Spiritual Sci-Fi
By stephanie - Monday, July 17th, 2006
One of my visitors here recently linked to her blogs, one of which is Speculative Faith, for Christians who want to bring God into sci-fi. While that’s not my thing, I think it’s a great idea..I’m sure there’s a huge market for it.
For myself, I’m working on writing new agey humorous speculative fiction. We’ll see what happens. I’m a rotten procrastinator when it comes to fiction writing. Blogging is sooo much easier!
July 17th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
Thanks for the link. I’ll be interested to see at what depth they engage with the literature.
Reminds me of what Australian media studies expert Lelia Green said about science fiction being the types of stories that society uses to explore the boundaries of what it means to be human, and to try to distil the essence of humanness. Science fiction asks questions about how to live and how to be human, as well as the hopes and fears of people who are increasingly dependent on technology and the cultures it creates. There is almost an enthrallment with the question of how much technology compromises the essentially human. (And you can insert your list of dozens of sci-fi movies here that have covered that territory in the last 15-20 years)
So if you’re thinking about those sorts of questions (and others that sci-fi raises) there’s quite a bit of overlap with similar questions being asked in religious (not just Christian) traditions and other spiritualities.
July 18th, 2006 at 5:12 pm
Thanks for linking to us. We are primarily aiming at Christians who are looking for science fiction and fantasy that either respects or embraces their core beliefs. Though I think you’ll find a good number of opinions expressed on exactly what that means.
And Stephen is right, Science Fiction can be a place to explore all manner of social and religious questions in a way that isn’t as harsh or offensive as perhaps the same issues set in the modern world under normal circumstances.
Good luck with your book!
July 18th, 2006 at 6:25 pm
Hey, thank you for the “heads up” to the new team blog.
As Stuart said, our target audience is made up of Christians who like SF or who might like SF is we can convince them to
1. try it and
2. not fear the speculations authors may have–especially in fantasy, a genre that has lead to many debates in Christian circles (Catholic and Evangelical and Orthodox) since Harry Potter went zooming into the stratosphere.
We have a promotional type of mission, too. We want to support the few SF authors in the world of Christian publishing. We want to bring these discussions that have been occurring hither and thirther–at Claw of the Conciliator, at Old Testament Space Opera, at Christian Worldview of Fiction, at Mirathon, at Making of Many Books, etc–and group them in one place where Christians can talk about this and get over their hang-ups about SF.
I hope we can speak with fun and intelligence. I hope we can have a good influence on our target audience. Who knows? I hope so.
But hope is a virtue, eh?
I wish you well in your writing. I know how hard writing fiction is, and how unbelievable tough writing FRESh and VERY GOOD fiction is. Ah, blogging, you are right to say, is so much easier.
Mir
http://mirathon.blogspot.com
http://specfatih.ritersbloc.com
July 18th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
Stephanie, I’m a Babylon Five fan myself. I wonder if that has something to do with my preference of fantasy over SF.
Anyway, I think your eclectic “new agey humorous speculative” combination is interesting. I hope you discuss what all that entails.