CSFF Blog Tour: Speculative fiction

Given the option, I would have just brought up a list of all the science fiction at The Sword Review, and pointed out a few stories that appealed to me. That way, though, I would have missed the fact that, as well as Fantasy and Science fiction, there is a third sub-genre at TSR: the slightly woolly-sounding 'Speculative' fiction.

Instead, I opted for the 'pick a back issue at random and see what it gives me' approach. Not that it was that random; Issue 14 just seemed to be nicely in the middle of the run. Not much science fiction in that ish, mind; although that should make it a bit easier for even a slacker like me to read it and post a brief comment on the stories. There was, though, that other word: Speculative, attached to a story called The Short Bus. Which I read first, intrigued by the Speculative tag.

And true enough, it's not really fantasy. It's certainly not science fiction. It is... well, it's a slice of life - the life of a schoolboy with Downs Syndrome - straight out of the Twilight Zone.

There are two sci-fi stories in Issue 14: Of Protectors by C Michale, and The Ponce de Leon Project by George Duncan. Judged purely on the opening few paras provided by TSR before opening the whole story, I thought Of Protectors seemed a bit serious for my current mood, and read the George Duncan story, which started off with a car called Agnes kidnapping the protag and taking him to some automatic punching machines. Well, that ticks enough boxes for me.

In The Ponce de Leon Project, Clint Devlin, along with Agnes, is looking for a missing person, and leads us through an action filled tale that ends up finding the latest quest for eternal life, and the quite disturbing experiments that are being carried out to find it. An engaging and thought-provoking story, bundling cloning and genetic engineering with plenty of guns and gadgets. Maybe not the most original combination, but the Christian faith is a thread that runs through the story, adding a refreshing twist to the many Hollywood variations on the theme.

Oh dear, I think I may need to visit TSR regularly to make sure I don't miss anything else like that...

Incidentally, before you all jump in and try to educate me, I have since figured out how to bring up all the science fiction!

Don't forget to visit some of the other blogs on the tour, listed in yesterdays post.

CSFF Blog Tour: Intro

Well, since something vaguely resembling normality has returned here, I will make the effort and join in with me blog tour buddies again. This month we will be sampling the goodies on offer at The Sword Review, a webzine which aims 'to provide quality fiction, poertry[sic], valuable reviews, and meaningful exposition, all in a means that respects traditional values and Christian principles'. Obviously, their fiction focus is primarily on fantasy and science fiction.

So I'm off now to root around for some quality sci-fi, and maybe some meaningful exposition. I will report back tomorrow with what I find.

And, this being a tour and all, please drop by some of my fellow tourists over the next three days and see what they thought...

Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Amy Browning
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
Karri Compton
Frank Creed
CSFF Blog Tour
Gene Curtis
D. G. D. Davidson
Chris Deanne
April Erwin
Kameron M. Franklin
Beth Goddard
Marcus Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Russell Griffith
Jill Hart
Katie Hart
Sherrie Hibbs
Holly
Heather R. Hunt
Becca Johnson
Jason Joyner
Kait
Karen
Dawn King
Tina Kulesa
Lost Genre Guild
Kevin Lucia and The Bookshelf Reviews 2.0 - The Compendium
Terri Main
Rachel Marks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Eve Nielsen
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Cheryl Russel
Hanna Sandvig
Chawna Schroeder
Mirtika Schultz
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Jason Waguespac
Daniel I. Weaver

Is it me, or does that list get longer every month?

Normal service will resume shortly...

...in the meantime, here's a few things I've missed, just in case you have too.

Jesus loves Sci-fi. Well, we knew that, but it's always good to find someone else who knows it.

And from there I followed the linky goodness to The Gospel According to Buffy. Well, who could resist that, eh?

And for those with time to listen to podcasts, The Sci Phi Show has a little series on Science and Religion that may be of interest. I haven't got round to listening myself. (I've been pre-occupied, remember?)

Oh yes, and the Lost Genre Guild have meandered off in a podcastwardly direction too. (I haven't listened to that either!)

Um, anyway, we now return you to your regular scheduled blogging.

Family stuff break

Her Babyship has to visit the hospital tomorrow, on account of a dislocated hip and resultant wonky legs.

So I'm too distracted to post any of the various things I have swimming around in my head.

I'll be back when it's all over.

Friday Review - Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

Perelandra is a triple fried egg chilli chutney sandwich of a book. All the ingredients are wrong. The title: wrong. The science: wrong. The blatant Christian allegory: all wrong. But put them together and somehow it works. It becomes right.

Now, Out of the Silent Planet - that's a title to conjure with. Good story too, as it turns out - I reviewed it a while back. But Perelandra? A bit nondescript in comparison, IMHO. Although, admittedly better than Voyage to Venus, as which it was briefly published.

The science - now we've actually managed to get to Venus - is even more wrong than it was in Silent Planet. But, since no-one knew that 60 years ago, we'll let that go. Lewis has the planet permanently shrouded in cloud, and since that much is accurate, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for the duration of the story.

A story which is (although the author points out that none of the human characters are allegorical) a thinly veiled allegory for the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, with the result that there is less depth to the story than there was to Silent Planet.

None of which, thankfully, prevents it being a good story - if only a good re-telling of the Eden story.

Here, the voice of evil is not represented by anything as innocent as a snake. Oh no, it's Professor Weston - the bad guy from the first volume of the trilogy, gone badder. At times he is just a human with some very bad thoughts, but for most of the story he is seen as the subject of a demonic possession. Indeed, the existence of 'demons' and their interest in the outcome of the story is present in the introductory chapters, in which Lewis, as narrator, goes to meet Ransom.

It is Ransom's task to provide a counter argument to Weston's attempts to subvert the paradise of Venus. In his attempts to do so, we not only encounter the varied landscapes of Perelandra, but also witness some fairly bloody scraps between the two men.

The whole adventure is almost like Narnia with all the nasty bits left in: the evil Weston is utterly evil, but not in the exaggerated way some fantasy can portray evil; he retains just enough humanity to make him all the more disturbing. Likewise Ransom, the good guy, is flawed, doubting his own ability to fulfil his mission, and so the initially simple premise is developed into something much more.

On the downside, at times the story is hijacked by the main characters philosophising - which is OK for fans of C.S. Lewis, because he does it so well, but kind of messes up the action if you're not interested in the reason behind the action (in which case you probably picked up the wrong book to start with anyway).

Ultimately, good wins out, as it is obliged to do, and this version of the Eden story ends without the fall of Perelandrian man. So apparently, one man can make a difference.

Yoda on Mars: epilogue

I've just got a new scanner to play with, so here's a little epilogue to my Life on Mars related posts...

I was lucky enough to be the first person to show this pic to John Simm. It was obviously inoffensive enough for him to sign - the rest of the cast had gone for a pint. :(

And a few bonus Christian sf related links:
In the open space on The Chronicles of Riddick
The Lost Genre Guild on Kathy Tyers' Shivering World
and NewsBiscuit on the Second Coming (don't click if easily offended!)

Who is This God Person Anyway? (Fit the Fifth - Biscuits)

Readers familiar with the Hitchhiker trilogy will probably remember the story of Arthur Dent's biscuits. It's a story he tells Fenchurch, about an encounter with a stranger and a packet of Rich Tea at a railway station. You can find it in Chapter 20 of So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, but to summarise:

Arthur was waiting for a train, sitting at the table with the Guardian on one side, a coffee on the other, and a packet of Rich Tea in the middle of the table. Sitting opposite him was a perfectly ordinary businessman. He didn't look as if he was about to do anything weird.
But he leaned across the table, picked up the packet of biscuits, tore it open, took one out, and... ate it. Arthur ignores this in his usual English manner, right up to the point of trying very hard not to notice that the packet was already mysteriously open when he came to take a biscuit himself.
The two of them went through a packet of eight biscuits, each taking one in turn, until only an empty packet was left between them and the stranger left to catch his train. And when Arthur's train was announced, he finished his coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and, of course, sees his own packet of Rich Tea, unopened.

Douglas Adams always claimed that this was based on something that actually happened to him, although that claim may well be apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate.

Wherever the story started, it seems to have developed a life of its own. Being overfamiliar with Douglas Adams' version of the story, I had to have an ironic chuckle when I heard evangelist J John give his version of the story - the crux of which is that God owns all the Rich Teas. We may think he's mean, expecting us to share our Rich Teas with the church, with this or that charity, or with Joe next door who is running a bit short on snacks this month, but if the time comes that we really need more Rich Teas, he will provide them. Like the stranger in the station, we are called to share, and not necessarily receive any thanks.

It's not quite as good as seeing it in person, but there's a transcript of a J John sermon including his take on the biscuit story here. (The biscuit part is about two thirds of the way down, and has a man eating doughnuts in the airport.)

More Deep Thoughts from the Hitchhiker trilogy next week.

miscellaneous bloggery 8

The latest in an occasional series in which I can't be bothered to come up with anything original to write about.

Regular visitors here will probably already have read about why the sci-fi catholic dislikes christian sf, and from there found out why Keith Strohm hates it.

Speaking personally, there's a place for 'evangelical' sf in my life. Although, having jumped on, and promptly fallen off, the Left Behind bandwagon of badly written evangelical sf, I'm duty bound to say that. :)

I guess any hopes I may have had that CBA fiction (to use the US term) might catch on in the UK following LB have yet to be fulfilled in any significant way. Even UK based writers of Christian fiction seem to be publishing in the US (the Nemesis, for a genre example, and Penny Culliford, just to prove that I know books do exist outside of the sff shelves, at least in theory).

I am increasingly of the opinion that maybe the place for Christian sf in my life is just for me to write it, as a means of making sense of my life in general and this Christianity lark, and doesn't need to be shared with the rest of the world for God to appreciate that I'm using the medium to communicate with Him. Besides, I've got a blog and a website. I can still inflict it on the wider world. ;)

Anyway, back to the bloggery. I came across this the other day too: The Christianity in Star Wars. I've always seen the Force as more a kind of eastern mystical kind of thing personally, though I suppose the arguments may be interesting. (Says me, in the midst of searching for Christianity in the works of Douglas Adams!)

And then, of course, there was this. The lovely Elliot has me tagged...

Name up to three characters (from books)...

1). You wish were real so you could meet them.
Rincewind, from out of the Discworld series (a rare exception to my 'not doing fantasy'!)
Obviously, The Doctor. Either the fourth or the current one. He's in books too!
Buffy Summers. Stretching the books concept again, but if you don't let her in, she'll come round with Mr Pointy.

2). You would like to be.
Ford Prefect. I have to pick somebody from Hitch-hikers, and he always seems to be having so much fun. Great name, too.
Dirk Gently. The idea of being a private detective has some kind of romantic appeal, and he just takes it to a whole 'nother place...
Thursday Next. Not only does she live in Swindon, but she has simply the best job in the known universe.

3). Who scare you.
This was kind of a tricky one, as I haven't read any especially 'scary' books lately. But:
Professor Weston in C S Lewis's Perelandra was very disturbing at points.
And I do like a bit of Stephen King - I could pluck any number of his 'better' bad guys but I'll settle for Mordred Deschain from the Dark Tower series (although his father, Roland, was scarier in his own way) and Annie Wilkes from Misery. One good reason to continue writing mediocre evangelical novels that nobody wants to read!

Just as a kind of self-indulgent experiment, and because my fellow CSFF blog-tourers have been mass-tagged already, I tag Alf, who claims to follow my blogging, and Matthew, who does occasionally drop by. And anyone from Swindon who wants to play.

CSFF April Blog Tour, part two.

Here's a few random stops on the CSFF highway, for those who haven't been following the whole tour:

Some reviews of the series on the least read blog and the view from stonewater;

Interviews of Karen Hancock with Shannon and Chris D;

Giveaways courtesy of the Mir, Beth Goddard, Tina Kulesa and the author.

Or you could just click randomly on the list of blog-tourists in the previous post and see what you get.

Oh, and, just because my inner twelve-year-old can't resist adding this sentence: Rebecca Grabill talks about breasts. Something she may yet live to regret.

And once you've done that, pop over to amazon and buy Return of the Guardian-King. Unless you don't get fantasy, of course. In which case, maybe try Arena instead.

Back in time

Back in time may or may not have been where Sam Tyler was. I know people visit here who haven't seen Series 2 yet, so I won't spoil the ending. I'm not even sure what I make of it myself at the moment - not really sure I liked it much. I don't much like the idea of a spin-off though - it's kind of like the Matrix sequels: once the premise had been explored, and you had come to your own conclusions about the nature of reality, however entertaining the rest of the story was, it never had the same edge.

Back in time was where the Doctor went to get his mojo back. Yep, The Shakespeare Code was proper old skool Doctor, mucking about in the past with a flagrant disregard the causal nature of the universe. Or something. Forward in time was where he went in the last episode, which was even better, and deserves a post of its own. Later.

Back in time is what I am - back in time for...

This month it's all about Karen Hancock, and her rather splendid new fantasy novel, Return of the Guardian-King. I wonder if he was back in time?

Now, I have come to the conclusion that I don't get fantasy. I tried to read Lord Foul's Bane (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Book 1) recently, and I was enjoying it while he was stomping round moaning about leprosy, but as soon as he got hit by a car and ended up in fantasy land, I lost the plot. He should've gone to 1973, as far as I'm concerned.

All of which digression is to explain why I won't be reviewing the book myself. I'll leave that to my fellow bloggers, at least some of whom I'm sure get fantasy....

Nissa Annakindt
Wayne Thomas Batson
Jim Black
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
Karri Compton
Frank Creed
CSFF Blog Tour
Gene Curtis
D. G. D. Davidson
Chris Deanne
Janey DeMeo
April Erwin
Kameron M. Franklin
Beth Goddard
Marcus Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Katie Hart
Sherrie Hibbs
Sharon Hinck
Christopher Hopper
Heather R. Hunt
Becca Johnson
Jason Joyner
Karen
Tina Kulesa
Lost Genre Guild
Kevin Lucia and The Bookshelf Reviews 2.0 - The Compendium
Rachel Marks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Shannon McNear
Caleb Newell
Eve Nielsen
John W. Otte
Robin Parrish
Rachelle
Cheryl Russel
Hanna Sandvig
Chawna Schroeder
Mirtika Schultz
James Somers
Tsaba House Authors
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Daniel I. Weaver
Dawn King
Rebecca Grabill
Jill Hart
and, of course, Karen Hancock

Chocolate break!

Yes, it's Easter, I'm off work for a week and I'll probably be doing something really exciting and not writing nonsesne here. I might even go out. Or I might stay in and watch sf movies for a week.

What I probably will do is a bit of writing - Project Seven has so far refused to settle into any of the sci-fi/fantasy settings I wanted for it, so I'm going to have a stab at just writing my protag's story instead (what I had originally planned as a dark past revealed in flashback) and see where that goes. It will probably end up with him being abducted by aliens or something anyway, knowing my imagination.

And if I do get to the PC, I should get the remaining pages up and running on my website.

Plus Yoda has his first car show of the season, the last ever Life on Mars is on telly (no spoilers, I promise!) and in between all that, there's chocolate to eat...

It's bigger on the inside...

Your average 900-year-old renegade Time Lord probably hears that a lot on his travels. Those of us who have been vicariously travelling with him have heard it a few times too, so it's good to see that obligatory line served up with a healthy dollop of humour, as it was when Martha Jones first ventured into the ubiquitous blue box.

Yes, the hype started a few weeks ago, and the third series of the All-New Doctor Who Show finally landed, sans Billie, on Saturday. It wasn't the best ever episode (not a bad thing, I'm happy to wait a week or two for the show to get into it's new dynamic and deliver some top notch episodes), in fact, it was probably one of the more far-fetched moments in the Whoniverse, but Martha, having witnessed the destruction of Big Ben, survived the Christmas Invasion and lost her cousin to the Cybermen last year, takes all the bizarreness in her stride.

I couldn't help noticing though...

Separated at birth?

A Judoon from out of Doctor Who (2007 version)

Rocksteady from out of Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (1987 version)

Actually there was more than a hint of Vogon in the Judoon, among other Hitchhiker-esque bits like the transplanting of a whole building from one planet to another, and the whole thing being put down to mass halucinations after the event. I commented a while back that the Tenth Doctor is in fact Arthur Dent, and as if any further proof were needed, there's even an episode this series called: 42.

Are we sure Douglas Adams didn't just regenerate?

Miscellaneous Poddery

I'm still a bit new to the whole podcast lark, but since I recently figured out I could plug my MP3 player into my car stereo, I've started catching up with a few on those long business trips.

A sci-fi favourite is Starship Sofa, which I might eventually catch up with. Of interest to readers of this blog might be the show on Religion in Science Fiction. They don't cover much that won't be familiar to, say, regulars at Elliot's blog, but they cover it in a more irreverant style, and with different accents. Oh, and they managed to namecheck a certain blog, so it only seems fair to return the favour anyhow.

Another one that might be of interest is The Sci Phi Show. The main subject here is a philosophical discussion of science fiction, but host Jason Rennie is a Christian, so the occasional religious topic does poke its head above the parapet.

Both of these have forums attached, which I have as yet utterly failed to participate in, but if you have time for that sort of thing, tell them I sent you anyway. ;)

And on the fiction side of science fiction, I have dabbled in Escape Pod a bit, and also Podiobooks has a few titles that sound like they may be of interest to this blog, though I have yet to sample any. I'm expecting to drive to Devon next month (about a 440-mile round trip) - some reviews may well follow thereafter.

Yoda on Mars (reprise)

I had convinced myself that the fleeting scene in which Yoda appeared on Life on Mars would be cut. I didn't want to be too disappointed if that did happen.

And when Sam Tyler suddenly appeared in Lancashire General Hospital without actually driving up to the entrance, I thought that had in fact happened.

But then, forty minutes and several brilliant one-liners later...


Yes, that was Yoda's big TV debut. You may only have seen the back third of him, but he was right there, in the foreground, like an annoying kid on a live news item.

Anyway, to celebrate, I thought I'd upload a few more pics from the hospital. You know, just to prove that actually was my car on the beeb's top drama series ;)

Me? Sneak around inside a film set? You've got the wrong man there. Guv.

Genuine 1970s filing cabintets. Probably.

The exterior of Lancashire General Hospital.

And the scene from where I was watching.

More pictures, news from the shoot, and an explanation for any confused Star Wars fans who wandered in looking for a 900-year-old Jedi Master here.

Who is This God Person Anyway? (Fit the Fourth - Sorry I'm late...)

I'm still a bit caught up in all the excitement of getting my new and improved website, well, improved, so I still haven't prepared that detailed sermon on the theology of HHG. Sorry. Still, just to prove I haven't forgotten about the whole exercise, here's a little nugget of truth, refined from a chunk of Adams-esque humour:

... one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change ...

Well, it does kind of reflect Jesus' message, or at least part of it. Obviously it was this that inspired two of the greatest philosophers of our age, Ted 'Theodore' Logan and Bill S. Preston, Esq.

Of course, we know the DNA just liked to play around with religious ideas, like having the 'minor deities from the Halls of Asgard' booking a table at Milliways, where the Great Prophet Zarquon also makes his final triumphant Second Coming, only to disappear along with the rest of the Universe. (Presumably this was a side-effect of arriving by supernatural means, rather than the more 'scientific' front door of time travel.)

At this point I would like to embark upon a detailed discussion of the merits of the Zarquonist religion, however, due to his rather poor punctuality little is really known about the Great Prophet or his teachings. In fact, all we know is that his followers expect him to return at some point in the Galactic grand scheme of things, but in the meantime his name makes for good swearing.

Zarquon's singing fish, is that Douglas Adams poking fun at Christianity, perchance?

This week, I 'ave been mostly watchin....

The last episode of Primeval, which was, in fact, something of a return to the show's potential. It's unfortunate that it had a mid-season slump (which, with only 6 episodes made, took out half the series), and the dodo episode wandered off down a sub-plot that really should have been resolved, or at least not subsequently forgotten about.

But a lion-eating monster from the future sort of makes up for all that, and leaves me with some hope that season 2 might be a bit less along the lines of 'A prehistoric creature appears somewhere in the Home Counties. Cutter and the crew go and investigate. Someone gets hurt. Connor fails to get off with her out of S Club. Mrs Cutter appears mysteriously and does something annoying. Her out of S Club wanders around in her pants for a bit. The Home Office people blither about and get in the way. The prehistoric monster goes away again.'

You have to wonder where some of the ideas have come from though. I mean Helen Cutter has been mucking about in the Paleozoic for eight years without anyone noticing, then the Home Office get involved and within six weeks there's a paradox so big it threatens to destroy the galaxy*. Where did they come up with that?

Life on Mars, which reached a new height of surreal genius with the Camberwick Green business. I can't help wondering how many takes it needed for John Simm to get that line out with a straight face: "I can just about handle you, driving like a pissed up crackhead and treating women like beanbags. But I'm going to say this once, and once only, Gene. Stay out of Camberwick Green!" Genius.

And finally: Doctor Who trailers. It must be time to start jumping up and down like an over-excited 10-year-old again....


*Possibly. That would, of course, be the cliffhanger that keeps us tuning in for season two.

March CSFF Blog Tour: Randy Ingermanson

You might not believe this, but I have just written the best blog tour post of the month. Seriously. It was intelligent, insightful, and laced with that British humour which is my contribution to the event.

It was peppered with hyperlinks following many hours carefully researching every page of Randy's website, from which I also chose some interesting facts about the man himself (for instance, did you know he isn't dead, but expects to be at some time in the future?).

I mentioned how his work is banned from these shores for the heinous crime of 'being quite good' (the only CSFF which can legally be sold in the UK has to bear the mark of Jenkins LaHaye). Thankfully, our Randy's a generous sort of bloke, which means I have been able to read the first three chapters of several of his books, but all of none. I think Oxygen and The Fifth Man are on my list of 'things to import' when my reading list gets a bit shorter.

Then I commented on the Snowflake Method, which it seems I have been using in my writing without actually realising it had a name.

I may also have mentioned, in passing, that Randy Ingermanson has a new book out, Double Vision, which is also apparently quite good.

It was, without a doubt, one of my better blog posts.

Sadly, before it was commited to cyberspace, it disappeared in the Blogmuda Triangle. And because trying to recreate it all seems too soul-destroying a task to start right now, I'm afraid you're left with this pale imitation. Let's hope these bloggers had more luck:

Nissa Annakindt
Jim Black
Grace Bridges
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
Karri Compton
Frank Creed
CSFF Blog Tour
D. G. D. Davidson
Janey DeMeo
Tessa Edwards
April Erwin
Beth Goddard
Marcus Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Leathel Grody
Katie Hart
Sherrie Hibbs
Sharon Hinck
Christopher Hopper
Jason Joyner
Karen
Tina Kulesa
Lost Genre Guild
Kevin Lucia and The Bookshelf Reviews 2.0 - The Compendium
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Caleb Newell
Eve Nielsen
John W. Otte
Robin Parrish
Rachelle
Cheryl Russel
Hanna Sandvig
Mirtika Schultz
James Somers
Tsaba House Authors
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Daniel I. Weaver

Heroes of Spam

One of the side-effects of switching web servers is the loss of what it transpires was a half-decent spam filter. Now my e-mail address is back out in cyberspace without suitable protection, I'm having to filter incoming mail by hand for the time being. Which is a bit tedious, but does have its advantages.

For instance, just this morning I received an invitation to acquire shares in Patientline from Dickensian sweat-shop mogul Eroll Crim. And then there's the snippets of old Victor Hugo poems kindly passed on by my old friends Guido Noll and Sharita Yocom.

All of which is beside the point, since I don't know what v1@gra is, but if anybody out there wants some I'll put you onto Samson Sinclair, who apparently can sort you out.

Anyway, you've probably figured how this ramble comes back to the subject of Christian Science Fiction (a gentleman who has yet to send me any spam, incidentally). One of the things I dislike about creating fiction is the making up of names, which I'm sure most writers will agree is pretty crucial, especially when it comes to your protagonist and other major characters.

So I'm using this temporary influx of spam as extra inspiration for the characters in Project Seven. Troy Myers, maybe? Donnell Lacey? (Not a very English name though.) I quite like Anderson McMullen though (Andy to his friends). And the girls: Keri Kroese, Roslyn Wettstein, Lauren Broussard and Ophelia Hobbs (odd combination, that one).

Of course if any of the aforementioned names belong to real people: somebody's hijacked your e-mail.

Sci-fi: Good, Bad or Ugly?

At some point in its history, the term 'sci-fi' picked up a somewhat negative undertone. Probably it made people think of dodgy b-movies where you could still see the strings.

And I have largely avoided using the term in relation to my writing because it appears to me that sci-fi nowadays is acceptable when it comes to TV and movies (thank you, SciFi Channel) but sf is generally used in connection with the written word. Maybe that is to encompass the broader genre of speculative fiction, or maybe it's just because well-read science fiction geeks want to separate themselves from casual Doctor Who fans.

Personally, I don't do fantasy as a rule, so I just sat on the fence and used 'science fiction' most of the time.

Which brings a whole new set of problems when you're talking about Christian science fiction: do you mean Christian science fiction, or Christian Science fiction? I would hope that a brief look at the contents of this blog would be enough to tell which I'm interested in, but it's a comment I've heard a few times, and it's true it might scare off a passing visitor. I skipped the issue in my website previously by calling it Biblical science fiction, which is arguably more accurate for stories based on the Old Testament, but is not really a widely used term.

The point of all this rambling is to say that I'm no longer concerned with being literary about my sf writings. Redeveloping my website seemed a good excuse to reconsider my stance, and I have decided: I'd far rather be considered a bit of an amateur when it comes to being a science fiction fan and author than have people think I'm anything other than the Bible-believing Methodist-Pentecostal Christian I'm trying to be.

Sci-fi is no longer a rude word.

Website updates

This week's excuse for sparse blogging is that I've been beavering away behind the scenes at my website.

I haven't opened it up to the public yet, but most of the content from the original website has been transferred and is being edited into a more catchy blurby type thing for Countless as the Stars. I have decided (a bit reluctantly) to ditch the few bits from my journalistic career which were posted, partly because they are a bit old now, but mainly to concentrate on things more related to my book and Christian science fiction in general.

First decision though: which design? Currently you will see this welcome page:


and the remaining pages look something like this:
As an alternative, I've played around with this front page, which I like because the spacecraft looks more like something from my novel than a NASA stock photo:

but the text pages look a little dark, at least until such time as some artistically talented individual volunteers to provide some pictures of people or scenes from the book.

So if anyone thinks they can liven this up with a space battle or something, let me know. Otherwise, I'll be sticking with the orange peel for now.

Project Seven

What is Project Seven?

A vast multi-national attempt to finally prove the existence (or not) of God?
Some wierd science experiment which has the unlikely side-effect of making angels and demons visible to the human eye?
Or just a vaguely good but currently aimless title for a CSF story?

Well, actually, I'm referring to the seventh item on my WIPlist. Which, oddly, was a non-sf project. However, because I am utterly hopeless at writing 'real world' stories (I may be hopeless at sf stories too, but I get a kick out of it anyway) some elements of it have gone into The Sequel. However, I don't think sf is really the genre this story needs.

So, I hear you asking, what actually is Project Seven?

Well, it's more fantasy (which I keep saying I'm not going to blog about here) than sf, but more like The Prisoner than The Hobbit. It's based in a world I dreamt up a while ago, which somebody subsequently stole from my head and made into a TV show. There's angels. There's demons. There's flashbacks - the protag has a dark past and is seeking redemption. Sounds a bit Angel-esque, I know, but there's no vampires. It's differently dark - the dark side comes from the real world. Originally there was a plane crash on a mysterious island, but I think I may have to (ahem) lose that. I might even find room for some Brit humour.

Project Seven is what I want to work on right now. There's some work needed to tweak the setting - I was thinking post-apocalypse urban fantasy, but I don't want to lean too much towards Angel. Tongue-in-cheek post-rapture world, perhaps? Or maybe Project Seven is a Quantum Leap-style time travel project, allowing my hero to go back in time and make amends for his own screw-ups...

A short post

I was planning to post the next part of Who is This God Person Anyway today, but it threatened to turn into something of substance and depth, so I figured it deserved a bit more thought rather than being unleashed on the world as a half finished stream of thoughts, as is my usual blogging technique :) Hopefully it will be worth the wait!

In other news, my website is temporarily offline; I've switched hosts so I can put a proper shop page in and a whole bunch of other stuff that I couldn't before. I always liked the idea of providing DVD-style extra features - as done brilliantly by Jasper Fforde - and if I can cobble together enough material I might do something along those lines too. With any luck, pages of some sort will start appearing over the next week or so, although the full revamp I've been promising it for ages will take a while.

Oh, and for those eagerly anticipating the arrival of Primeval overseas: don't hold your breath. We've had three episodes and I'm getting more apathetic towards it already. Not a good sign after a promising start. When's the next season of Doctor Who due...?

CSFF Blog Tour: Where The Map Has Still Ended

In case it had escaped your notice, I am a bit of a writer. I know that because my name is on the booklist at WhereTheMapEnds, which you should of course look at as a detailed guide to Christian Spec Fic, but is not the main point of this post.

As a writer, I have spent many a happy hour fiddling with the various world building, character creating and story generating gizmos collected on the site. Actually, these are probably more useful to a bored non-writer wasting a few online minutes at work, than to a writer like myself, prone to procrastination, a cure for which is about the only thing absent from Jeff's Tools for Writers section.

If you haven't already, go and have a play. On your way, you might like to take in the following stops on the tour:

Grace Bridges reviews on of Jeff's own works;

Gene Curtis comments on Marcher Lord Press;

Jeff seems to have done interviews left, right and centre;

Nicole and Wayne Thomas Batson got missed from the full list yesterday which is still there if you want more blogs to read!

CSFF Blog Tour: Where the Map Ends

So this month we find ourselves WhereTheMapEnds. I thought we'd been here already on the tour, but, I guess not, huh?

This being day two of the tour, you will of course have all been to the site already.

What do you mean you've been too busy reading blogs? Tsk. Look, go there now. Clicky clicky. But don't forget to come back.... Oh, too late, they've gone. Oh well, at least with all that extra traffic, Jeff will be inspired to get those long awaited forums going. Won't you? I mean, look at the queue to get on there: ;)
Nissa Annakindt
Jim Black
Grace Bridges
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
Karri Compton
CSFF Blog Tour
Gene Curtis
D. G. D. Davidson
Chris Deanne
Janey DeMeo
Tessa Edwards
April Erwin
Kameron M. Franklin
Linda Gilmore
Beth Goddard
Marcus Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Todd Michael Greene
Leathel Grody
Katie Hart
Sherrie Hibbs
Sharon Hinck
Christopher Hopper
Jason Joyner
Kait
Karen
K. D. Kragen
Tina Kulesa
Kevin Lucia and The Bookshelf Reviews 2.0 - The Compendium
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Eve Nielsen
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Robin Parrish
Rachelle
Cheryl Russel
Hanna Sandvig
Mirtika Schultz
James Somers
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Daniel I. Weaver
Timothy Wise

Who is This God Person Anyway? (Fit the Third - Exodus)

Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"

God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM."

- Exodus 3:13-15

"My name is not important."

- Slatibartfast

And so we are introduced to the architects of the Earth, first in the Bible, and then in Hitch-hikers. And, apart from that, and being suitably mysterious about their names, they have one or two other things in common. Slartibartfast, in the TV series, is every child's image of God: a kindly old gent with long white hair and matching beard. And both, having created the world, then go on to save it.

But first the creation bit, and I think Slarti inadvertently solves one of modern Christianity’s ongoing debates:

“[New Earth is] only half completed I’m afraid – we haven’t even finished
burying the artificial dinosaur skeletons in the crust yet, then we have the
Tertiary and Quaternary Periods of the Cenozoic Era to lay down, and…”

I like the image of God’s creation as a vast building project (Magrathea’s factory floor was a highlight of the so-so movie version for me too) and, well, why not? It’s gotta make as much sense as the more widely accepted theories.

Millions of years later, Slartibartfast returns to Earth and, in the absence of a scarf-wearing, jelly baby-toting saviour, single-handedly (well, Trillian and Arthur help a bit) saves the Universe from the evils of cricket. Sorry, Krikkit.

So there you have it: a creator turned saviour whose name, at least in its original form, we dare not speak.

Finally, to bring us back to the ever-so-tenuous Exodus link (you think that’s tenuous, wait till next week…) here’s Bop Ad, from Life, the Universe and Everything:

[Slartibartfast] was marching out on to the pitch with a terrible purpose in his gait, his hair, beard and robes swept behind him, looking very much as Moses would have looked if Sinai had been a well-cut lawn instead of, as it is more usually represented, a fiery smoking mountain.

Feeling Strangely Bloggy

Yes, it's been a while, but I'm in a bloggy mood today. Maybe someone missed me and started channelling their mental energies at me. Well, whatever, I'm back again now - some minor connection hitches with my shiny new Vista-powered lappie now fixed. (So far, incidentally, I have not gone 'Wow' a single time while using it.)

Oh, and in the process of shifting files onto said new laptop, I mislaid my favourites list, which included a bunch of really interesting stuff I had to blog about. No, really, it did!

So instead I shall mention the highly unlikely event that happened over the weekend: ITV1 showed something good. Obviously startled by the success of Doctor Who, ITV have brought us a new Saturday teatime sf series, Primeval, the basic premise of which is that there are anomalies in time/space through which people can travel, and in the first episode, dinosaurs can stroll into the Forest of Dean. Not sure how many weeks we can watch dinosaurs turn up in unexpected places, but there is a lost-in-the-past-spouse story arc to keep us busy too. The writers have tried to inject a little humour into the proceedings too - witness the boy fighting off a Gorgonopsid with a toy light saber. I look forward to seeing where the series goes from here, anyway. Oh, and there's one of the girls from S Club 7, who drives a Mini Cooper, which is a bonus.

Speaking of Minis on telly, the new series of Life on Mars also just started, so Yoda's small screen debut is just a few weeks away for UK viewers. Unless they cut his scene. Erk.

I think that went quite well. Maybe I shall feel bloggy more often now.

The Tour Within

Looks like a return to form here then... another missed post and now a token contribution to the blog tour. I'm striken by plague, and I can't even bring myself to create an amusingly off the wall post for the tour.

So, in the unlikely event that you've stumbled in here from somewhere unconnected to the tour, why not take a look at Wayne Thomas Batson's Door Within trilogy: The Door Within, Rise of the Wyrm Lord and The Final Storm.
Or visit The Door Within web site and the author's blog.

And when you've done that, check out some of the other blogs on the tour. I particularly recommend the interview with Aidan Thomas (star of the trilogy) at Unseen Worlds. Nice idea for a post, might have to pinch it if I can persuade one of my characters to co-operate.

Your tour continues this way:
Jim Black
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
Karri Compton
Frank Creed
CSFF Blog Tour
Gene Curtis
Chris Deanne
Janey DeMeo
Tessa Edwards
April Erwin
Linda Gilmore
Beth Goddard
Marcus Goodyear
Todd Michael Greene
Leathel Grody
Karen Hancock
Katie Hart
Sherrie Hibbs
Sharon Hinck
Joleen Howell
Kait
Karen
K. D. Kragen
Tina Kulesa
Lost Genre Guild
Kevin Lucia and The Bookshelf Reviews 2.0 - The Compendium
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Caleb Newell
Eve Nielsen
John Otte
Robin Parrish
Cheryl Russel
Hannah Sandvig
Mirtika Schultz
James Somers
Stuart Stockton
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Daniel I. Weaver

Space-filling post of the month

Sorry, Wednesday's post got lost somewhere as I was too busy messing about with 'new' Blogger's bells and whistles. Not that I've really started using them yet, but I'll get round to it.

Anyway, some fun stuff I've been noticing:
Speculative Catholic, having returned from sabbatical a while back, has gone all Martian on us. Some interesting links about Martian calendars and liturgy, if you're into that sort of thing.
And over at the Lost Genre Guild, Andrea Graham wonders why we can't place King David in the midst of a high-tech future, in outer space, or even on another planet? Biblical science-fiction? Almost like sort of a, um, Old Testament Space Opera, maybe? Finest idea I've heard in a while....
Oh, and I've been watching the blog of Chris Walley lately. You know, my nemesis. (Not sure he knows that, mind!) And, much to my disappointment, it reads like he might actually be a decent bloke. He says some funny things. He's frustrated with Britain's Christian so-called-booksellers (and him, a proper author and all). So, since I can't really dislike the man for anything other than being Welsh, I guess I'm forced to admit that I'm just plain jealous.
Grrr.

The Patron Saint of Plagues, by Barth Anderson

You know those books where nothing much seems to happen, but you keep reading because the characters become real and the writing is just so darn good?

This is not one of those books. This is one of those books where nothing much seems to happen, but you keep reading because you promised to review it on your blog.

That's not to say it wasn't well written - there are flashes of brilliance, especially in the couple of chapters that describe the progress of a cells as they travel through the human body, and some of the insults from 'cuss-poet' Isabel Khushub are, well, cuss-poetry.

Anyway, the story. It's about 2050, the US has collapsed in on itself and Mexico is rising under a sort of Catholic/fascist dictatorship. Into all this enters a bio-engineered plague, targeting native Mexicans, and all-American hero Henry Stark, who, assisted by his former flame the aforementioned cuss-poet Khushub, obviously sets out to save the day.

There are a few good sf ideas thrown in too; as well as the obligatory flying motorbikes, the pilone network and associated 'wetware' - a sort of internet browser hard-wired into the brain - plays an integral part in the story. Whether the tell-tale scar left behind by its installation is in fact the mark of the beast, has nothing to do with the story at all and is just an interesting thought that occurred to me.

I think I may have missed the point with this book. All the Spanish words and catholic stuff may just have switched my brain off, but it failed to grip me. The characters failed to engage me, and ultimately I don't think there was enough going on to fill 370 pages.

Barth Anderson, by all accounts, is a short fiction author of some renown; unfortunately I think this, his debut novel, falls short of its potential. Must try harder!

Who is This God Person Anyway? (Fit the Second - Genesis)

In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
Many races believe that it was created by some sort of god, though the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the entire Universe was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being calle dthe Great Green Arkleseizure.
However, the Great Green Arkleseizure Theory is not widely accepted outside Viltvodle VI and so, the Universe being the puzzling place it is, other explanations are constantly being sought.

I suppose, to a radical atheist, this may not seem much more bizzarely improbable than 'God said "Let there be light," and there was light.' But the Universe according to Hitchhikers got into its current state through evolution, which is referred to repeatedly, from the throw-away gag:

Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

to the creation of the super-evolutionary Haggunenons, who will 'quite frequently evolve several times over lunch', and the disruption of evolution on Earth by the arrival of the Golgafrinchans on the 'B' Ark.

But I'm not going to embark on a creation/evolution debate - personally I don't care how the Universe was created, the fact is it's here and we've got to deal with it. Instead (and I may end up jumping forward a bit here) consider:

"...you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

- Genesis 2:17, NIV

and consider the fact that, in trying to establish the Question to the Ultimate Answer, Arthur Dent ultimately secures his own death. Although, of course, it is a well-established fact that the Question and the Answer cannot both exist within the same Universe, presumably because such knowledge would lead to certain death on a cosmic scale. And finally, another quote from DNA on the subject of knowledge:

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

Incidentally, I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep up follwoing the books of the Bible - any suggestions for what Leviticus should cover will be gratefully received.

On Precogs and Prophets

So, following on from watching Minority Report, I thought I would take a quick look at the 'meantal powers' sub-genre - that branch of science fiction which tells of Homo superior in all its forms, endowed with powers including telepathy, telekenesis and precognition.

Centuries ago anyone claiming to have such powers would have been burnt at the stake, condemned by the Church as a witch. Although demonic assistance isn't credited quite as publicly as it might have been 300 years ago, anyone claiming to be able to move an object purely by the power of his mind is generally considered to be either a bit mad or some kind of occultist (assuming that we discount stage magicians, of course).

So, are we treading on thin ice if we consider these subjects in Christian fiction? Well, apparently not; I'm currently reading Kathy Tyers' Firebird trilogy, in which the pseudo-Christian good guys are chock full of funky mental powers. Precognition, however, is seen as something of a dark art even among the Sentinels.

It might be interesting to take some of science-fiction's ideas on precognition - Can the future be changed? Is any such vision destined to become a self-fulfilling prophecy? - and mix them in with a theme of divine prophecy. Would the same rules apply to a divine prophecy? And how would anyone know what is from God and what is from a genetically-enhanced human? What if God used a genetically-enhanced human as his prophet? And so on.

In the world of the Old Testament Space Opera, meanwhile, Joseph (he of the posh jacket and the dream-readings) becomes some kind of telepath or precog; this gives those around him cause to turn on him, and him the ability to survive what might befall him when they do.

There are other super-human abilities that sf has given us too: levitation, transportation, mind-control... and that's before we dig into the world of the comic-book super-hero...

Who is This God Person Anyway? (Fit the First - DNA)

Douglas Noel Adams was famously an atheist. He was fascinated by religion in all its forms, but did not consider his atheism in terms of belief or non-belief. He was, in his own words, 'convinced that there is no God'. Which could be why, in the first sentence of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series, we are introduced to Oolon Coluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters: Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes, and Who is This God Person Anyway?

I've long fantasised about writing a book with that last title. A volume on theology, perhaps, in the style of Hitchhiker's. A sort of Hitchhiker's Guide to Eternity. The Gospel According to Zaphod Beeblebrox, that sort of thing. Maybe I should give up on science fiction and set about my own trilogy of philosophical blockbusters. For now, though, I'll settle with this little series of posts.

Douglas' facination with religion is apparent throughout the Hitchhiker trilogy, from that opening sentence to the wierd missionary antics of Huma Kavula in the movie version, and then overspills into the world of Dirk Gently. And that Hitchhikers has at its heart a quest for the meaning of life almost goes without saying. Some of his writings seem to have been adopted into atheist folklore:

...if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language.
Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

The argument goes something like this: I refuse to prove that I exist, says God, for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.
But, says Man, the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.
Oh dear, says God, I hadn't thought of that, and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

It's hard to fault the logic there, and Adams has brilliantly twisted a 'theist' argument to suit his own atheist worldview. This is, of course, a load of fetid dingoes kidneys, not least because God has never, to my knowledge, refused to prove his existence, or used the 'proof denies faith' argument in his own defence. On top of which we could always use the counter argument - that proof does not deny faith, but in fact confirms it.

It is just possible, of course, that Adams used this illustration simply for the sake of a joke, as the passage finishes:

Oh, that was easy, says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

Well, that about wraps it up for atheists, it would seem.

Further musings on the Gospel according to Douglas Adams will follow next week, in the meantime you can get an insight into his beliefs (or convictions) in his interview with The American Atheist here, also published in The Salmon of Doubt.

Evil Santa, Alien Pop and the Apocalypse

So, Christmas has been and gone, and with it, Doctor Who sealed its place as part of it. After just two Christmas specials, the good Doctor is almost as traditional as the Queen.

The most recent special wasn't as good as the previous year's homage to Hitchhiker's, but the evil Santa's were back, there was a star-shaped spaceship over London, and (this being TV-land) it snowed on Christmas Eve. And the good Doctor saved the world while dealing with the loss of Rose, which happened immediately prior to this episode. There was even a subtle nod towards Torchwood, which also ended its first season this week.

At its best, Torchwood has been great viewing. Unfortunately it has had more than its fair share of mediocre episodes, and really, someone should tell the makers that adult TV doesn't have to include sex every week. Or, in fact, at all.

For me, Torchwood is at its best when trying to be the Welsh Angel. And sure enough, the season ended with a barely averted apocalypse straight out of the Buffyverse. I have to mention the ending, but I don't want to spoil it, so highlight the next bit if you want to know why.

The final episode starts with Ianto reading from the book of Daniel, as an introduction to the coming apocalypse. Imprisoned under the rift, and inadvertantly released in the last episode, is Abaddon, a big scary monster that instantly kills anything its shadow touches. Up to and including Captain Jack, who sacrifices his apparently immortal self to save the world. Gwen, still believing him to be immortal, spends 'days' with his corpse in the Torchwood morgue, until he awakes only to be spirited away by a passing TARDIS.

You can see why I had to mention it.

There are plenty of loose ends, and a second series has been commissioned. If we're lucky, the series will find its identity and Captain Jack and his crew will become more than two-dimensional characters who do little more than work and sleep with each other.

Elsewhere in the Whoniverse, it being the holidays, I managed to catch the pilot of the Sarah Jane Adventures. I wouldn't normally comment on childrens TV - and it was sillier than the most kiddy-friendly Doctor Who stories - but it seems the people in the Doctor Who spin-off department have swallowed a Bible, or at least a book on end-times prophecy. So we end up with Mrs Wormwood, a nasty alien come to take over the Earth by putting alien DNA in fizzy drinks. Oh, and there's an all-knowing kid created in a laboratory who may have some important role to play as the thing pans out.

Just another Christmas in the Whoniverse then...

2007 and all that...

Right, so, I'm back, and hopefully will manage to keep things ticking over on the blog front. I'd make that a new years resolution, except I actually want to keep it up.

So, what can we expect from the new year at OT Space Opera?

If all goes to plan, I can resume three posts a week, to keep the place fresh while still, hopefully, having enough relevant stuff to comment on. You may even find a semi-regular review slot.

One interesting thing that has cropped up once or twice over the life of this blog is the treatment of religion by atheist writers - for instance, Joss Whedon's creation of Shepherd Book for Firefly. For a while I've thought about taking a closer look at the concepts of god and religion as featured in the works of Douglas Adams. So I've decided to just that, because, well, it's my blog and I can do what I like. :-p

In between which I will, no doubt, pass comment on other science fiction related matters, and if I really put my mind to it, write some sf myself. No promises there though.

Oh, and the CSFF blog tour will stop by here too, of course, adding the occasional mention of fantasy into the mix.

Hey, that almost sounds good... now how am I going to keep it up?

December CSFF tour: a semi-relevant post

Giants, sorcerors, talking birds, magic cloaks... what is this, a Harry Potter post?

Well, no, actually, because all these things appear in the Birthright Project, a Christian science fiction series. It does have numerous fantasy elements in it, and is aimed at the same teenage audience as young Harry, but at the same time blurs the line between sf and fantasy.

Set on what appears to be post-apocalyptic Earth, the sorcerors are using what remains of science to create transmogrified creatures - including some unfortunate humans, who become the even more unfortunate gigants. The birds don't really talk, but can be understood by the birthrighters, and therefore act as a sort of messenger service. Like a carrier pigeon with better security. And the magic cloaks? Well, it seems God has been good enough to provide the birthrighters with a magic spindle, with which they can create 'out of time' fabric, which renders them invisible, impervious to the passage of time, or, apparently, whatever the plot seems to require. Arguably this is a cop-out, but this is Christian spec-fic, which by its nature assumes the existence of an all-powerful God who can, should he see fit, produce from thin air a talking donkey, a never-ending Mars bar, or even a magic spindle. So why not.

Anyway, I promised semi-relevance, and semi-relevant I intend to be.

As is my usual slacker way, I haven't read the book in question. I have, on this occasion, read the first book in the series, Outriders, on which this little intro to the world of Trackers has been based.

So I suppose it would be semi-relevant to add a few words about Outriders.

Well, it's got post-apocalyptic decay, genetic mutants and hints of sci-fi technology hidden in the ark. It's got sword and sorcery coming out its ears. It's got angels and demons battling over the lives of our heroes. In fact, you'd be hard pushed to squeeze much more into a Christian science-fantasy story, really. Oh, and don't forget to throw in some teen angst, questioned faith, and romantic dilemmas. That's not to say it suffers from cramming all that in. Most of the time it all seems to fit together in a way that makes sense, and the action clips along at a decent enough pace to keep the interest up.

Young adult novels such as this are not normally my thing, but that is actually the only reason I can come up with not to go away and read Trackers some time soon.

Is it that time again already?

Hello? Um. Is this thing working? Right. Where did I leave everything? OK. Sorry, I took rather longer off than I expected. Still didn't finish that NaNo mind. Tsk, eh?

Anyway, here I am, ready for the final day of the December CSFF blog tour. Ooops. Still, seems as good a time as any to drag myself back into Blogoland, especially since I have something semi-relevant to post this time round (shock!).

This month the tour is looking at Trackers, the second volume in the Birthright Project sequence by Kathryn Mackel. So here, as a sort of prelude, is a list of links. (This is not the semi-relevant thing.)

Kathryn Mackel's website
Birthright Project website
Trackers on Amazon
Outriders, volume one of the series, on Amazon

and, of course, your fellow blog tourists:
Jim Black
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
Frank Creed
Gene Curtis
Chris Deanne
Janey DeMeo
April Erwin
Beth Goddard
Mark Goodyear
Todd Michael Greene
Karen Hancock
Elliot Hanowski
Katie Hart
Sherrie Hibbs
Sharon Hinck
Joleen Howell
Jason Joyner
Karen and at Karen¹s myspace
Oliver King
Tina Kulesa
Lost Genre Guild
Kevin Lucia and The Bookshelf Reviews 2.0 - The Compendium
Terri Main
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Caleb Newell
Eve Nielsen
John Otte
Cheryl Russel
Hannah Sandvig
Mirtika Schultz
James Somers
Stuart Stockton
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Chris Walley
Daniel I. Weaver