Ans a big WOO-HOO for Christian spec fic!

Randy sez: LOL, I won a T-shirt, to my great surprise. I had asked Jeff to remove my name from the drawings because I helped him brainstorm his promotion for Launch Day and I didn’t want to benefit from something I helped design. Jeff emailed me today to say that he accidentally left me in the T-shirt drawing, and I won it. I guess I’m OK with that. I’m not sure what the T-shirt looks like, but I guess I’ll find out.

And speaking of your buddy John Olson, his novel Fossil Hunter is amazing! It’s definitely not science fiction, but there is a healthy dose of science reality in there. Terrific book.

My first encounter with Jeff was him telling me that I had a book idea, unfortunately already written, that was unmarketable. Oh well.

Here’s my theory on Christian fantasy. It’s redundant. Tor already publishes great Christian fantasy by Gene Wolfe and others. And Tor is already tapped into the market.

I’m really interested to see if Jeff can legitimize the Print on Demand model. We’re rooting for you Jeff!

Random question, where do you get that J.K. Rowling wrote from a Christian worldview. I love the Harry Potter books, but I never got the impression it was written from that kind of worldview.

Randy sez: Well, you either see the Christian themes or you don’t, but there are many: love, death, sacrifice, redemption, etc. Of course, these themes aren’t unique to Christian thought, but JKR’s handling of the themes is characteristically Christian. I saw hints of all of them already in Book 1, and by Book 4, I thought they were obvious.

JK Rowling made it clear in interviews early on that (a) she is a Christian, and (b) the ending of the series would reflect that. So I made some specific predictions early in the series about what would happen in the end to Harry, Voldemort, and Snape, although I wasn’t sure the exact route JKR would take. All my predictions were correct. And yet she surprised me by the way she did it. That’s great writing.

Thanks, Sylvia

Randy sez: Hi Sylvia. See my response above to Tim’s comment. I don’t like to get too specific, because doing so creates spoilers, and the Potter series is too good to spoil. But if you read any of the reviews of Book 7 (I think the Wall Street Journal review is a prime example), you’ll see that many reviewers were shocked (and some were dismayed) to find Christian themes pervading the final book in the series. JKR even included a couple of Biblical quotations in Book 7. One of these is merely peripheral to the story: “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” The other is central to the entire series: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death.” (I’m quoting these by memory, so not sure if this is precisely the way JKR quoted them.)

Early in the Potter series, there was quite a to-do in the US about the books, with many conservative Christians attacking the books as tools of the devil, etc. As the series progressed, the outcry became less and less. Presumably this is because more and more Christians began seeing where JK Rowling was going, and they liked it. I know a couple of hundred Christian novelists, including most of those who dominate the best-seller lists. Many of these authors love the Harry Potter series, as I do.

I’m also totally looking forward to getting John Olsen’s “Shade.”

Judging from who donated prizes and the response here, he’s well on his way (as do his authors) to great success.

Thanks also for the ‘minder I need to make my own purchase. Or two.

All three of those novels looked awesome, but I’ll have to wait to get my copies next month. Summa Elvetica looks particularly appealing to me.

Aside from the name dropping, one of the strengths of HP is that it makes children feel empowered, when generally they are made to feel useless and for adults,like me, I feel I can have the adventurous youth I never had. It’s not about the occult. And it got kids back to reading books instead of sitting in front of computers all day ‘killing’ people in computer games.

There’s an element of what seems to be the supernatural in what I’m writing. Maybe it is and maybe it is cutting edge evolution of the species. It won’t class as in your face fantasy or science fiction. Since I set out with it it’s become clear that it was meant to be written to teach me things first, then for publication, if it ever gets good enough. I can’t write to formula. I’m not good enough, I hope!

First, I wanted to thank you for answering my question …could my ms be considered a Christian fantasy novel? Your answer was “maybe”. Then you suggested that I contact Jeff Gerke and ask him. I did that and he replied in one day. His answer was that my ms did not fit his definition of a Christian Fantasy novel.

I am not sure what you mean by a Christian worldview novel. My idea of a Christian novel is one lacking profanity and sex. A wholesome book, full of adventure and enjoyed by the entire family. I am a big fan of Tolkien, Rowling’s and Lewes’ books. You also might want to toss in the Indiana Jones novels as they also fall into this category. The only well known Christian theme I can think of for The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter is good battles evil, where good always triumphs. Love, death, sacrifice, and rescue are themes in almost every genre there is.

If the Christian publishing community is lacking this genre, it is because they set their definition–of a Christian fantasy book–too narrow. Do these books need to have a reference of God in every chapter…no, I do not recall this in the Harry Potter books. Does the protagonist need a well-defined moral standing in the community…yes; this is the essence of Christianity. I would love to see Christian fantasy as a genre on the bookshelves. Maybe time will do as it always does and give Christian publishers a time to think and revise their standards.

David

My son complains that all of the Christian fantasy fiction is just the same old thing with a different author’s name on the book. If anyone has any good fiction suggestions for a teen intellectual who wants to read quality fiction that is not profane or sexualized, I would welcome the input here!
thanks -
Lizzy