Friday, May 19, 2006

Christian (Science) Fiction Review

If you've been following the Christian Fantasy Blog Tour, you'll know that a bunch of bloggers have been talking about Tim Frankovich's Focus on Christian Fantasy. Well, for my part, I've perused his Christian Fiction Review website, and have found the following reviews of books crossing the line into the worlds of science fiction:

Nancy Moser's Second Time Around, sequel to Time Lottery, uses the sf device of time travel, but doesn't appear to concern itself too much with the science (often the best way with time travel).
Time travel is also used in Randall Ingermanson's Premonition and Retribution, again with the science less important than the actual story.
Ingermanson, along with John B Olson, gets more into science fiction with Oxygen and its sequel The Fifth Man, near future thrillers set on Mars missions.

Another near future story, A Form of Godliness by Shane Johnson, is reviewed as a contemporary thriller rather than sf, but its near future setting qualifies it for the genre in the broadest sense.

Another Johnson novel, The Last Guardian, "culls elements of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and ethical parables" according to Tim's review, and mixes in elements of the 'end times' novel.

Similarly straddling the line between sf and fantasy is Outriders by Kathryn Mackel, a kind of post-apocalyptic science-fantasy.

Shivering World, by Star Wars novelist Kathy Tyers, is proper science fiction - hard sf with a spiritual twist - with other planets, terraforming, genetic engineering, and even, apparently, actual science...

The Traveler by Peter Krausche is promised to be the first in a seven book time & world travelling epic.

And finally, Tim looks at Sky Songs 1 & 2, two short story collections containing a mix of sf and fantasy.

I have to confess I haven't read any of these, but some of these participants in the blog tour may have done:
Becky Miller's Christian Worldview of Fiction
Mirtika Schultz’s Mirathon
Insights from Beth Goddard
Jason Joyner’s Spoiled for the Ordinary
Marci’s Writer Lee
Sally Apokedak’s All About Children’s Books
Cheryl Russell’s Unseen Worlds
LaShaunda’s See You On The Net
Shannon McNear’s Shenandoah’s Eclectic Musings
Meg Mosley’s Megawriter
Stuart Stockton’s The Jerkrenak’s Den
Sharon Hinck’s blog
Valerie’s In My Little World
Karen Hancock’s Writing from the Edge
Chris Well: Learning Curve blog

2 comments:

Elliot said...

Ooo! Ooo! Pick me!
http://clawoftheconciliator.blogspot.com/2006/05/shivering-world.html

Valerie Comer said...

Thanks for the links to some of Tim's other reviews. I agree that often the line between sf and fantasy is blurry at best. I found Kathy Tyers' Firebird Trilogy to be like that: sf with a fantasy feel. I think its a great mix. I haven't read Shivering World yet.