, 2016 at 10:39 pm

    I tend to want to read what I grew up reading. My parents introduced me pretty early to Isaac Asimov, Douglas Adams, Star Trek, Star Wars, and the like–lots of sci-fi. Now I’m hooked on sci-fi like the DarkTrench trilogy by Kerry Nietz, the Firebird series by Kathy Tyers, and on parody tales like Hero, Second Class. Strange then, that my recent novel projects have been fantasy, though I read some fantasy too.

    Reply
    • Rebecca LuElla Miller says:
      October 11, 2016 at 1:23 pm

      So interesting that you write fantasy! Though some consider Star Wars more fantasy than science fiction. I’ve never read much in the later, but I have read Nietz and Tyers, and love them both.

      Becky

      Reply

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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
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