Home

Explore the best Christian fantasy.

articles | news | library | reviews | podcast
Advertise Seek Review Questions?

‘One Piece’ Manga Reaches Chapter 1000: How Did This Pirate Become King?
Articles | L. Jagi Lamplighter, Jan 20, 2021

To Shape a Story is to Shape a Soul
Articles | L.G. McCary, Jan 18, 2021

Author Ted Turnau Finds The Hidden Grace of Pixar’s ‘Soul’
News | E. Stephen Burnett, Jan 15, 2021

Introducing Thriller Novelist and New Lorehaven Writer L. G. McCary
News | Lorehaven, Jan 15, 2021

Join Our Jan. 21 Livestream: How Can We ‘Terraform’ the Church to Enjoy Fantastic Fiction?
News | Lorehaven, Jan 14, 2021

How Political Punditry Has Taken Over Christian Popular Subcultures
Articles | E. Stephen Burnett, Jan 14, 2021

TheOneRing.net Reveals Synopsis for Amazon’s Middle-Earth Streaming Series
News | E. Stephen Burnett, Jan 13, 2021

One Month Left Until the Realm Makers Virtual Retreat, Feb. 11–13
News | E. Stephen Burnett, Jan 11, 2021

Thomas Kinkade Studios Now Making ‘The Mandalorian’ Products
News | E. Stephen Burnett, Jan 8, 2021

Christopher Nolan’s ‘Tenet’ Collides with Itself
Articles | Josh Hugo, Jan 8, 2021

Library

Find fantastical Christian novels

fantasy | sci-fi | supernatural and beyond
All novels Search Add a novel
Explore all: Middle-grade books | Young-adult books | Adult books
The Terran Summit, Anna Zogg
The Xerxes Factor, Anna Zogg
The Paradise Protocol, Anna Zogg
The Awakened, Richard Spillman
The Ascension, Richard Spillman
Love's Sacrifice, Kelsey Norman
Unbroken Spirit, Kelsey Norman
Seed: Judgment, Joshua David
The Rooster and the Raven King, John Paul Tucker
Brimstone 1, Jasom William Karpf
The Horse Queen, Lavay Byrd
King of Aethon, Lavay Byrd
Tales of Elhaanai, Nicole Thomas
Still Small Voice, Allen Brokken
Reviews

Find fantastical Christian reviews

All reviews Request review Share review

Flight of the Raven
“Exciting twists make Morgan L. Busse’s Flight of the Raven, book 2 of the Ravenwood Saga, a very enjoyable read.” —Lorehaven

The Eternal Struggle
“Esther Wallace’s novel The Eternal Struggle forms a dark sequel that brings hero and heroine into close fellowship with loss and brutality.” —Lorehaven

Dark is the Night
“Mirriam Neal’s vampire novel Dark is the Night keeps the punches and the fangs rolling.” —Lorehaven

Blood and Bond
“This book is brilliant and engaging, expanding on the series’ world and characters while building its own plot.” —Lorehaven

Podcast

Get the Fantastical Truth podcast

Apple | Google | All subscribe links
Archives Feedback

48. What Were the Top Seven Issues for Lorehaven Readers in 2020?
Fantastical Truth, Jan 19, 2021

47. Why Do Some People Long for Escape to a Galactic Community?
Fantastical Truth, Jan 12, 2021

46. Ten Years Later, Why Did ‘Dawn Treader’ Sink the Narnia Movies? | with Rilian of NarniaWeb
Fantastical Truth, Dec 22, 2020

45. How Can a Wingless Piskey Learn to Fly? | The Flight and Flame Trilogy, with R. J. Anderson
Fantastical Truth, Dec 15, 2020

Webzine

Browse back issues (2018–2020)

Order back issues online!
SpecFaith

The original SpecFaith: est. 2006

site archives | statement of faith
New articles Questions? Pitch to us

What Tolkien Taught About Fighting Evil
Travis Perry, Jan 21

The Messages of Black Horror Films
Parker J. Cole, Jan 20

The Worldview of Biocentrism–You Are One With The Force
Travis Perry, Jan 14

Who Can Put a Price on Daring Love, Loyalty, and Swordsmanship?
Azalea Dabill, Jan 12

Beyond

Find more from Christian creators

Order the book! E. Stephen Burnett

Get exclusive shirts and beyond
in the Lorehaven store

Explore the book The Pop Culture Parent: Helping Kids Engage Their World for Christ

Does ‘Engaging Popular Culture’ Include Right-Wing Talk Radio?
E. Stephen Burnett, Oct 9

Join My Livestream This Thursday: Seven Ways to Find Truth in Fantastic Stories
E. Stephen Burnett, Oct 6

Home
Library
Reviews
Podcast
Webzine
SpecFaith
Store
Beyond Edit content
Lorehaven serves Christian fans by finding the best of Christian fantasy. Our free webzine, an online library, positive reviews, a thriving blog and community, and weekly podcast episodes help fans explore fantasy, science fiction, and other fantastical genres for the glory of Jesus Christ.
Subscribe free to Lorehaven
/ Articles

There Be Dragons

In Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis describes those moments in which some earthly experience awakens us to the truth that there is more to the world than our earthly experience.
Jonathan Rogers on Feb 24, 2014 | 6 comments |

JRogers[Note from RLM: I’m turning my normal writing slot over to author Jonathan Rogers. He grew up in Georgia, where he spent many happy hours in the swamps and riverbottoms. He received his undergraduate degree from Furman University in South Carolina and holds a Ph.D. in seventeenth-century English literature from Vanderbilt University (but don’t let that intimidate you–you’re in for a treat). Jonathan lives with his wife and six children in Nashville, Tennessee.]

– – – – –

Once when eighteen or nineteen years old, my father and I were puttering up a familiar stretch of Georgia’s Ocmulgee River in a small aluminum boat. As we passed a sandbar that I had seen a hundred times, I was startled to see a part of the sandbar move. Only it wasn’t the sandbar that moved; it was a great, thick alligator, ten feet long at least, with a tail as big around as a saw log. I had been coming to the Ocmulgee River all my life, but I had never seen an alligator in its waters or on its banks. But there he was, as big as life and twice as natural.

It’s hard to articulate what I felt when I realized what I was seeing. The alligator was terrible to behold. But he was thrilling to behold too. If he had wanted to, he could have swept our little boat into the river and eaten us up. I know that alligators don’t ever behave that way (indeed, I knew it even then), but it wasn’t that reasoning part of my brain that first reacted to the sight of this monster. Was it the so-called “lizard brain”—the seat of the fight-or-flight reflex—that kicked in? Probably so. But it wasn’t just the lizard brain that came alive in that moment. It was also the part of the brain (or, more appropriately, the soul) that responds to mythology—to old stories of dragons and monsters and elves and dwarves that lurk at the edges of the worlds that we humans try to keep civilized and comfortable.

surprised-by-joy-coverIn Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis describes those moments in which some earthly experience awakens us to the truth that there is more to the world than our earthly experience. In Lewis’s case, a little model garden his brother had made in a biscuit tin, Arthur Rackham’s illustrations of the Ring Cycle, a flowering currant bush—all seemingly inconsequential things—gave him “the stab, the pang, the inconsolable longing” for a world beyond this world.

For me, the sight of that alligator was just such a stab of what Lewis called Joy. I had seen alligators before. I had been to the zoo. I had been to the Okefenokee Swamp. But this alligator lived only ten miles away from my house. He was in “my” river, where I had been coming all my life. A week earlier, I had swum across its muddy waters, not a mile from the very sandbar where this great dragon lay like Smaug on his pile of treasure.

I lived in a world where the roads were paved and hot water came out of the faucet. We had a television, a VCR, a microwave oven. There were McDonald’s restaurants in my world and Top 40 radio stations and convenience stores that sold Coca-Cola and potato chips.

But there were also dragons.

My friends think it’s funny that every novel and short story I have ever written involves at least one alligator. I suppose it is kind of funny. But alligators for me carry a lot of metaphorical freight. They remind us that this world, the one where we live and move and have our being, is still a place of myth and marvel. This world, too, is a fantasy world.

– – – – –

All 3 Wilderking BookcoersJonathan Rogers, author of The Charlatan’s Boy and the Wilderking Trilogy, is happy to announce that the Rabbit Room Press (home of Andrew Peterson’s last two Wingfeather Saga books) is republishing The Bark of the Bog Owl, The Secret of the Swamp King, and The Way of the Wilderking.

These paperbacks may be pre-ordered, insuring delivery in March, well-ahead of the official April 1 release date. In addition, pre-ordered books will help defray the publishing costs, which will insure a larger printing.

These books, excellent read-aloud stories perfect for middle graders, particularly middle grade boys,  have been out of print for the last three years, so bringing them back for a new group of readers is a brilliant move by RRP. It’s also a fitting way to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the original publication of the first in the series.

Jonathan Rogers
  • Tweet
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Print
  • Pocket
  • WhatsApp
  1. Austin Gunderson says:
    February 24, 2014 at 10:52 am

    That sense of untamed wonder, of joyful fear, is what’s always drawn me to fantasy.  That startled, heady realization that the world is wider and wilder than I’d ever imagined.  The chill that smites me when I encounter something my waking mind can’t encompass.  When my reasoning is stymied and my insecure rationality falls silent.  When I stand in awe.

    I think that, as Christians, our highest interaction with fantasy is to direct that kind of awe at the uncontainable God we so often relegate to stuffy sanctuaries and tedious tomes.  Because He’s not tame, not predictable, and not beholden to the likes of me.  There’s no one I oughta fear more, and no one I oughta be more glad to see.

    Reply
  2. Steve Taylor says:
    February 24, 2014 at 12:02 pm

    I can relate as one growing up with alligators in every available body if fresh water.  I have always looked at them as dragons or dinosaurs.  Now as one who spends more time in the mountains I look at bears as giant protectors of the forest (who hopefully will ignore me as I walk by with food in my pack). 

    Reply
  3. Kessie says:
    February 24, 2014 at 1:13 pm

    I think that’s why I love dragons–in theory. Seeing an alligator that big in real would send me running in the opposite direction! The same with reading accounts of people who have seen sea monsters–the wonder and terror is why they forget to take a picture. 
     
    I love that in books. The oh-my-gosh-what-is-that feeling. As an urban kid who always wished for horses and wolves, I might as well wish for dragons, too.

    Reply
  4. notleia says:
    February 24, 2014 at 2:56 pm

    My family still owns the piece of land my great-grandfather staked in the Land Run, and it borders on a river. Awhile ago we were derping around while Dad was assessing how much of the fence line had eroded, and we spotted a water moccasin bobbing and weaving as it crossed the river, part swimming, part being pushed by the slight current. Of course, my thoughts were “[bleep], [bleep], [bleep]-ing cottonmouth!” And this story has no real point besides to establish some kind of credibility when I say, you freakin’ Georgian heathens and your misspelling Okmulgee like that. 😛

    Reply
  5. bainespal says:
    February 24, 2014 at 8:15 pm

    Snow used to do it for me as a kid. Snowflakes are so fine and intricate — you can see the complexity of a snowflake on the finger of your glove. Your pastor uses the complexity of snowflakes to remind the congregation of the greatness of God’s design. And the irony between this and the creation theory of the canopy of vapor that caressed the young warm Earth before the Flood is honestly joyful  to you as a child, before you learned to be cynical.
     
    This winter was a cold one. There’s something inherently other about subzero temperatures on a dim, clear morning, waiting outside for the bus. The way your breath sticks in your throat, how the dryness of the air is tangible — it’s not comfortable, but it’s more alien than agonizing, at least in the short term.
     
    Suck on that, Southerners!

    Reply
    • Julie D says:
      February 24, 2014 at 9:36 pm

      I went outside to get the mail the other day (living in the country, this requires a 0.2 mile hike), and my throat was burning from the cold. Alien atmosphere, in a way.

      Reply

What do you think? Cancel reply

  • The Next Big ThingThe Next Big Thing
  • Dreaming At The CrossroadsDreaming At The Crossroads
  • Mere Christianity by C.S. LewisC. S. Lewis: Don’t Chase Fandom Thrills For Their Own Sake
  • Fantasy: An Indispensable Way To Understand OurselvesFantasy: An Indispensable Way To Understand Ourselves
Lorehaven magazine, winter 2020

Wear the wonder:
Get exclusive shirts and beyond

Listen to Lorehaven’s podcast

Authors: Reach new fans with Lorehaven