A Rowdy, Rip-Roaring, Speculative, Christian Parable: BLACK CHERRY, a Graphic Novel by Doug TenNapel

One does get tired of Christians painted in SF (and out of it) as inneffectual, pie-in-the-sky or head-in-the-sand boobs. Or of belief in "truths" (dare I say, absolute truths?) as something to pooh-pooh as naive, uninformed, unintellectual, or just plain silly.


This week, with a bit of chronic fatigue chasing me down, I got to read a bit of "light stuff"--which wasn't light at all, which was graphicky novelish, which was sometimes gory, sometimes hilarious, and not at all cheery.


Yes, well, I am given to melancholia.


I read the latest Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Season 8) to find the statement "There is no truth" and "There's only what you believe." Yes, one can say that. It's hard to LIVE that. How does one campaign for female equality if one isn't convinced that the TRUTH is that women are NOT inferior to men. How does one battle racism and not hold to the truth that all races are equal and all humans are of equal worth in the sight of...other humans? The cosmos? GOD? A lot of people battling fiercely on matters from animal rights (so, are animals worthy of protection--true or no? Or is it just preference?) to human rights (Is torture wrong? Is THAT true?) to dietary habits (Is it true that trans fats are unhealthful? Or is that just, er, what we believe?)


I get sick of that crap. I don't think people can actually live, day to day, and not believe X and Y and Z are true and A and B and C are untrue. 1 is right and 2 is wrong. You can't live in LaLa "There is No Truth" land. Otherwise, why have Buffy battle so fiercely against demons and deny herself so much that humans enjoy (er, a normal life)? Because it's TRUE that a slayer must fight EVIL cause EVIL is BAD and protecting humans is GOOD. Those are truths. Duh.


Let's move on to GIRLS, shall we? It's a terrific series (so far, I've not read all the bound volumes). Has some great components from SF past--the destructive hot naked chick (think LIFEFORCE), the trapped and can't get out and something's after us scenario, the "zombie-ish" non-zombies, the alienish craft in a cornfield (heh), the bunch of people at each other's throats trying to survive The Menace, the battle of the sexes, etc. It's really excellent in terms of characterization and pacing and, oooh, gross horror-ry stuff. But what's the Christian character like so far? (Only one that I can recall, and he may end up more heroic and fine later, dunno.) He's a weenie. He's a "Let's pray" and "It'll be all right" and so far USELESS.


Which reminds me of SPIN (a novel about which you'll hear more next week when Marcus Goodyear examines it for you as a guest blogger right HERE): Three main characters, and the one who turns religious (the gal) is a wuss, an ostrich-head-in-the-sand weenie who has to be rescued. Geesh.



Okay, back to the graphic novels:



Thank God for BLACK CHERRY by Doug TenNapel.



I got it in the mail yesterday and dropped everything (kinda literally, as I was really tired and when I'm tired I drop stuff) to read it. Here we got Christians--active and muscular and some even backslidden and messed up--but they're not sitting around spouting platitudes and not doing the work. This graphic novel takes the taboo words and topics of Christian fiction and, well, I would say shoves them up the censor's you-know-whatsits, but that would be rude, wouldn't it? Not to mention just too close to what the demons do in BLACK CHERRY. Yup, there be demons. And an angel, even.In fact, the preface to the story is TenNapel explaining exactly why he does what he does in the story, go for REALISM even in the midst of all the speculative/genre wackiness: "Criminals don't talk like they are trying to keep from offending soccer moms."




He's also quoted saying the following in an interview at Newsorama :

"Doug TenNapel: It’s a deliberate change of tone in order to properly swim within a decidedly seedy genre. I thought it would be criminal to take a steamy genre like crime-noir and baptize it with conservative Christian culture; that’s what the Christian ghetto does in all forms of media today.

I don’t go into genres and say, “How do I Christianify this story?” because it degrades both the literary history of the genre as well as what the Christian enterprise should be. So making Black Cherry “safe” was not on the table.

At the same time, I have a duty as a man who follows Christ where my understanding is that I’m not to just camouflage myself with my culture and bury the light of Christ so that it’s indiscernible from that which is non-Christ. I’m not hiding anything faith-based in my writing either. That’s also not on the table when it comes to my stories that address religion (and I love to take a break from telling stories about religion whenever possible).



The title character (although not the one you see most in the story) is a stripper. And yep, in one panel, she's working the pole. Hair is strategically placed, you'll be glad to know. Then there's the other character (the main active one) named Eddie, and he's in love with Black Cherry. He's also got a filthy mouth, but then, he's a mobster/criminal/bad-dude/gambler. He doesn't talk like your Aunt Letitia at tea parties.



I'm not easily offended, so I can enjoy the story and not get bristley about the "how" of its telling. If you're easily offended:Not for you. If you can handle how people really talk, go for it. Urban folks know that this is part of what we see daily. I lived in the ghetto. I grew up cussing (out of the house, with my "homies.") I walked over a blue-faced, dead junkie once who breathed his last on our front stoop. I got beat up by gang members on days when I wore the wrong dang color coat to school. I had to walk past old geezers smelling of accumulated urine and who-knows-what bodily and urban filth as they panhandled at me on the way home from school. I watched hookers get it on in the alleyways of the neighborhood. Drug dealers lived next door. Drug users lived upstairs and downstairs and all over.. And I knew that fathers and mothers sometimes did unspeakable things to their kids--and I knew that by the time I was EIGHT. And by the time I was nine, I carried a big, honking hunting knife in my book bag, that my dad gave me. For protection. (One of my grade school pals got gang-raped at age 11. I got propositioned by a gang member when I was 14. Protection became mission one.) I got a good look at the dark side of the world kinda early.




So, some people cussing, this doesn't rank high on my "Offend Mir Scale."


What does? Smirking gossip offends me more. Snobbery offends me. Pharisees oppressing new believers into cowering submission to stupid dress code or "millstone" rules offends me. Churches that barf if a drag queen shows up for service offends me. Pastors who refuse (or refuse) to visit the AIDS afflicted offends me. White Christians who don't wanna worship with minority Christians offends me (and vice versa). Materialistically driven believers in an afflicted and dying world offends me.





But showing strippers and gangsters in their milieu...no. I think: Jesus would have gone to have lunch with them. He would have talked to them like neighbors. I figure they need some Jesus-loving types interceding for them, caring for them, because these are folks who clearly have no clue there is something much finer and lovelier between men and women, and when you add God into the mix, it's beyond believable how wonderful love and sex can be. This is part of the arc in BLACK CHERRY--sordid to hopeful and touched by the sacred.




The underworld types, the pole dancers, the junkies: They need grace. Bad. Like us all.



Black Cherry and Eddie are people who have been hurt by some really lousy parenting (can we say ABUSE?) and some really bad choices, but when it comes down to it, they take risks for the rank and reeking planet they inhabit. And for other planets, interestingly. And love ends up being a mighty powerful thing. As does the sacrament of the Eucharist. (There is a Catholic priest and a monastery in this one by TenNapel. CREATURE TECH had a Protestant minister and one of the most creative depictions of the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ I've seen.) BLACK CHERRY shows God's grace in some very odd but effective action.




It's got sci-fi. It's got horror. It's got crime drama. It's got humor. It's got religious stuff. It's got chases and action. It's got romance. (I did say TenNapels likes to mash genres together, right?)




If you've heard the parable of the lost sheep, how God will go out of his way to find that one when the 99 are safe, well...this graphic novel is a ripping, wild ride of a depiction of THAT parable. And what TenNapel does with his trademark blending of genres (he never stays put in just one) and his kooky humor and his really strong sense of the neediness of humans (he manages to get me misty-eyed in EVERY SINGLE one of his G.N.'s), well, it's exciting and it's got an awful lot of truth.




But it's also the parable of the prodigl son, retold.




After so many comics with either NO believers (in a country where, what, 80+ percent identify as Christian and 90 percent believe in God) or show believers as well-meaning doofuses or criminals and pederasts and embezzlers, it's refreshing to read one that shows faith as important, prayer as important, grace as ever-working, and love as life-changing.



Aaaah. Thanks, Doug T. Melancholy Mir loves ya. I hope some soccer moms will, too.


Visit Doug's site!


Note: This should be my last post for a while (possibly for the rest of the year). Next week, Marcus Goodyear guest blogs for your pleasure. Expect also some cool posts by Jim Black after that.

Please visit the original posts for comments from readers.

Part 2: An Analysis of Gene Wolfe’s “Bed and Breakfast”: Is it CSF? What Can We Learn?

~This will be longish. I decided not to stretch it to three parts, hence the length. Remember: I'll be choosing a winner for a free book (Strange Travelers, Gene Wolfe) from the comments relating to last Friday's or today's post. My fave wins.



I asked some questions last Friday, and here's my answer to the first, “How would this story play out if it were written for a CBA book?”



Because there is a fictional tradition within Christendom that includes Dante’s INFERNO and Lewis’ THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS, and Milton's "Paradise Lost", we could keep the set-up exactly as is without being mavericks: a bureaucratic hell with levels of hellishness, a runaway woman of what we’d categorize of minor evilness, a demon who comes across as a businessman with malicious intent, a narrator caught in a moral bind. Probably the conversations would establish more clearly that the woman never accepted Christ as Savior-Lord and that's why she's damned. The man’s spiritual struggle would be played up, and he certainly would not indulge in a sexual barter. No sexualized scene would be thinkable. If one wanted a CBA happy ending, there might be a divine intervention that gave the damned woman a second chance (ie, time reversal?), and the narrator would make a profession of faith, too. The demons would have lost, and God would have won, and the narrator and runaway might be get married. A less happy ending might focus on the salvation of the narrator, yet sadly, the woman's plight would be hopeless. Her talewould be merely cautionary. But demons would have still lost the narrator, God would have the glory, and the B&B would not be visited again by the narrator (who may or may not go on to enter an anti-Hell ministry).



Answering the next question: A less theistically inclined writer in the ABA might make hell seem a heckuva lot more fun and God a lot less just.



But this is how it actually plays out in this ABA published story:



~~Man and runaway hellizen meet in the B&B’s kitchen, eat, talk, and once the demon presence intrudes, the conversation becomes a three-way one. Information about hell is given, but there is much that is only revealed aslant (part of the brilliance of the use of dialogue). Eventually, before everyone retires, the woman makes a sexual bargain with the narrator. Her in his bed for a night’s protection.



The man has some sort of occultic protective knowledge, so the room is fortified against demonic intrusion. During the sexual encounter (not indulgently described such as in erotica, but discreetly alluded to, mostly in directions or suggestions in dialogue), the man gains some direct and indirect information from the woman about her miserable marriage, her infidelities, and the one man she remembers fondly with whom she had no sex, but almost turned to for rescue. It becomes evident she’s using the narrator, as she's used men in the past, and the narrator is quite happy to be used, enthralled as he is by this beautiful runaway.



In the morning, he asks the demon—in case this demon is the one who's been sent to retrieve her—to grant him more time with her, a couple weeks. The demon, Foulweather by name, says he’s not after her. If he were assigned to her, he says, he’d have been with her all along (a sort of hellish guardian angel). In fact, he reveals, the “boys downstairs” would be displeased if he interfered with what is transpiring. He says the narrator can have her forever, and there is a sinister phrasing in the demon’s dialogue hinting at things that trouble the narrator.



The woman leaves with the narrator, and they soon part company. He investigates news archives and finds her identity (maybe). Her name is not Eira (meaning snow). She had killed her husband several decades before and suicided while awaiting trial. The narrator has on the day of his narration received mail from her, with her number and a suggestive note. And he’s wondering if he’s the victim of a trick, or if he’s mad, or if there is some demonic plan at work. The story ends with, “Will I call her? Do I dare?”~~



It’s very difficult to convey the subtleties, because any really good story depends on its form and elements, and can't be merely described.. It’s told in the way it needs to be told. The dialogue must be paid attention to. The actions. The assumptions. The hints. I can’t summarize those.



I can say that the story would not be accepted in the CBA as is. No one is redeemed. No one overtly repents. Sexual activity is the background of an extended bout of pillow talk. While the demon is evident, the angel who might counter the demon is not.



So, is it CSF?

It does not fit precisely all the guidelines we spoke of in a previous post. This one is straddling a line. Not CBA does not = not CSF, imo. But does this qualify as CSF? I think it does. Let me clarify:



The tone of this story is strongly cautionary about flirting with the things of the devil (figuratively and literally). And it takes for granted judgment for sin. There is a hell, the story says. Don’t be overly fascinated by it and the demons associated with it. If you go too near the fire, you may get burned. The devil will come at you where you’re weak. All your occultic tricks won’t save you if you do not wish to be truly saved at the level understood by Christians. In other words, the way to conquer demonic intrusion is to have the Holy Spirit. In God's name, demons may be authoritatively defeated or told to flee.



Without being preachy, the story presents Christian ideas. Bible verses are even alluded to: “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” The Dantean phrase about abandoning hope in hell comes up more than once. Allusion to portions of the last book of the Bible, notably the beholding of God’s face in heaven and the eternal praising of Him. The “dead” in sin are alluded to. And the Scriptural characteristic of demons/devils is clearly presented—they are liars and not to be trusted. Ever. This plays an enormous part in the story. Who is to be believed? A demon is not to be trusted, right? They will say things with a twist, to confuse, to corrupt, and to distract.



And the story ends at the point of a key life decision. We suspect, after all those pages, that the narrator has sensed deep in his soul that this is a major juncture. If he pursues Eira (the runaway from Hell), what he is actually committing himself to, most likely, is his own damnation. He is at the crux. Will he choose Hell? (I am not even delving into the other possibilities, such as his being insane, thereby invalidating the narrative.)



For those who require hope, one can say that there is the element of hope in his realizing that he has a choice to make. But is there? His act of chivalry had as much self-interest as anything. He wanted this woman, fell for her, made his bargain, and was willing to turn her over after a couple of weeks of sexual bliss. What does it mean when he says near the end, “Perhaps I may be a man of courage after all, a man who has never truly understood his own character.”



Wolfe leaves you to make your decision. Mine hinges on a very pertinent anecdote the demon tells early on to answer Eira’s questions about why hellbound souls come dutifully to the mouth of hell; why they casually stop off sometimes at the B&B before reporting to their final place; why they don't run away as far as they can get. An anecdote that ends with, “He felt he belonged there.”

And this is my decision about the story:



He will call her. He will choose Hell. He is a man who, without true necessity, has been visiting (perhaps very often, even several times a month) a B&B near Hell. He’s learned enough magical arts to ward off overt demon intrusion, but he keeps putting himself in harm’s way. He is a man who, suspecting a woman is from Hell, dead and damned, nevertheless finds her increasingly desirable and beds her. A man who is willing to make bargains with demons. His true character is that of a man who is comfortable with Hell. He belongs there.



At no point does he call on God for assistance. And even realizing that this woman may be the one sent for him, the way Wormwood was sent for “the Patient,” he entertains the idea of calling her. Sin hasn't just crouched at his door, it's made itself at home on his sofa. I don’t’ think it’s an accident that she has chosen the name Eira (“snow”). That sounds suspiciously like “error”, if I’m pronouncing it right. And she’s part of Hell’s snow job on him. (At least in MY interpretation.)



I would say that this story is just inside the line of CSF by my definition, mostly because it doesn’t minimize the cost of giving into temptation nor flirting with the things of Hell and it shows how easy it is to fall into its trap when one is doing it by one’s power alone. It accepts the dark reality of life: demons, temptation, lust, sin, weakness, and damnation. We choose Hell or Heaven, but we choose.



Elliot H. of Claw of the Conciliator blog (a big Gene Wolfe fan, and one of the Speculative Faith readers who has read the story) had this comment, which I quote here because his points are, I believe, on target:

The demon in Bed & Breakfast seems like a tribute to Lewis' Wormwood. This
isn't a Romantic demon in heroic rebellion against God - he's a nasty piece
of work. And Hell is very real. I particularly liked the anecdote the demon
tells to illustrate why people stay in Hell when they could leave - again,
very C.S. Lewis.


The protagonist is not discernably a Christian - he seems more like a
magician of some sort, who knows enough to fear Hell and its demons, but who
still meddles with them. He think's he's able protect himself from direct
demonic attacks with his magic, but he's wide open to a moral attack,
through temptation, and that's the question that haunts him at the story's
end. Is his encounter with the escaped woman all an elaborate scheme to damn
him?


So it struck me as a combination of a Screwtape-style story with a realistic
portrayal of ordinary humans in a morally questionable situation. One point
that I remember is the protagonist's explanation that men are often just as
foolishly romantic as women are said to be, just in a different way, which
rang true to me.

I, obviously, agree, with Elliot. Hell knew that the narrator’s weakness was sexual and emotional (he needed to feel wanted, he needed to feel heroic to a woman). It makes us stop and think, “Where is our armor’s chink? Who would Hell send after us to do us in?”


Do you disagree with my conclusions? Agree? How else might this have been revised to fit the CBA audience? What is the chink in your fictional character’s moral armor?


What can we learn as writers?


Let people be less than ideal: The best way to show how weak people are in the face of temptation and sin is to let them fall. If all your characters resist temptation, they are cardboard. Only Jesus was able to resist all temptations. Every other human being screwed up—sexually or otherwise.



Let some characters be ambiguous and non-transparent: A character who cannot be trusted in what they say is interesting. It means you have to keep looking for clues to truth. In real life, we’ve all known folks who lie with regularity, who bend stories to their purpose, who justify themselves with fibs, who alter their life histories. Your liar doesn’t have to be utterly evil, just like the liars we know may have many virtues in other areas. But interesting things can happen if a plot point hinges on an untrustworthy character.



Use allusions: The references to the Bible and Dante are part of a conversation where they feel right. They don’t feel out of place or plopped in to make a moral point. They feel appropriate to the people and situation.



Make the most of dialogue: Don’t always be obvious or overexplain. Weave some confusion and mystery into some dialogue encounters. I would assign this story to anyone trying to learn how to improve their own fictional dialogue. So much goes on. Words are not wasted. Subtext adds interest and engages the reader. What is said, how it is said, reveals character.


Next Week: First part of the examination of “Hell is the Absence of God” by Ted Chiang. Please read it before we start. It’s downloadable online for a modest fee at http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/Ebook4145.htm
Excerpt: This is the story of a man named Neil Fisk, and how he came to love God. The pivotal event in Neil's life was an occurrence both terrible and ordinary: the death of his wife Sarah. Neil was consumed with grief after she died, a grief that was excruciating not only because of its intrinsic magnitude, but because it also renewed and emphasized the previous pains of his life. Her death forced him to reexamine his relationship with God, and in doing so he began a journey that would change him forever.

EDITED TO ADD THIS: I had a really tough time picking between three posts I liked. Ultimately, I have to pick Matt M's Sunday (long) post because it brought up some things that hadn't occurred to me, and that got me rethinking. So, Matt, it sounds like you may already have Strange Travelers. If you don't, then it's ours. Email me at Mirathon atsy AOL dotsy com with your snail mail info. If you already have it, then YOU get to pick your favorite comment and that will be the book winner. Just post here, in either case. THANKS ALL for participating. Come back for the Chiang discussion.

Part One: An Analysis of Gene Wolfe’s “Bed and Breakfast”: Is it CSF? What Can We Learn?

This story stars with one of my favorite “first lines” of all time:

I know an old couple who live near Hell.

I don’t know how anyone can resist reading on. I certainly could not. What follows is a complex interaction of dialogue and narrative and characterization and situation that leaves us wondering what is truly going on. And that's a good thing for a reader. And that's a worthy thing to study for a writer.



Quick Synopsis: A man who regularly visits a rather extraordinarily situated B&B meets a woman who may not be what she says, a demon who may not be who he seems, and finds that the events of a single night may be the crux of his own salvation or damnation. Is he falling in love with a runaway from Hell? Is the demon out to bring her back? Is there a complex devilish (literally) plot to snare his soul? Has he gone mad and none of what's going on is what he thinks it is?



Structure: This is a first person short story (28 pages) that is the narrator telling an event of his own life from a week prior. Dialogue is of crucial importance, as is the introspection of the narrator. The ending leaves many questions in the air.



Characters: If we take the narrator as reliable—he states himself that he only lies when forced to, and we must decide if he has reason to lie—then the characters are 1. a living human man, 2. a demon, and 3. a dead female runaway from Hell. Secondary character: the B&B proprietor. No Christians are identified in this tale.



I’m doing this analysis in two parts, because this tale quite longer story than the previous Wolfe story, and longer than the Yolen and the Willis, too.



IS IT CSF?



This is a fantasy story that presumes Hell is real (ergo Heaven is, also), and that angels and demons are also real. In this world, demons are powerful and ruthless and do harm, much harm, to mortals. And they cannot be trusted. This fits well with the Scriptural teachings.



Because it is fantasy, the Hell is the Hell we are familiar with not from the Bible but from works such as Dante and onwards; which is to say, not precisely subtle or populated only by the souls of the lost. This Hell has demons and devils in a business hierarchy that has its headquarters down below. Dante is mentioned more than once in the story, so we are to assume that Wolfe is paying homage to the poet's imagery.



The heart of the story is about Hell—though we never see it—and those bound there. In that the first line is more than a “hook.” It’s utterly brilliant. “I know and old couple who live near Hell.” It’s so mundanely written. They could as easily live near Mount Vernon or The Metropolitan Museum of Art or Niagara Falls. And that is an important point. This is the mundane reality. We all live near Hell. We are all living in proximity to our doom—unless we make the choice otherwise, the conscious choice not to live near Hell, but to live for Heaven.



I’m so jealous I didn’t come up with that line. Sigh.



This is a totally Christian idea: We choose Hell, just as clearly as we can choose Heaven. God is there, inviting the world to choose, from the beginning of human life: choose where you’ll live. Be careful the choices you make, they have consequences.



And this is a story about choices. The runaway’s, the demon’s, the bosses of Hell, and, most importantly, the narrator’s.



I hope I've piqued your interest, because now we get to the part where you think and we discuss—


Assignment: Knowing the set-up of this story—a runaway woman from hell drops by as a beggar for a night’s meal and shelter at a Bed & Breakfast, where she meets the narrator, a man who is regularly drawn to this strange place near Hell, and where a demons casually register as guests on their way to and from "business". The woman seeks the narrator’s aid and protection for the night. The narrator is attracted to the woman—as he is attracted to Hell, itself, surely—and agrees to help. He has "guards" against demonic influence. But does he?



What will happen next? What will the woman say? What will the demon? What will the narrator? How do you see this story playing out if it were written for the CBA? How do you think it works out as an ABA story?



Once you comment on where you think it could go, should go, must go, then we’ll discuss where it does go. And then I’ll tell you if this is CSF, and what we can learn as writers (and readers) from this excellent story. I’ll also post comments from Wolfephile, Elliot H. of Claw of the Conciliator blog.



BOOK GIVEAWAY BLESSING: Because I love this story, I'll be giving away a free copy of STRANGE TRAVELERS—the collection of Wolfe stories that carries this work—to whomever posts the comment I most enjoy during this two-part analysis. It's totally subjective and up to me. No names from a hat. And I will not play favorites. If my favorite comment in answer to some of the above questions or next week's discussion comes from a total stranger, said stranger gets the book. Also, this is voluntary. If you don't want the book, I won't foist it upon the winner. I give you....a choice. Winner will be chosen next weekend. Note that I will need your name and snail mail to send the book if you CHOOSE to accept the prize.

If you need incentive to join the verbal fray for the collection, here is some info from Wikipedia that those of us who have read in SF for years and years already had heard many times:



Although not a best-selling author, Wolfe is highly regarded by critics and fellow writers, and considered by many to be one of the best living science fiction authors. Indeed, he has sometimes been called the best living American writer regardless of genre. Award-winning science fiction author Michael Swanwick has said: "Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today. Let me repeat that: Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today! I mean it. Shakespeare was a better stylist, Melville was more important to American letters, and Charles Dickens had a defter hand at creating characters. But among living writers, there is nobody who can even approach Gene Wolfe for brilliance of prose, clarity of thought, and depth in meaning.".

Among others, writers Neil Gaiman and Patrick O'Leary have credited Wolfe for inspiration. O'Leary has said: "Forget 'Speculative Fiction'. Gene Wolfe is the best writer alive. Period.

If that doesn't make you want the book, well, I'm aghast and befuddled. 8O


Til next week, my dears.

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"Queen” by Gene Wolfe: Is it CSF? What Can We Learn as Writers?

This is a brief short story, six pages in QPB size. It’s fantasy. It doesn’t name names; it expects the reader to figure out what is happening by the slowly accumulating clues. And it’s not hard to figure out, if you are Christian, especially a Catholic.

I love this small jewel of a story for it feels like a parable, a fairy tale, an instructive fable, a timeless tale, even though it’s g rounded in the historical and actual. It shows what a master writer can do with very few pages of clean prose loaded with allusion and symbolism.



I hope some of you got to read it.



OVERVIEW:



“It was late afternoon when the travelers reached the village.” These two travelers, calm and cryptic, ask directions of the richest man in the village as he is hurrying home. Something about the travelers changes the rich man’s attitude: he slows down, he offers to guide them to the home of the poor old woman they seek. Once at the woman’s humble abode, the rich man insists he has no time to spare, but he lingers, and wants assurance the travelers won’t hurt her. The woman, meantime, seems to remember one of the travelers.



“We have come to take her to the coronation,” one of the travelers says, at which the rich man remembers the poor old woman is a descendent of a royal line.



(You can guess what is going on at this point, yes?)



The rich man can’t seem to extricate himself and offers to fetch food.



The old woman says grace and the prayer becomes a moment of epiphany for the rich man who “had never heard such prayers before,” and moreso, “he had never heard prayer at all. He was like a man who had seen only bad coin all his life, he thought, and after a great many years receives a purse of real silver, fresh from the mint.” A thought which one of the travelers seems to hear and responds to verbally.



As he dines, the rich man learns that the woman’s son was a teacher and that there is a long way for the other three to travel to the coronation. He tries to convince them to stay in the village, rest before leaving, stay for a couple weeks at least and be introduced, because having connections is good. “Too many people think that they can do everything through relatives.”



When they say they are ready to go, the rich man offers to find a donkey and to travel a way with them, because the old woman won’t be able to keep up with the travelers on foot.



The old woman says to one of the travelers, “Weren’t you the one who came to tell me about my son?” He doesn’t look a day older, she says.



The rich man asks if they are relatives of the old woman. They admit to being only messengers. The old woman receives assurance they aren’t messengers of death.



The rich man feels left out, asks if he may go with them. They say not. It’s by invitation only. He shyly asks if he might go just to the edge of the village and is told, “Since we are there now, yes, you may,” and, “You’ll tell others. That’s good. Because you’re rich, they’ll have to listen to you. But some won’t believe you, because you’re dishonest. That should be perfect.”



The rich man denies his dishonesty. Then admits it as he walks on. Then distances himself from the acts: “Those things were dishonest, but not I.”



The travelers and the very old woman begin to ascend air. The old woman says farewell: “Please tell everyone I’ll miss them terribly, and that I’ll come back just as soon as I can.”



At one point in their climb up some invisible path, the travelers offer the old woman a last look at her home village. She turns and says, “It’s precious, and yet it’s not important.” To which one traverler says, “It used to be important.”



The old woman laughs “a girl’s laugh” and feels strong enough to run and the travelers say they can’t promise to run as fast as she is able. When she says she wants not to be late to the coronation. They assure her she won’t be. It won’t start without her.



When the rich man’s servant arrives, only three stars are visible where the rich man’s gaze is fixed. They return to the old woman’s house, and the rich man vows to take care of it “while she’s away.” He plans to repair it and keep the trust, and “he was filled with a satisfaction near to love at being thus trusted.”



ANALYSIS:



Is it CSF?



I chose this as it seemed to be a nice pairing with the other short tale I previously discussed, “The Traveler and the Tale.” Here, again, is a Marian story. Here again, the idea of story and of witness matters. “You’ll tell others,” the traveler (obviously an angel) says to the rich man.



In both tales, a meeting with Mary changes the observer for the good. But whereas Yolens’ sci-fi story is skeptical of Mary (and God), this fantasy story is one drenched in respect of and faith in Mary’s special status as Mother to the Son of God.



Surely you realized what was going on. The poor old woman is Mary, the travelers are two angels, one of whom is Gabriel, the one who “told me about my son?” The village is not named, but we can assume is one in the M.E.. Nazareth? (Tradition, I believe, ascribes Mary’s last residence in Ephesus, which was not a village, but an important and lovely city. So, Wolfe sets this elsewhere, a liberty allowed in fantasy.) And the event portrayed is the Assumption (a Catholic belief, though not one widely accepted in Protestant circles.) The coronation is not Christ’s, but hers. She is the Queen of the title.



Would a non-Christian unfamiliar with matters of Christian history and belief get these things. Probably not. Maybe not. But the story would still work as one of a miraculous event and a man changed by it. It would not be as meaningful, but it would still be a fable with its own charm.



And given that it includes a view that refers to things Biblical (including doctrinal stuff of angels and messengers, Mary as a descendant of a king, ie David) and it has a respectful tone of heavenly matters, and that it shows prayer as powerful, and that it alludes to things our Lord taught—something that one gleans reading the actual story, and not my overview—I say this is Christian fantasy. It’s more specifically Catholic fantasy (and perhaps the Orthodox churches accept some of these matters about Mary, but I can’t speak with confidence on that.)



What Can We Learn As Writers and Readers?



You don’t have to babble on to tell an effective story of “magic” and personal transformation. Bit by bit, over a mere six pages, we see the evolution of a rich man from self-centered to other-centered. From worldly-obsessed, to other-worldly initiated. It’s in small clues sprinkled along in narrative and dialogue that we visualize the effect of woman and angels on this rich man.




Feel free to take extra-biblical religious tales and transform them into fantasy or science fiction. Taking these liberties doesn’t mean you must be skeptical or disrespectful to history or doctrine.




Working with the familiar does not require we be clichéd and beat people over the head with the obvious: At no point in “Queen” did these angels say, “Behold, we come from God to take you home.” At no point did Mary repeat parts of the Magnificat to identify herself. She didn’t have to say Jesus, my son, or Joseph, my late husband. She was simply and old woman who lived alone and missed her son and who wanted a bite to eat before leaving for a great event. She even feared death a bit, a very human thing. The elegant submissiveness of the angels to her desires was neither obnoxious nor overt. It was gentle and quiet, just like the story. The tone was never violated. Discretion can speaks volumes.




Trust your readers to get your clues: While some readers won’t get it, and you always have to live with that, any with a normal dose of Western cultural knowledge will. And a dose of mystery is never a bad thing. Everything doesn't have to be spelled out. Maybe not all the subtle clues to parables and things biblical will be understood, but enough is there to heljp you enjoy the tale.




Rising action is still a great technique: It’s a classic story element taught in schools for ages, and it still works. In this story, we see the growing engagement of the rich man and the growing disengagement of the three who are to leave, and that provides tension and leads upwards to the climax. It's a lovely feeling, even when it’s this discreet. No one gets shot. No one yells. So, the miraculous stands out amidst the mundane and hushed events of one night.




Know your symbolic toolbox as a Christian writer and reader: I challenge you to go through these six pages of story and find everything that refers to things biblical, allusions that build and build and build the holy infrastructure of this story. "Queen" reminded me a bit in this regard of T. S. Eliot’s “The Journey of the Magi,” especially that middle stanza that is loaded with imagery that speaks prophetically forward for what is to come for the child the Magi come to honor: vine leaves, empty wineskins, running stream, darkness, etc. In “Queen,” the allusions look not forward, but back—as old people often do upon their lives.


Examples: 1. The two travelers looking for a roof for the night correlates to the journey to Bethlehem of Mary and Joseph. 2. The “rich man”, unnamed, is a figure of Christ’s parables. 3. The lamb that the rich man suggests the travelers buy and take to the poor woman is a reference to her son, the Lamb of God. 4. The two travelers carry no staffs, and the rich man thought it odd they had no staffs to defend their lives. Remember Jesus telling his disciples to go into cities with no staff, to go in pairs?



Those four examples of the allusive gold mine of this story are all in the partial first page of the story. Just 3/4ths of one page. Every single page is loaded this way. The old widow woman who has a little “oil” and “flour.” What does that remind you of?



This is the kind of tale that is richer as an experience the better you know your Word.



Have someone and/or something genuinely change: Another couple of classic story element that work together in this brief tale are character epiphany and change. The rich man is transformed emotionally and spiritually. The old woman has changed in location and status. Even her parting words suggest the village itself is changed. That’s a lot of change in six pages, but it’s done with such skill that the story doesn’t feel packed. It unfolds at just the right pace.


Don’t be afraid of “was”: This seems like a silly thing to include, huh? But I’ve seen folks critique others' writing (and I have done it myself in the past) for starting a story with a “was” sentence construction and for using it as the story rolls. One thing I’ve learned through reading widely is that many of our best and most lauded writers are not afraid of was. Maybe as beginners we should watch for it to make sure we’re not being lazy craftsmen. But do not fear it. It’s a legitimate word. In a story that has a “fable” or “parable” taste to it, “was” is particularly appropriate: Once upon a time there WAS… This is a classic English story set-up. Go read some novel starts by C.S. Lewis and others. See how they do not fear “was.” And be not afraid ye either.


What do you think? Am I on target? Are these helpful hints actually helpful? Can any of these be applied to your story?



As a reader, do you think this story would move you, satisfy you?



Next Week: Another story comes under the Mircroscope, either the multiple-award winning novelette “Hell is the Absence of God” by Ted Chiang or the short story “Bed and Breakfast” by Gene Wolfe. Please try to hunt down the stories and read them. It makes for a much more robust discussion, no?


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"Samaritan" by Connie Willis: Is it CSF? What Can We Learn as Writers and Readers?

I hope some of you have had a chance to read the story that I'm analyzing today. Connie Willis is a supremely skilled writer of SF fiction, and I have a personal preference for her short works.

Like the Yolen story, this is science fiction. No spaceships. No aliens. But it is set in a future, speculative Earth where some religious upheaval has changed the nature of the religious social structure in our country. And, as Willis herself prefaces the tale, its inspiration comes from the story of Jacob and Esau, where Esau is red and hairy, and Jacob steals Esau's inheritance. Postulating 1. a wild, end-time madness among future fundamentalist and Charismatic communities that turns violent and forces mainline churches to band together ecumenically for survival and 2. that humans are "kin" to the hairy, red primates who can be taught sign language communication and perhaps...more...we get "Samaritan."


STORY OVERVIEW:


Rev. Hoyt, is asked by his kinetic female asst. pastor , Natalie Abreu, to baptize Esau, an orangutan who does janitorial duties at the church when on leave from the preserve where the nearly extinct creatures are bred and studied. When Hoyt asks Natalie how she knows the ape wishes to be baptized, she answers that Esau has observed a confirmation class and signed, "I would very much like to be God's beloved child, too."

In a particularly important and nicely crafted scene, Rev. Hoyt, knowing Natalie is hyper-enthusiastic, suspects she exaggerates the minimal signs Esau is capable of forming; that, in fact, the baptism is Natalie's new pet project, so to speak. Natalie, after all, already forces Esau to sit in unatural (for him) postures, and has attempted to dress and shoe him. While interrogating Esau, the orangutan answers that, yes, he loves God. Hoyt suspects Natalie of coaching the ape. He continues to interrogate, asking Esau if he loves God. Esau makes a clumsy signing of letters...S...a...m.... Natalie says it's Samaritan. Esau has recently learned the story of the Good Samaritan, she explains. Esau again signs: S...a...m...a..r...i...t...a...n. Observing both Natalie and Esau, Hoyt suspects that Natalie is imposing her will on the animal, and Esau is merely pleasing his human teacher.

Hoyt decides to ponder the matter, not simply dismiss it out of hand as ludicrous.

He starts closely watching Esau, who swings from the high beams, dusting the church, listening to humans below. Ladders are unsafe with the large windows, and Esau doesn't need them to do this job. He's built for heights and swinging.

Hoyt prepares for a sermon on humility he thinks Natalie needs to hear—a key text being Psalm 73, with this quote: "But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, and my steps had well-nigh slipped. I was stupid and ignorant. I was like a beast toward thee. " He consults with his bishop, who's gotten wind of the rising controversy over animal baptism. Her advice: Deny it as indoctrination. But Rev. Hoyt says that any argument against baptizing Esau would apply to his congregation: "He's lonely. He needs a strong father figure. He likes the pretty robes and candles. Instinct. Conditioning. Sexual sublimation." Even doing it to please Natalie compares to some humans who seek to please others by acting religiously. The bishop tells Hoyt that the "hodge-podgey" Ecumenical Church can do nothing but leave it in his hands: he must decide and take the flak either way.


Hoyt talks to the guy from the animal preserve, who can only say that Esau has been very happy since he started working at the church, avoiding the neuroses that older male orangutans are prey to, and the preserve likes happy apes, because happy apes breed. Letters of complaint or support for the baptism pour in. One older congregant says she sees Esau fold his hands and bow his head during prayer time in service. Rev. Hoyt dreams of Esau as a saint. He starts to wonder what Jesus would say, would do.

Then he considers something: The other famous Samaritan. Could Esau, in signing out the word have meant not the Good Samaritan tale, but the woman at the well, the outcast. Hoyt has an epiphany wihle conversing with his bishop: "I have thought all along that the reason he wanted to be baptized was because he didn't know that he wasn't human. But he knows. He knows." The bishop agrees with his assessment.

But Esau, who has been mimicking human behavior (sitting straight,), has been using a ladder ill-suited to his frame for his chores. And he has fallen. As the ape lays dying, Hoyt signs to Esau, to comfort him: "Esau God's child." Esau counters with the letters s...a...m... Hoyt stops him. Insists Esau is God's child and makes the sign for "love." Esau is too broken physically to make the sign back, though he attempts it. Hoyt decides to baptize the ape. Esau dies.

Natalie is humbled (what the sermon did not do, Esau's death accomplishes). She realizes she was forcing him to dress and act human, and that led to his demise. Her energetic light dims with her sense of guilt. Hoyt comforts her, and he tells her, "God chooses to believe that we have souls because He loves us. I think He loved Esau, too." With just the right compliments, he encourages her to be herself again. And Hoyt shows he himself has changed, become more flexible, by dressing differently to please her—reminiscent, in that last moment, of Esau.

Is It CSF?

"Samaritan" is a story with humor and also with some very touching moments. It's the kind of story that makes me weep, and that is part of its effectiveness, since we are supposed to weep for Esau. But is it Christian SF?

Well, there is a worldview that believes in God, has a church setting with church rituals (baptism, confirmation) and with clergy. There is discussion of theological issues—God's love, the prerequisites for baptism, religious outcasts, religious conflict (the liberals versus the Charies). Bible verses are used to illuminate (and direct) the theme and plot. By Angela Hunt's briefer criteria, it pases. By Martin LaBar's, I think it also passes.

Does it pass mine? It does.

I am not happy with some elements of it: I think that the "picking on the fundies" thing is a scosh over-the-top and unkindly. I think the last scene statement about "God chooses to believe we have souls because He loves us" is, upon the most cursory examination, a highly troublesome statement. God doesn't have to believe. He knows. He know if we do or do not have souls. And that is one of the weakest parts of a very good, moving, fascinating story: Demoting God to one of us.

All along, the story is about raising up an outcast—another species— to a position of acceptance and being loved and honored by humans-on the chance that God loves him, too. That, while a bit wacky, is presented so kindly, that we root for Esau to be baptized, because we see evidence of love for God and true faith in this "lesser being." Leaving it to God to decide is fine with me in this context and doesn't offend me as it might under another less skilled presentation.

But the condescending and scornful way that Willis presents fundamentalists/charismatics is a violation of the spirit of the main part of the story.

Still, it fits with the pride vs. humility part. In the story, endtime fervor rises to such a state that fundamentalists decide to declare the Rapture already here . They go on rampage after The Beast, which is an excuse in the story to attack liberal churches. Granted, there is antipathy between liberal and funamentalists. We see them as losing grip on orthodoxy and compromising with the depravity of the culture, in part becoming non-Christian in doctrine. They see us as narrow-minded and uneducated and focused on the letter of the Bible to such an extent that we are isolationist and judgmental. Postulating an extrapolation—all out war—is one of the speculative fictional techniques. But Willis is judgmental of Charies, and becomes a victim to what she decries in the story—looking down on another group as "outsider" and "not like us."

But that doesn't bother me as much as that "God chooses to believe" bit, which just seems to be some loony proverb created to fit the story idea. Never mind that it's really silly: It violates orthodoxy. God is omniscient. Belief is not part of God's being.He knows. Knows all. Knowing excludes believing. The dialogue feels as if it was put in there to sound good, but it makes no sense. None at all. It stopped me cold and made me go, "Huh?" You tell me what the heck that means.

That's not traditional, orthodox, apostolic, Biblical Christian doctrine. And it's just plain BAD logic.

However, taken overall, all its parts together, I would say this fits the Mir Manifesto. We must allow latitude in speculation, because the message is about more than the then-and-that. It's about the here and now. Yes. This is Christian SF. And it's a well-done tale, despite my quibbles.

What Can We Learn From it?

1. To be willing to take leaps, risks, as writers and readers: I suspect a great many Christians, if told a story debated the merits of baptizing an organgutan, would assume heresy, blasphemy, and who knows what all else and refuse to read it. I say, think of the impossible situation that makes you pay attention. Go for the long steps. Take the risk. Shine a light on some key doctrine without being predictable or easy. Make the reader stretch. Stretch yourself, too.

2. Make readers feel: Even with the parts of this story that might offend me (as I'm one of Willis' targets, the fundies) or with which I doctrinally disagree (female bishops and pastors, baptizing animals, ridicule of pretrib/premillers) , she made me care—care about a ditzy assistant pastor and a sweet orangutan. And she made me realize, by using speculative storytelling, how some people out there are made to feel by those of us who are quick to say, "No, you don't belong here. You're not good enough." Samaritans continue to exist, and we must continue to say to them like Jesus did, "I have water for your thirst."

3. Find inspiration in the Word of God: Read the key text for this story, Psalm 73, and you will see how much it influenced the plot. This story is a speculative variation on much of Psalm 73. What favorite Scripture passage can you take and re-imagine boldly and humanely and beautifully?

4. Be careful of demonizing the opposition: A weak spot in this story of tolerance and open-mindedness and love is the lack of tolerance and open-mindedness and love for "the enemy" that is the Charies (fundamentalist Charismatics). When you write your story, feel free to have enemies, but perhaps a character who gives insight to the enemy would be a good balance. Don't lessen a story's power by making snide, one-dimensional attacks on cultural groups you oppose. In this case, the humor aspect softened it. Humor allows for that. But if your story is serious, think twice before making the enemy just one big black wall of badness or lunacy or stupidity.

Please comment with your opinions on the story, on my analysis, on what else we can learn from it.

Feel free to answer any of the above questions? Also, does that bit of final dialogue bother you as it does me? How might it have been improved to suit the story and make sense doctrinally?

Next week: Another story comes under the Mircroscope.


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Part 1: Five ABA SF Stories: Are they CSF? What Can They Teach Us?

This is too long an examination to cover in one—even one LONG—post. So, we’ll see how far we go. Anyone is free to take up the discussion here and run with it. It would help if you had the stories to read, so here they are, in case these books/stories are in your or a pal's library:

“The Traveler and the Tale” by Jane Yolen (from SISTER EMILY’S LIGHTSHIP)

“Samaritan” by Connie Willis (from FIRE WATCH)
“Hell is the Absence of God” by Ted Chiang (novelette from STORIES OF YOUR LIFE & OTHERS) (Winner of Hugo and Nebula) (Available at Fictionwise for a buck and change: http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/Ebook4145.htm)
“Queen” by Gene Wolfe (in INNOCENTS ABOARD)

“Bed & Breakfast” by Gene Wolfe (from STRANGE TRAVELERS)

Every story I’ve chosen is intentionally NON-CBA. You won’t find the books that carry them in your Family Bookstore or in Christian Book Distributors website. These are ABA books and ABA authors. And I’ve picked writers who are highly regarded by fellow artists (and readers) as among the best that SF has to offer. All of these writers have won the Nebula (at least once) and a bushel of other awards. The first two listed stories are science-fiction. The rest, the final three, are fantasy—all with theological/Christian underpinnings or elements of some sort.

Let’s see. Where to start…

I’ll just take the first tale, a brief one to warm us up for analysis: “The Traveler and the Tale.”

Quick overview: The story begins in such a way that it could be a historical account: “Traveling south from Ambert you must pass the old stoney abbey of La Chaise-Dieu. It was near that abbey in 1536 that a young woman fell asleep on a dolmen and dreamed of the virgin.”

The narrator goes on to relate, briefly, what the folks thought of the peasant woman’s witness, ie, she must be lying or deluded, because she is not as good as she should be and the night was cold, which could affect the mind. Skepticism. Judgment.

Then our perspective is thrown for a loop: This is not history. This is not fantasy with a Virgin. This is science-fiction, and the “Virgin Mary” is a time-traveller, whose shiny travel aura and helmet seem heavenly illumination to the viewer. The traveler’s “merde”—a curse word—is heard as “Marie,” a self-identifier of the stranger, the peasant assumes.

Then the traveler informs us of her mission, one authorized by the Revolutionary Council, an irrevocable mission, as she cannot return to her time 3000 years in the future. She is there to tell stories, because nothing time-travelers have done to try and improve the future—such as assassinating tyrants—has made one iota of difference to the course of events. Only stories change people and events and history. And the future.

In the traveler’s true time, frog-like aliens have enslaved humans. Now she’s come armed with fairy tales that warn of frog-like invaders—changelings—in order to inculcate a distrust and dread of frogs into the human consciousness, and to empower the hearers. Humans can defeat invading frogs. Whip them out of the world! She is aware, though, that having been viewed and thought of as a heavenly being of religious sort, this new story might change the world, too.
Would her story “bring a resurgence of piety to the land whose practical approach to religion had led to an easy accommodation with the socialism of the twentieth century, the apostacy of the twenty-first, the capitulation to Alien rites of the twenty-second?”

Then the story shifts to tell one of the fairy tales, one that in other forms actually is part of our literary cache: Dinner in the Eggshell. A changeling story.

Then the story shifts to a communiqué of victory over the aliens, but not from the Revolutionary Council, no, but from the Marian Council.

Finally, we hear from the traveler’s daughter, one who has learned and repeated her mother’s tale, who recalls her dying mother’s only comfort came from telling tales. But unlike her unbelieving maman, the daughter is devout and, while she tells the traveler’s tales, she says that, “stories do not feed a mouth, they do not salve a wound, they do not fill the soul. Only God does that. And the Mother of God. We know that surely here in our village, for did not two women just thirty years past see Mary, Mother of God, on a dolmen? Her head was crowned with stars and she named herself…One of the women who saw her was Maman.”

So we know that the traveler confirmed the Marian apparition she knew to be false—perhaps to cover her tracks, perhaps hoping it would save the future, as indeed it would. But Maman did not really believe, for what mattered until the end for her were the fairy tales—not God or the Mary she elevated accidentally to a local legend. And yet, the faith in the Mother of God would be the thing that turned it all around.

1. Is it CSF?

I think it’s SF that uses Christian elements and treats them kindly, yet treats Christianity as if it were mere fiction. In other words, the "truth" of the tale is that stories of Christianity are powerful, but they are nothing more than stories. We save ourselves, through stories. Stories save us, not Christ. So let’s keep those powerful stories around, let's believe them for their power and goodness and preserve them, even if they are not true.
It also explains away marian apparitions as time travel events, so there is no mystery about the apparition. Here it is. It’s explicable. It’s not divine. It's just me, a human.

Christians are sweet, ignorant, affectionate dupes in this story. And the gospel and Virgen are myth, fairy tales of a sort.

So, while it has a lovely use Catholic elements, and while there is a showing of devout characters who pray and believe, it is not CSF in my view. The worldview is materialistic, not supernaturalistic. The tone is skeptical, but not antagonistic. Christian-friendly, if you will. We could stretch and stretch and say it was divine intervention that turned the peasant woman’s ankle, putting her in the right place and right time to preserve the world from “apostacy” and saving the future generations. But I think that’s really reading into it what’s not clearly there. It’s a nice thought, though.

2. What can we learn from it?

To subvert expectations creatively: The changes in POV in the story are sudden, without transition, and yet perfectly done.

To employ the best prose we can reach for: Yolen’s is clean and lovely and rhythmic:

“History, like a scab, calcifies over each wound and beneath it the wound of human atrocity heals. Only through stories, it seems, can we really influence the history that is to come. Told to a ready ear, repeated by a willing mouth, by that process of mouth-to-ear resuscitation we change the world. Stories are not just recordings. They are prophecies. They are dreams. And—so it seems—we humans build the future on such dreams.”

To freely use Christian experience in creative ways: Twist expectation. A Catholic might have written a story that had a real apparition and, hoorah, it changed the world. But what would be special or speculative about it? If you read this story, you will see that the dimensions—past, our present, the traveler’s future—are all interacting, mimicking how stories interact with people in order to change the past, present, and future. The shifts of time and perspective keep us on our toes. The ending is and is not what the original revolutionaries intended—faith in Mary has changed the world, not the frog stories alone, and not in a simplistic one-to-one correlation of "there she is, she saved the world with a miracle." To work style and structure to every advantage: The feel of parts of this tory— fairy tale feel and historical feel and fantastic and science-fiction atmospheres—flow as fluid as the changes in the world, or as the travelers flowing back through time, except that the stories are more fluid: they go back and forth. The structure of the telling itself is different, and suits the tale—echoes it, in fact.

To ask what ifs, always: If a Catholic who believed in Marian apparitions as true revelations from heaven wrote this, it might be very similar, and yet allow for a real apparition. Let’s say the first one, the peasant gal, would be the time traveler. But then the traveler herself would see an apparition, and would not have an explanation for it, and perhaps be drawn to real faith. And perhaps even Mary herself came down to encourage the futuristic troops under her banner. How else could it be told, this tale, without making a myth of Christianity?

To work with our literary riches and innovate: Take traditional elements—fairy tales, religious experiences—and employ them in tales of wonder that uphold a Christian worldview and a believer’s tone. Retell them, but don’t be predictable. Keep the truth, but don't be ordinary.

How else would this story be classifiable as CSF according to mine or M. LaBar’s criteria?

Do you think it’s CSF from what I’ve described? Have you read it and does your opinion differ?Next Week: Another of our listed stories goes under the Mircroscope.


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What Makes Christian Speculative Fiction "Christian", Anyway?

I like lists. I will attempt to answer the question posed in the title by offering several lists, two from a couple of smart folks and the rest by me. (Whether you think I'm smart, I'll leave to the reader.)

I will not define fiction, as I think that insults your intelligence.

Speculative refers to works of science fiction, fantasy, allegory, horror, magical realism, and other newfangled terms I tend not to keep track of. In general, it refers to that which is not "realistic" fiction. The world is not as we know it and the characters may not be human, or on earth. You may be used to some of the familiar tropes (elements, motifs, symbols) of the genre:

1. Fantasy tropes: elves, swords, sorcery, quests, castles, fairies, gnomes, goblins, talking trees, witches, wizards, mermaids, magic doorways to another world, magic books, etc.

2. Science Fiction tropes: spaceships, hyperdrives, parallel universes, alien invasions, warring colonies of earth, plagues, dangerous new planets, suspended animation for long journeys, translating devices, etc.

3. Horror tropes: haunted houses, vampires, werewolves, mad scientists, zombies, ghosts, demon possession, pyschic powers, etc.

In other words, "You're not in Kansas, anymore." Or rather, you are in Kansas, but it's 2399 and they train space engineers at the university there; or it's a Kansas with a wizard as governor; or it's a Kansas where the scarecrows in the fields are all coming to life and killing off the farmers en masse.

Now to the Christian part, which is more controversial than any definition that's come before: What makes speculative fiction CHRISTIAN?

I'll start with two lists of what makes a novel CHRISTIAN:

Martin LaBar of Sun and Shield blog makes this list in his post called "What Must Be Christian About A Christian Novel" of elements one might expect to find (not all must be present):

1. A Christ figure

2. solid Christian doctrine

3. monotheistic prayer/worship to and of a divine Being

4. expressing a relationship with the God of Christianity as Lord

5. consciousness of supernatural guidance, of providence

6. explicit rejection of evil personified or evil actions (even realization of evil in oneself that needs to battled)

(Please read the comments section and Mr. LaBar's excellent post for clarification of these points. I've added one of the elements I'd originally mistakenly left out)

Angela Hunt, prolific Christian author, has her own list in her post, "What Does Evangelical Fiction Require?":

1. story should illustrate some aspect of the Christian faith

2. Should avoid obscenity and profanity

3. Should offer hope

4. should have good craft elements

(Again, pleaes read Ms. Hunt's post for clarification of her position.)


Now, my longer list of what Mirtika's parameters are for a novel to be termed CHRISTIAN SPECULATIVE FICTION:


1. I do not believe it requires a Christ figure to conquer all evil in the story.
2. I do believe it requires a consciousness of sin/wickedness in beings and the need for a savior, whether or not the savior appears in the actual tale. This need not be the main premise or plot drive, but it should be there.


3. I do not believe that people should be goody-goody.
4. I do believe there must be an awareness of “a good” that one judges by/strives to attain.


5. I do not believe all the good or most of the likable characters need to display habits of spiritual disciplines such as prayer, worship, study of sacred teachings, etc.
6. I do believe one or more important characters should exhibit some form of recognizable spiritual disciplines that derive from their faith, even if morphed to fit the constructed SF world.


7. I believe it should offer hope.
8. I do not believe that it must be chipper and relentlessly optimistic in tone. Many suffer lives of endless struggle and torment, and it may not get better with time. However, there must be a sense that suffering, though normal, is not the only thing to look forward to. That there is something else, something beyond. Ecclesiastes is a dark book, a pessimistic one, that ultimately offers some hope. That might be a good guideline for those of us attracted to the darker corners of human experience.


9. There does not need to be a Yahweh/Jesus/Trinity/Holy Spirit by name.
10. There does need to be a Supreme Being of some recognizable Judeo-Christian sort that one or more key characters honor and/or wrestle with, and there needs to be an indication that the Being is active with the individual, even if invisible, or especially if tangible.


11. I do not believe you have to have the irredeemably Satanic Big Bad (although I love Big Bads.)
12. I do believe there has to be an idea of a power of evil, however morphed, and that the evil is not a friend to the believing characters. Believer characters should seek to avoid evil, and should seek to repent of it when they fall into it, even if reluctantly and after much struggle and/or debate.


13. I do not believe a conversion is a necesasry focal story element.
14. I do believe that a conversion (of a major or secondary character) is valid element and a powerful one, if done properly, and should not be dismissed as overdone. A Christian worldview is really big on "salvation," after all.


15. I do not believe that the presence obscenity of profanity make a work non-Christian, anymore than the presence of an act of theft or murder or rape makes a work non-Christian. It may merely make the work more realistic, as humans routinely do and say obscene and profane things—just as they murder and rape.
16. I do believe that a writer should try to adjust to the guidelines of the publishing house they target (if they target specific houses), and tone down obscenity and profanity if that is all that impedes the work from publication. One should not be slaves to a prudish element in the audience, but one should not dismiss the sensitive readers out of hand. Make sure the objectionable elements are absolutely necessary for your vision of the work. Christians are accountable to one another in a way non-believers are not.


17. I do believe that use of specific Christian doctrine is valid.
18. I do not believe that one must have one-to-one correlations of doctrine. Whatever Christian doctrines are highlighted, however, must fit the world or the time (future or past) and the milieu of the novel. Terms used should not be anachronistic or hokey or trite. If you make up fresh worlds, then you need to make up fresh religious phrases that ring honest and true for that world.

19. I do not believe that Christian Speculative Fiction must be the duller, less innovative stepchild of General Speculative Fiction.
20. I do believe Christian speculative fiction writers should strive for writing no less good and ideally much, much better than that in non-Christian fiction—to the best of our might, as unto the Lord—and should be creating novel structures and language and build dazzling worlds that aren’t regurgitations of Tolkien or Lewis, however genius those men were. This means we all have to work harder, incuding editors, to not put what is just "okay" out there cause it's got Christian imagery that CBA readers may like. We have to be better than okay.

So, there you have it. I believe that if a novel is to be termed fiction that is Christian—speculative or otherwise—then, yes, it must reflect Christian "truth." It must deal with some aspect of the Christian faith: sin and repentance, regeneration, faith in acts of daily devotional living, spiritual warfare, conversion, religious community, overcoming besetting sins, spiritual disciplines, apostasy, the problem of evil, divine judgment, divine intervention, life-after-death, etc.

If it’s a novel about family conflict in a mutated tribe on a far-flung colony, and ideas relative to the spiritual aspects of mutation and of honoring parents don’t enter into it, it’s just speculative fiction—science-fiction. It’s not Christian speculative fiction. If it’s a novel about a thieving, gluttonous Starbucks employee who is abducted to a co-existing alternate society inside the espresso machine, a world replete with Arabica Wizards and Foam Fairies; yet it doesn’t deal with the sins of theft and gluttony as SINS, it’s not Christian fiction. If it doesn’t include, perhaps, seeking divine strength in fighting the evil Lord Latte who’s eating up all the Foam Fairies and planning to take over the souls of the cappuccino drinkers on earth, then it’s likely just fantasy—it’s not Christian fantasy.

There are differing levels of overtness within that circle I've drawn, and I've been so specific that it may seem narrower than intended, but there it is.

I would add that I appreciate what I call "Christian-friendly" Speculative Fiction. This is spec-fic that has Christian echoes and moral fiber and understands good and evil. It might be written by a Christian or a non-Christian, but it's not devoid of a tone or theme or of characterizations that we'd recognize as compatible with Christianity's worldview.

Stuart defines CSF as spec-fic with a Christian worldview. Perhaps my list is a way on expanding on "Christian worldview."

Do let me know if you think the list is off or on target. And if you disagree, tell me specifically what makes a work of speculative fiction CHRISTIAN, in your opinion.

ADDENDUM: Straight science fiction stories that are based in a real-world/extrapolated-future would, logically, allow for natural, traditional Christian terms and language and doctrine, although one would need to make changes and allowances in slang/idiom/catch-phrases for a future society.

NEXT FRIDAY: A look at a couple of excellent ABA SF stories, and how they fit the above criteria—or not—and how they can teach CBA-targeting SF writers a thing or two

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