New Releases: Installment #3

The third book released May 1 from Ye Olde Dragon Books:

Non-Fiction, if you can believe it.

TO ETERNITY (and beyond): Writing Spec Fic Good For Your Soul

Many moons ago, when I was in grad school, I had a dream. An idea, motivated by a statement from C.S. Lewis about using speculative fiction for evangelism.

 

Could I actually use my love of SF, my far-roaming imagination, for the glory of my Savior … and reach people who wouldn't come within a mile of a church if it was the last building standing at the end of the world?

 

If Lewis thought so, why not at least try?

 

Then a classmate decided that my science fiction books had invited demons into my life. This was a year before Peretti published This Present Darkness. So what could a recovering Trekker do, when someone tried to impose their square hole on her star-shaped peg?

 

Contained in the pages of this book is my answer.

My master's portfolio thesis and defense of speculative fiction as not only an evangelistic tool, but good for your soul.

SPEC FIC GOOD FOR YOUR SOUL: Is It?

 

That's the question we'll be discussing here on the blog.

I hope to get some input from you, some questions, some ideas. If there are disagreements, I hope you'll do so politely and with respect for each other's opinions and feelings. And if not ... well, let's be blunt, this is MY playground, and if you're not ready to play nice and operate from the possibility that you might just be wrong (yes, that goes for me, too) ... well, maybe this isn't the place for you.

Okay, now that the unpleasant task is out of the way ...

WHAT DO I MEAN BY SPEC FIC BEING GOOD FOR YOUR SOUL?

In my master's portfolio thesis in grad school (more about that later -- as in the new release being discussed in tomorrow's blog posting: To Eternity (and beyond): Writing Spec Fic Good For Your Soul), I made the statement that speculative fiction, whether science fiction or fantasy, is essentially our modern mythology.

And what is mythology? It's man's attempt to explain the inexplicable, the mystifying, to bring the "other" a little closer into view, within reach, and maybe tame it a little. Frame things in forms we can understand just a little bit better. 

So mythology is basically ... spiritual. Or attempting to understand the spiritual realm.

Roughly twice a month, I'll be posting excerpts from my master's thesis (I told you there'd be more about that later) as well as discussing books I've read with distinctly spiritual aspects, what we can learn about different creative folks' spiritual views, and more aspects of the topic as I think of them.

So please, ask questions, offer ideas, bring up something cool you discovered in the general topic, and let's have some fun while we investigate some pretty deep -- and yeah, controversial -- food for thought.

What do I mean by controversial? Let's leave that for the next blog posting.